Mirqāt The Ascent of Logic

The Lexicon · concepts in two tongues

The vocabulary of logic

The core concepts, each defined precisely, in English and in Arabic. Rigorous technical Arabic for logic is scarce; this is a small attempt to set it down.

Proposition القضية p, q
A declarative statement that is either true or false, the basic bearer of truth in logic. in Basic Concepts
Validity الصلاحية
A property of arguments: the conclusion is true in every interpretation that makes all the premises true. in Basic Concepts
Soundness الإحكام
A calculus is sound when everything it proves is valid: it never derives a falsehood from truths. in Mathematical Logic
Completeness الاكتمال
A calculus is complete when every valid statement can be proved within it (Gödel’s completeness theorem, for first-order logic). in Mathematical Logic
Consistency الاتساق
A theory is consistent if it proves no contradiction, never both a statement and its negation. in Mathematical Logic
Quantifier المُسوِّر ∀ ∃
A symbol binding a variable over a domain: the universal ∀ (“for all”) and the existential ∃ (“there exists”). in Predicate Logic
Syllogism القياس
Aristotle’s form of deductive inference: two premises sharing a middle term yield a conclusion. in Ancient Logic
Modus ponens قياسُ الوضع
The fundamental rule of detachment: from A and “A implies B”, infer B. in Propositional Logic
Truth table جدولُ الصدق
A table giving a compound proposition’s truth value for every assignment of truth to its atoms. in Propositional Logic
Tautology قضيةٌ واجبةُ الصدق
A proposition true under every interpretation: a logical truth. in Propositional Logic
Excluded middle الثالثُ المرفوع
The classical law that every proposition is either true or false, rejected by intuitionistic logic. in Non-Classical Logics
Natural deduction الاستنباطُ الطبيعي
Gentzen’s proof system built from introduction and elimination rules that mirror ordinary reasoning. in Proof Theory
Sequent calculus حسابُ المتواليات
Gentzen’s calculus operating on sequents Γ ⊢ Δ, the spine of structural proof theory. in Proof Theory
Cut elimination حذفُ القطع
Gentzen’s Hauptsatz: every sequent proof can be rewritten without the cut rule, yielding the subformula property. in Proof Theory
Model النموذج · التأويل
A structure assigning meaning to a language’s symbols, under which its sentences come out true or false. in Mathematical Logic
Compactness التراصّ
A set of first-order sentences has a model iff every finite subset of it has a model. in Mathematical Logic
Löwenheim–Skolem لوفنهايم–سكولم
If a countable first-order theory has an infinite model, it has models of every infinite cardinality. in Mathematical Logic
Diagonal (fixed-point) lemma قضيةُ النقطة الثابتة
In a strong enough theory, for any predicate ψ there is a sentence asserting its own ψ-ness: the engine of Gödel and Tarski. in Mathematical Logic
Incompleteness عدمُ الاكتمال
Gödel: any consistent formal system strong enough for arithmetic contains true statements it cannot prove. in Mathematical Logic
Gödel numbering ترقيمُ غودل
A coding of a formal language’s symbols and proofs as natural numbers, letting arithmetic talk about itself. in Mathematical Logic
Possible worlds العوالمُ الممكنة □ ◇
Kripke’s semantics for modal logic: necessity is truth in all accessible worlds, possibility in some. in Modal Logic
λ-abstraction تجريدُ لامدا
Church’s notation for a function defined by an expression: the atom of functional computation. in Computational Logic
Curry–Howard تناظرُ كَري–هاوَرد
The correspondence under which propositions are types and proofs are programs: logic and computation, identified. in Category Theory
Decidability القابليةُ للبَتّ
A problem is decidable if an algorithm settles every instance in finite time; logic abounds in undecidable ones. in Computational Logic
Cardinality العددُ الأصلي
The size of a set, generalized to the infinite by Cantor: ℵ₀, the continuum, and beyond. in Set Theory & Foundations
The ZFC axioms بديهيّاتُ ZFC
Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with Choice: the standard axiomatic foundation of modern mathematics. in Set Theory & Foundations
Boolean algebra الجبرُ البولياني
The algebraic structure of classical propositions: meet, join, and complement obeying the distributive laws. in Algebraic Logic
Univalence الأحادية
Voevodsky’s axiom: equivalent types are equal, the heart of homotopy type theory. in Cutting-Edge Research