| the branch of logic concerned exclusively with the principles of deductive reasoning and with the form rather than the content of propositions. |
| formal logic n. The study of the properties of propositions and deductive reasoning by abstraction and analysis of the form rather than the content of propositions under consideration. |
formal logic
the abstract study of propositions, statements, or assertively used sentences and of deductive arguments. The discipline abstracts from the content of these elements the structures or logical forms that they embody. The logician customarily uses a symbolic notation to express such structures clearly and unambiguously and to enable manipulations and tests of validity to be more easily applied. Although the following discussion freely employs the technical notation of modern symbolic logic, its symbols are introduced gradually and with accompanying explanations so that the serious and attentive general reader should be able to follow the development of ideas
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