[FOM] "Literal"

Charles Silver silver_1 at mindspring.com
Wed Sep 6 10:26:00 EDT 2006


	Can anyone tell me who first defined the term "literal" for a  
sentence in propositional logic that's either an atomic sentence or  
the negation of one?   The earliest occurrence of the word used this  
way that I've found is in Quine, 1959: "A way to simplify truth  
functions".   I think it's an unfortunate name for this kind of  
sentence and would welcome a better one, especially if it precede  
Quine's.

Charlie Silver


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