November 2025
Beginner
416 pages
8h 6m
English
Content preview from Logic For Dummies, 2nd Edition
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Chapter 8
Knowing How Truth Grows on Trees
IN THIS CHAPTER
Decomposing SL statements with truth trees
Testing for consistency, validity, and semantic equivalence
Categorizing tautologies, contradictions, and contingent statements with truth trees
In Chapters 6 and 7, I show you how to use truth tables and quick tables to solve problems in sentential logic (SL) statements and sets of statements. In this chapter, I introduce you to the third (and my favorite!) method for solving logic problems: truth trees.
In the following sections, I show you how truth trees work by a process of decomposing SL statements into their sub-statements. Then I show you how to use truth trees to solve the same types of problems you can handle by using truth tables and quick tables.
Understanding How Truth Trees Work
Truth trees are a powerful tool for determining information about SL statements. In fact, I think they’re the best tool in this book to solve nearly every type of problem you’ll come across in logic. Why? Glad you asked. Here’s the answer:
Truth trees are easy. They’re easy to learn and easy to use.
Truth trees combine the best features of truth tables and quick tables, but without the ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.