structural:scholar_edition, structural:reformatting, information:extraction, information:filtering, linguistic:paraphrasing
History

Although propositional logic (also called propositional calculus) had been hinted by earlier philosophers, it was developed into a formal logic (Stoic logic) by Chrysippus in the 3rd century BC and expanded by his successor Stoics. The logic was focused on propositions. This was different from the traditional syllogistic logic, which focused on terms. However, most of the original writings were lost and, at some time between the 3rd and 6th century CE, Stoic logic faded into oblivion, to be resurrected only in the 20th century, in the wake of the (re)-discovery of propositional logic.

Symbolic logic, which would come to be important to refine propositional logic, was first developed by the 17th/18th-century mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, whose calculus ratiocinator was, however, unknown to the larger logical community. Consequently, many of the advances achieved by Leibniz were recreated by logicians like George Boole and Augustus De Morgan, completely independent of Leibniz.

Gottlob Frege's predicate logic builds upon propositional logic, and has been described as combining "the distinctive features of syllogistic logic and propositional logic." Consequently, predicate logic ushered in a new era in logic's history; however, advances in propositional logic were still made after Frege, including natural deduction, truth trees and truth tables. Natural deduction was invented by Gerhard Gentzen and Stanisław Jaśkowski. Truth trees were invented by Evert Willem Beth. The invention of truth tables, however, is of uncertain attribution.

Within works by Frege and Bertrand Russell, are ideas influential to the invention of truth tables. The actual tabular structure (being formatted as a table), itself, is generally credited to either Ludwig Wittgenstein or Emil Post (or both, independently). Besides Frege and Russell, others credited with having ideas preceding truth tables include Philo, Boole, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Ernst Schröder. Others credited with the tabular structure include Jan Łukasiewicz, Alfred North Whitehead, William Stanley Jevons, John Venn, and Clarence Irving Lewis. Ultimately, some have concluded, like John Shosky, that "It is far from clear that any one person should be given the title of 'inventor' of truth-tables.".