Universal instantiation
In predicate logic universal instantiation[1][2][3] (UI, also called universal specification, and sometimes confused with Dictum de omni) is a valid rule of inference from a truth about each member of a class of individuals to the truth about a particular individual of that class. It is generally given as a quantification rule for the universal quantifier but it can also be encoded in an axiom. It is one of the basic principles used in quantification theory.
Example: "All dogs are mammals. Fido is a dog. Therefore Fido is a mammal."
In symbols the rule as an axiom schema is
for some term a and where is the result of substituting a for all occurrences of x in A.
And as a rule of inference it is
from ⊢ ∀x A infer ⊢ A(a/x),
with A(a/x) the same as above.
Irving Copi noted that universal instantiation "...follows from variants of rules for 'natural deduction', which were devised independently by Gerhard Gentzen and Stanislaw Jaskowski in 1934." [4]
Quine
Universal Instantiation and Existential generalization are two aspects of a single principle, for instead of saying that '(x(x=x)' implies 'Socrates is Socrates', we could as well say that the denial 'Socrates≠Socrates' implies '(∃x(x≠x)'. The principle embodied in these two operations is the link between quantifications and the singular statements that are related to them as instances. Yet it is a principle only by courtesy. It holds only in the case where a term names and, furthermore, occurs referentially.[5]
See also
References
- ^ Irving M. Copi Late, Carl Cohen, Kenneth McMahon (Nov 2010). Introduction to Logic. ISBN 978-0205820375.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Hurley[full citation needed]
- ^ Moore and Parker[full citation needed]
- ^ pg. 71. Symbolic Logic; 5th ed.[full citation needed]
- ^ Willard van Orman Quine; Roger F. Gibson (2008). "V.24. Reference and Modality". Quintessence. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Here: p.366.