Logical Quality - Making Do With A Single Logical Quality

Making Do With A Single Logical Quality

Logical quality has become much less central to logical theory in the twentieth century. It has become common to use only one logical quality, typically called logical assertion. Much of the work previously done by distinguishing affirmation from denial is typically now done through the theory of negation. Thus, to most contemporary logicians, making a denial is essentially reducible to affirming a negation. Denying that Socrates is ill, is the same thing as affirming that it is not the case that Socrates is ill, which is basically affirming that Socrates is not ill. This trend may go back to Frege although his notation for negation is ambiguous between asserting a negation and denying. Gentzens notation definitely assimilates denial to assertion of negation, but might not quite have a single logical quality, see below.