Does the law of excluded middle hold in first-order logic

decidabilityfirst-order-logiclogicpredicate-logic

In propositional logic, we create well-formed formulas out of logical connective symbols and propositional variables. Then we can consider a valuation function that first assigns a true/false value to each propositional variable, and then assigns a true/false value to every well-formed formula by certain rules. If I'm not mistaken, all well-formed formulas of the form
$$ \varphi \vee \neg\varphi $$
(where $\varphi$ is a well-formed formula) are true for all possible valuations, so they are tautologies. Thus, we can conclude that the law of excluded middle holds for propositional logic.

Now in first-order logic, I know that we need to assign an interpretation or structure to our language, and then based on certain rules we assign true/false values to the relevant well-formed formulas that are propositions.

Question: In FOL, does every wff of the form $\varphi \vee \neg\varphi$ (where $\varphi$ is a wff) always evaluate to being true? Truth assignment in first-order logic seems so different than in propositional logic that I am not able to reason through such a simple question.

Best Answer

Yes.

Every formula that is a first-order instance of a propositional tautology, i.e. one that can one get by substituting first-order formulas for propositional letters in a propositionally valid formula, is also valid in FOL.

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