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Concept
Algebraic logic
Summary
In mathematical logic, algebraic logic is the reasoning obtained by manipulating equations with free variables.
What is now usually called classical algebraic logic focuses on the identification and algebraic description of models appropriate for the study of various logics (in the form of classes of algebras that constitute the algebraic semantics for these deductive systems) and connected problems like representation and duality. Well known results like the representation theorem for Boolean algebras and Stone duality fall under the umbrella of classical algebraic logic .
Works in the more recent abstract algebraic logic (AAL) focus on the process of algebraization itself, like classifying various forms of algebraizability using the Leibniz operator .
A homogeneous binary relation is found in the power set of X × X for some set X, while a heterogeneous relation is found in the power set of X × Y, where X ≠ Y. Whether a given relation holds for two individuals is one bit of information, so relations are studied with Boolean arithmetic. Elements of the power set are partially ordered by inclusion, and lattice of these sets becomes an algebra through relative multiplication or composition of relations.
"The basic operations are set-theoretic union, intersection and complementation, the relative multiplication, and conversion."
The conversion refers to the converse relation that always exists, contrary to function theory. A given relation may be represented by a logical matrix; then the converse relation is represented by the transpose matrix. A relation obtained as the composition of two others is then represented by the logical matrix obtained by matrix multiplication using Boolean arithmetic.
An example of calculus of relations arises in erotetics, the theory of questions. In the universe of utterances there are statements S and questions Q. There are two relations π and α from Q to S: q α a holds when a is a direct answer to question q. The other relation, q π p holds when p is a presupposition of question q.
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