Tautology (rule of inference)
Transformation rules |
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Propositional calculus |
Rules of inference |
Rules of replacement |
Predicate logic |
In propositional logic, tautology is one of two commonly used rules of replacement.[1][2][3] The rules are used to eliminate redundancy in disjunctions and conjunctions when they occur in logical proofs. They are:
The principle of idempotency of disjunction:
and the principle of idempotency of conjunction:
Where "" is a metalogical symbol representing "can be replaced in a logical proof with."
Formal notation
Theorems are those logical formulas where is the conclusion of a valid proof,[4] while the equivalent semantic consequence indicates a tautology.
The tautology rule may be expressed as a sequent:
and
where is a metalogical symbol meaning that is a syntactic consequence of , in the one case, in the other, in some logical system;
or as a rule of inference:
and
where the rule is that wherever an instance of "" or "" appears on a line of a proof, it can be replaced with "";
or as the statement of a truth-functional tautology or theorem of propositional logic. The principle was stated as a theorem of propositional logic by Russell and Whitehead in Principia Mathematica as:
and
where is a proposition expressed in some formal system.