Conjunction/disjunction duality

< Conjunction

In propositional logic and Boolean algebra, there is a duality between conjunction and disjunction, also called the duality principle. It is the most widely known example of duality in logic. The duality consists in these metalogical theorems:

  • In classical propositional logic, the connectives for conjunction and disjunction can be defined in terms of each other, and consequently, only one of them needs to be taken as primitive.
  • If is used as notation to designate the result of replacing every instance of conjunction with disjunction, and every instance of disjunction with conjunction (e.g. with , or vice-versa), in a given formula , and if is used as notation for replacing every sentence-letter in with its negation (e.g., with ), and if the symbol is used for semantic consequence and ⟚ for semantical equivalence between logical formulas, then it is demonstrable that  ⟚ , and also that if, and only if, , and furthermore that if  ⟚  then  ⟚ . (In this context, is called the dual of a formula .)