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I. Introduction
Statements are materially equivalent when they have the same truth
value. Because two materially equivalent statements are either both true, or
both false, we can readily see that they must (materially) imply one another,
because a false antecedent (materially) implies any statement, and a true
consequent is (materially) implied by any statement. We may therefore read
the three-bar sign, as “if and only if.”
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Figure 1 Logical Equivalence
A. Double Negation
Figure 2 Double Negation. This truth table proves that p and ~~p are logically equivalent.
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Now, claiming that logically equivalent statements can be
interchanged, p and ~~p can substitute one another. “The accused was
acquitted.” Accepting this statement as true, it can be inferred that its
negation is “The accused was not acquitted” or other similar import
i.e. “The accused was convicted.” The falsity of the negation, “It is not
the case that the accused was not acquitted” or “The accused was not
convicted”, bears the same significance as that of “The accused was
acquitted.”
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B. De Morgan’s Theorem
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Figure 6 Example of De Morgan's Theorem (Negation of Disjunction)
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These two tautologous biconditionals, or logical equivalences,
are known as De Morgan’s theorems, because they were formally
stated by the mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan (1806–
1871).
C. Commutative Laws
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Figure 11 Example of Commutative Laws
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Figure 14 Another form of logical equivalence
Some early thinkers, after having defined logic as “the science of the
laws of thought,” went on to assert that there are exactly three basic laws of
thought, laws so fundamental that obedience to them is both the necessary
and the sufficient condition of correct thinking. These three have
traditionally been called:
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discussed, is not important. Their identities include all of their
features, not just those mentioned.
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B. The principle of noncontradiction.
This principle asserts that no statement
can be both true and false. Using our notation
we may rephrase it by saying that the principle
of noncontradiction asserts that every statement of the form p • ~p
must be false, that every such statement is self-contradictory.
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C. The principle of excluded middle.
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