The concept of grade of membership (Q1107399)

Recognizing an equivalence between a concept of a set and a property of an object it is claimed that every assignment of a grade of membership in a set can be regarded as an assignment of a degree of truth to a corresponding sentence. Two main avenues in studies on fuzzy reasoning (namely utilizing fuzzy sets) are discussed, i.e. an axiomatic approach and a semantic one. The second approach specified in detail is developed within a framework of decision theory, especially expressed with the aid of utility functions. Rather than dealing with sentences, assertions are utilized, when in turn the meaning of an assertion is specified by its payoff function a(\(\cdot)\) being a real-valued function on the set \(\Omega\) of all world states. Following this stream a definition of connectives for grades of membership is provided and the logic of assertions is developed. The logic of assertions is suggested to be a useful tool for fuzzy reasoning with regard to several reasons as e.g. a precise interpretation. Also the underlying structure of the new logic does not form a Boolean algebra and generalizations thereof but that of linear spaces and convex functions.