Logical
Relations
I used to believe that there were logical relations
linking propositions together. But recently, I’ve come to suspect that talk of
logical operators is not really talk of relations.
Allow me to explain. I begin by analyzing logical operators in terms of ‘and’
and ‘not’. Then, I suppose that expressions of the form, ‘P and Q’ express an unordered complex proposition that has P and Q as
its only parts. In other words, ‘P and Q’, does not express a proposition that
contains an and relation. That leaves
‘not’. I treat ‘not, P’ to mean the same as ‘P lacks truth’. So, there is the
relation of lacks. But notice that lacks isn’t a relation that links
propositions together. Rather, it links a proposition with a property, being true. Therefore, the logical
operators may be analyzed in terms of things that are not themselves relations
between propositions. In light of this analysis, I don’t see why there should
be in addition special logical
relations that link propositions together.