Definition:Antisymmetric Relation/Class Theory

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Definition

Let $V$ be a basic universe.

Let $\RR \subseteq V \times V$ be a relation in $V$.


Definition 1

$\RR$ is antisymmetric if and only if:

$\tuple {x, y} \in \RR \land \tuple {y, x} \in \RR \implies x = y$

that is:

$\set {\tuple {x, y}, \tuple {y, x} } \subseteq \RR \implies x = y$


Definition 2

$\RR$ is antisymmetric if and only if:

$\tuple {x, y} \in \RR \land x \ne y \implies \tuple {y, x} \notin \RR$


Also known as

Some sources render antisymmetric relation as anti-symmetric relation.


Antisymmetric and Asymmetric Relations

Note the difference between:

An asymmetric relation, in which the fact that $\tuple {x, y} \in \RR$ means that $\tuple {y, x}$ is definitely not in $\RR$

and:

An antisymmetric relation, in which there may be instances of both $\tuple {x, y} \in \RR$ and $\tuple {y, x} \in \RR$ but if there are, then it means that $x$ and $y$ have to be the same object.


Also see

  • Results about antisymmetric relations can be found here.