** PHIL 415: Formal Logic **

Last Offered: Spring 1993

Index: Objectives :: Texts :: Topics :: Assignments :: Grades :: Exams

Course Objectives
The course is designed as an introduction to the theory of formal systems for students without any specialist training in mathematics. Primary emphasis will be placed on the role of formal analysis in the representation and evaluation of natural language arguments. Initially, students will learn to manipulate the nuts and bolts of a formal system of first-order logic; subsequently, some extensions of, and alternatives to, classical first-order theory (modal logic, free logic, binary and substitutional q uantification) will be presented. Selected topics in the philosophy of logic will also be introduced.
Texts
The following texts are required:
-- Gustason, William and Dolph E. Ulrich. Elementary Symbolic Logic, Second Edition. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1989.
-- Sainsbury, Mark. Logical Forms: An Introduction to Philosophical Logic. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, Inc., 1991.

The following texts are recommended:
-- Barrow, John D. Pi in the Sky: Counting, Thinking, and Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
-- Gamut, L. T. F. Logic, Language, and Meaning, Volume 1: Introduction to Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
-- Gamut, L. T. F. Logic, Language, and Meaning, Volume 2: Intensional Logic and Logical Grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
-- Quine, W. V.. Philosophy of Logic, Second Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.
-- Smullyan, Raymond M. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Course Division
COURSE DIVISION
  1. ARGUMENTS AND APPARATUS
  2. SENTENTIAL LOGIC: METHODS AND LIMITS
  3. FIRST-ORDER PREDICATE LOGIC: METHODS AND LIMITS
  4. MODAL LOGIC, AN INTRODUCTION
  5. PHILOSOPHY AND FORMALIZATION: PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS
Assignments
For the most part, reading assignments will be made on a weekly basis. Inasmuch as the lecture and discussion periods will ordinarily focus finely on the technical apparatus presented in the required texts, it is essential that you keep well abreast of the readings. Exercises will generally be assigned at least one calendar week before coming due; however, exercises will be accepted for credit ONLY on or before the assigned days. Examination periods will be announced at least one calendar week in a dvance.
Grades
All exercises and exams will be graded using a numerical scale. Final grades sent to the registrar are based on cumulative average performance, according to the schedule provided below.
Schedule of Exercises & Exams
 
  NAME		TOPIC			TOTAL	GRADE	 CUM. 
					POINTS	PERCENT	 PERCENT 
  ***********	**********************	*******	*******	 ******** 
 
  Exercise #1	Apparatus		  18	   6	    6 
 
  Exercise #2	Propositional Logic-1	  18	   6	   12

  Exercise #3	Propositional Logic-2	  18	   6	   18 

  Exercise #4	Predicate Logic-1	  18	   6	   24

  Exercise #5	Predicate Logic-2	  18	   6	   30 
 
  EXAM #1	PROPOSITIONAL LOGIC	  84	  28	   58 
 
  EXAM #2	PREDICATE LOGIC		  84	  28	   86 
 
  EXAM #3	MODAL LOGIC		  42	  14	  100

You don't believe this sentence.