Principle of Bivalence

Principle Of Bivalence

In logic, the semantic principle (or law) of bivalence states that every declarative sentence expressing a proposition (of a theory under inspection) has exactly one truth value, either true or false. A logic satisfying this principle is called a two-valued logic or bivalent logic.

In formal logic, the principle of bivalence becomes a property that a semantics may or may not possess. It is not the same as the law of excluded middle, however, and a semantics may satisfy that law without being bivalent.

The principle of bivalence is studied in philosophical logic to address the question of which natural-language statements have a well-defined truth value. Sentences which predict events in the future, and sentences which seem open to interpretation, are particularly difficult for philosophers who hold that the principle of bivalence applies to all declarative natural-language statements. Many-valued logics formalize ideas that a realistic characterization of the notion of consequence requires the admissibility of premises which, owing to vagueness, temporal or quantum indeterminacy, or reference-failure, cannot be considered classically bivalent. Reference failures can also be addressed by free logics.