## Differential Propositional Calculus • 4

### Special Classes of Propositions

Before moving on, let’s unpack some of the assumptions, conventions, and implications involved in the array of concepts and notations introduced above.

A universe of discourse $A^\bullet = [a_1, \ldots, a_n]$ based on the logical features $a_1, \ldots, a_n$ is a set $A$ plus the set of all possible functions from the space $A$ to the boolean domain $\mathbb{B} = \{ 0, 1 \}.$  There are $2^n$ elements in $A,$ often pictured as the cells of a venn diagram or the nodes of a hypercube.  There are $2^{2^n}$ possible functions from $A$ to $\mathbb{B},$ accordingly pictured as all the ways of painting the cells of a venn diagram or the nodes of a hypercube with a palette of two colors.

A logical proposition about the elements of $A$ is either true or false of each element in $A,$ while a function $f : A \to \mathbb{B}$ evaluates to $1$ or $0$ on each element of $A.$  The analogy between logical propositions and boolean-valued functions is close enough to adopt the latter as models of the former and simply refer to the functions $f : A \to \mathbb{B}$ as propositions about the elements of $A.$

The full set of propositions $f : A \to \mathbb{B}$ contains a number of smaller classes deserving of special attention.

A basic proposition in the universe of discourse $[a_1, \ldots, a_n]$ is one of the propositions in the set $\{ a_1, \ldots, a_n \}.$  There are of course exactly $n$ of these.  Depending on the context, basic propositions may also be called coordinate propositions or simple propositions.

Among the $2^{2^n}$ propositions in $[a_1, \ldots, a_n]$ are several families numbering $2^n$ propositions each which take on special forms with respect to the basis $\{ a_1, \ldots, a_n \}.$  Three of these families are especially prominent in the present context, the linear, the positive, and the singular propositions.  Each family is naturally parameterized by the coordinate $n$-tuples in $\mathbb{B}^n$ and falls into $n + 1$ ranks, with a binomial coefficient $\tbinom{n}{k}$ giving the number of propositions having rank or weight $k$ in their class.

• The linear propositions, $\{ \ell : \mathbb{B}^n \to \mathbb{B} \} = (\mathbb{B}^n \xrightarrow{\ell} \mathbb{B}),$ may be written as sums:

$\sum_{i=1}^n e_i ~=~ e_1 + \ldots + e_n ~\text{where}~ \left\{\begin{matrix} e_i = a_i \\ \text{or} \\ e_i = 0 \end{matrix}\right\} ~\text{for}~ i = 1 ~\text{to}~ n.$

• The positive propositions, $\{ p : \mathbb{B}^n \to \mathbb{B} \} = (\mathbb{B}^n \xrightarrow{p} \mathbb{B}),$ may be written as products:

$\prod_{i=1}^n e_i ~=~ e_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot e_n ~\text{where}~ \left\{\begin{matrix} e_i = a_i \\ \text{or} \\ e_i = 1 \end{matrix}\right\} ~\text{for}~ i = 1 ~\text{to}~ n.$

• The singular propositions, $\{ \mathbf{x} : \mathbb{B}^n \to \mathbb{B} \} = (\mathbb{B}^n \xrightarrow{s} \mathbb{B}),$ may be written as products:

$\prod_{i=1}^n e_i ~=~ e_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot e_n ~\text{where}~ \left\{\begin{matrix} e_i = a_i \\ \text{or} \\ e_i = \texttt{(} a_i \texttt{)} \end{matrix}\right\} ~\text{for}~ i = 1 ~\text{to}~ n.$

In each case the rank $k$ ranges from $0$ to $n$ and counts the number of positive appearances of the coordinate propositions $a_1, \ldots, a_n$ in the resulting expression.  For example, when $n = 3$ the linear proposition of rank $0$ is $0,$ the positive proposition of rank $0$ is $1,$ and the singular proposition of rank $0$ is $\texttt{(} a_1 \texttt{)} \texttt{(} a_2 \texttt{)} \texttt{(} a_3 \texttt{)}.$

The basic propositions $a_i : \mathbb{B}^n \to \mathbb{B}$ are both linear and positive.  So these two kinds of propositions, the linear and the positive, may be viewed as two different ways of generalizing the class of basic propositions.

Finally, it is important to note that all of the above distinctions are relative to the choice of a particular logical basis $\mathcal{A} = \{ a_1, \ldots, a_n \}.$  A singular proposition with respect to the basis $\mathcal{A}$ will not remain singular if $\mathcal{A}$ is extended by a number of new and independent features.  Even if one keeps to the original set of pairwise options $\{ a_i \} \cup \{ \texttt{(} a_i \texttt{)} \}$ to pick out a new basis, the sets of linear propositions and positive propositions are both determined by the choice of basic propositions, and this whole determination is tantamount to the purely conventional choice of a cell as origin.

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