Distinction between the traditional and modern general propositions
Write ‘All snakes are reptiles’ the traditional way and you have one sentence with a subject and a predicate. Write it the modern way and you suddenly have a variable, a quantifier, and a whole extra connective — (x)(Sx ⊃ Rx) — to say the exact same thing. This topic is a direct, side-by-side translation drill between the two notations for exactly the same four general propositions, A, E, I and O.
In two minutes
Where the traditional scheme expresses a general proposition by attaching a quantity word ('All', 'No', 'Some') directly to a subject term, the modern scheme expresses the very same claim by binding a variable, in a propositional function of two class terms, with a quantifier and a connective — conditional for universal forms, conjunction for particular forms.
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