PHIL 210 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Infix Notation, Arity, Binary Relation

• School: McGill University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 210
• Professor: Michael Frank Hallett

Document Summary

Simply, symbols that are used to refer to some fixed individual or language. Work the same way that names work in the english language. Some names in the english language don"t refer to anything (ex. Santa claus fails to refer to anything concrete). We allow for more than one individual constant to refer to one object. Formed by a single predicate and the appropriate number of individual constants. Infix notation: using a = symbol, such as a = b. Prefix notation: the predicates precedes the arguments, like the arguments above. The order of the arguments plays an important role in the meaning of the atomic sentence. Taller(claire, max) --> claire is taller than max. Taller(max, claire) --> max is taller than claire. Atomic sentences make claims about things (i. e. that claire is taller than max) that are either true or false (truth value). Symbols used to express some property of objects or a relation between objects.