Questions tagged [logic]
Questions pertaining to logical constructs
201
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Question about synonyms and antonyms
I was just thinking about how buy and purchase were synonyms today, and I went down a whole rabbit hole thinking about synonyms and antonyms. I came up with the following question and couldn't really ...
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Is it correct to say that "sympathy" is a special case of "empathy"? [duplicate]
empathy = to understand someone else's feeling
sympathy = to share someone's sorry/sad feeling
In case of "empathy", one can understand someone's happy & sad feelings, while in "...
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If you know that all of something is true, is saying some of them is true, incorrect? [duplicate]
For example, suppose that it is a known fact that all the pens I have are blue.
Statement 1: All my pens are blue
Statement 2: Some of my pens are blue
Similarly,
Statement 1: All dogs are animals
...
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What does "they both can't be selected" mean? [duplicate]
The sentence "They both can't be selected", does that mean (1) None of them can be selected or (2) They both can't make it at the same time, only one of them can ?
If I, for example, want to ...
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How can I convert logical operations to simple text
I am working on a software project that allows users to formulate logical statements in order to filter data. E. g. a user might set their filter as: (size = 100 and weight < 50) or (area > 200 ...
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3
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Potentially ambiguous sentence/understanding
I was reading the Monty Hall problem to discuss it with a friend.
The problem is defined as:
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; ...
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"Between" meaning "against"
Fowler reads
The regular or ‘weak’ form thrived has won the centuries-old battle
between irregular or ‘strong’ throve as past tense and thriven as past participle.
Is this usage of between ...
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How to express "at least one" or "at least some" (of a countable or uncountable collection respetively), as in antivacuous statements?
Discrete (countable) case example: All/Some of the trees on this block are oak. [And there is at least one oak tree on the block, but possibly two or more.]
Continuous (uncountable) case example: All/...
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Is there a word for the bias of not knowing what came before?
Is there a word or phrase for the bias of not knowing what came before? Of thinking that an idea under consideration is truly new? I'm looking for a word to describe the bias that comes from this ...
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Must sentences that declare truth be declarative syntatically? [closed]
I'm reading a book about discrete math written by Kenneth H.Rose and in it he states that in mathematical logic,
A proposition is a declarative sentence (that is, a sentence that declares a fact) ...
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Use of recurring words - 'somebody who' [closed]
Think of somebody who takes you for granted, somebody who is treating you with disgust, somebody who thinks about you as a thing to use.
Is that sentence well written? I mean the recurring part '...
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Ambiguous question
I came across a whatsapp message a few years ago about a question framed in a manner that no matter what the person answers they will be considered that thing they want to deny being. Unfortunately, I ...
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Evaluating a sequence of logical clauses that are chained using "and" and "or" [duplicate]
How do you evaluate a logical statement that has multiple condition clauses "If A or B and C"?
From method 1 & 2 below, which is the correct/common interpretation?
If A is true, or both ...
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Does "Either must die at the hand of the other" imply both that A can only be killed by B and that B can only be killed by A?
The prophesy made by Professor Trelawney about Harry Potter includes the phrase "Either must die at the hand of the other", speaking of Harry and Lord Voldemort.
Does this mean that both ...
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"Between each" and Other Constructions with Fewer than Two Objects
Page 112 of Garner's fourth edition reads
✳Between each and Other Constructions with Fewer than Two Objects
This phrasing is a peculiar brand of illogic, ✳between each
house/speech,instead of, ...
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What is a "contingent argument" (outside of law or theology)?
I heard John McWhorter use this term and as best I could tell he was referring to an argument based on a something existing in the world rather than on logic. E.g., I feel offended, so therefore what ...
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How to ask a question and correctly tell its logic in the following case?
My question is about logic in English. (In my native language (it's Russian) the logical words used in this case may differ, I'm not sure.)
Available variants of the question are:
How to list all ...
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4
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358
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Phrase that encapsulates flawed logic in making the excuse "everyone does it"?
I heard someone use a phrase that I thought perfectly captures this but can't remember it. It was used in a situation where what someone did was clearly wrong, but they pointed out that everyone else ...
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many a: distributive idiom
According to Garner's fourth edition, there is many a person is the correct verbal agreement because many a is a distributive rather than aggregate idiom.
What does the author refer to by the ...
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Is there any single word in English to represent domain of "logic and science" together?
Is there any single word in English to represent domain of "logic and science" together?
Background
Some of my friends are going to start an online movement whose main purpose would be ...
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Grammatical Rules of Construction or Logic to Resolve Some Seemingly Contradictory Legislation
One of the things attorneys, such as myself, do often is argue over the meaning of a statute. Often this comes down to grammatical arguments about the location of commas, the use of conjunctions, etc. ...
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Why is the clause "They filled me in on all the latest news from Cambridge" correct?
Why is it not like the following:
They filled the latest news from Cambridge in me.
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Is there a word in logic, or science, that means getting the right conclusion from the wrong set of presumptions?
Is there a word in logic, or science, that means getting the right conclusion from the wrong set of presumptions? Or alternatively, something is correct, but the explanation of why is incorrect. Is ...
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Is there a word to describe a plausible but incorrect explanation? [duplicate]
I'm thinking of something where somebody (with no malicious intention) offers a very plausible and scientific-sounding explanation (not a theory but something presented as a series of facts) such that ...
user197453
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Can (or should) "prevalent" be gradable? [closed]
Well, that's all. Can it?
Is it not illogical to say that something is "more prevalent"? Is "prevalent" not, by definition, superlative? Is it not like saying that something is "more best"?
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"No accident is too severe to ignore" vs "No accident is too trivial to ignore"
etymology - How does a word come to have two completely opposite meanings? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
specifically with the case of words taking on their opposite meanings, a ...
user50720
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What or which before plural noun
Is "What things are safe?", instead of "which things are safe?", grammatical and good usage? Here is an example in a (simplified) context:
In this formula, we use predicate Psafe, ...
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What is the opposite of the word "Not"? [closed]
We are working on a technical manual and we'd like to have a word that is opposite to the word "Not".
Generally, the accepted way to address this is to omit the word itself. In this case however, it ...
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Word for logical AND-or-OR-ness property
Suppose I have a set of criteria used in digital searches (such as "year is earlier than 1900", "name begins with S"). The user can choose whether to search for records matching ALL of their criteria, ...
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Is the sentence logical?
It had been sunny for a week when the storm broke out.
Is this sentence logically valid and sound?
If I think of it, it looks like it means when the storm broke out, it was sunny. There couldn't be ...
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Do all definitions have some sort of circular reasoning? [closed]
Say you wrote a simple sentence like, the fox jumped over the fence. You could replace the subject (fox), with its definition. For example, A carnivore, of the dog family (especially those of the ...
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A footnote refers to the wrong document - what is a word to describe this kind of mistake?
Well, the title question says it all I think:
A footnote refers to the wrong document - what is a word to describe this kind of mistake?
Words like "discrepancy", "incongruence", "fallacy", or ...
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Is the usage "all ... are not" always the same as "not all ... are"?
Is it true that both the following lines are identical in English?
All dogs are animals. All animals are not dogs.
All dogs are animals. Not all animals are dogs.
In some other languages, (1) and (2)...
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without X and without Y
I want to express absence of 2 things. For example:
It was a pretty day without rain and without snow.
Logically: (not X) and (not Y), which is equivalent to: not (X or Y)
Therefore, I guess the ...
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What's it called when you use a hypothetical claim to disprove another claim?
So what I'm asking is probably niche, but it's one of those things that I'm not sure what to call it by, so apologies if the title seems off.
I think the best way to describe it is to use an example: ...
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289
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What is the word for knowing you are in someone's thoughts?
"Knowing you are in someone's thoughts" - is there a word for it?
The concept comes from Epistemic logic and the psychology of wellbeing depending on knowing someone's else thinking of you.
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Using argumentum ad verecundiam as a verb
When referring to logical fallacies in code mixed sentences, I typically see them used as nouns:
"Of course I'm cool, my mom says I'm cool!"
"That appears to be an argumentum ad verecundiam."
If ...
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What is the difference between these two sentences? "If A is true, then B is true" and "Since A is true, B is true"
Consider the following two sentences:
If A is true, then we can conclude that B is true.
Since A is true, we can conclude that B is true.
I have two questions:
What is the difference ...
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What is the average reader most likely to guess that “If they don’t have A or both B and C” was exactly intended to mean?
There is a sentence saying "If they don't have A or both B and C,"
I interpret it means "If they have no A or if they have neither B or C". Am I correct?
The condition seems to me that having only B ...
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Trying to understand the logic behind this sentence: The lecture will be given if at least ten people are there
I am not really sure whether my question is suitable here, but I will give it a try.
Consider the following sentence:
The lecture will be given if at least ten people are there.
From the perspective ...
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Logical implications of 'than they would be if …'? [closed]
Given:
Proof-of-concept technologies, although important, are less valuable
than they would be if they were supported by careful experiments that
identify key attributes of the design or ...
user351753
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Is ‘the reason why’ somehow objectionable?
It has just come to my attention that some consider ‘the reason why’
ungrammatical or otherwise unfortunate. David Crystal mentions it in
his introduction to Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English ...
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Term for the "extreme-extension" version of a straw man fallacy?
Take the most obvious, unimpeachable statement imaginable:
Drinking water is good for humans.
I am looking for a word that describes the action of taking the argument, applying some unreasonable ...
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Is there a contraction for non-exclusive or?
I find that often, in technical writing, I want to specify that or is non-exclusive: or ≠ xor; or = and/or.
(Stylistically, "and or" is terrible and gets tiresome quickly;)
As an example of the type ...
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"following conditions exists" or "all of the following conditions exist"
In a technical description I've written "When the following conditions exist" and listed Condition 1 to N. When I said "When the following conditions exist", I meant "all the following" conditions ...
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How would one interpret: "must not exceed X and Y" vs "must not exceed X and not exceed Y" [closed]
EDIT/NOTE: This phrase is from a legal document, so rules of plain language / literal interpretation are assumed to apply, so please refrain from assuming what you believe was intended by the writer. ...
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Which should be the correct word in the given pragraph: Hermeneutics or Semantics?
While reading through the book on logics. I came across this paragraph.
Paragraph is as-is from the book: Outline of Logic (Schaum's)
At this point we give a rigorous formulation of the ...
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Difference between declarative sentence and proposition statement?
Oxford dictionary defines declarative sentence as :
"A statement in the form of a declaration."
and Proposition as:
"A statement or assertion that expresses a judgement or opinion".
What is the ...
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Term for an argument that is only valid because of another view that the person you're arguing against holds, that you disagree with
Couldn't think of a better title.
But this is is the gist: an argument that is only valid because of another view that the person you're arguing against holds, that you disagree with.
You said cats ...
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Single word to replace "allowed to be missing"
I want to express my knowledge about the presence of absence of something. My knowledge is divided into three different cases:
I know that the thing doesn't exist.
I don't know whether the thing ...
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