Time Schedule:
John C Nelson
PHIL 120
Seattle Campus
Elementary symbolic logic. The development, application, and theoretical properties of an artificial symbolic language designed to provide a clear representation of the logical structure of deductive arguments.
Class description
This is a course in deductive symbolic logic, with a thorough coverage of sentential logic and of predicate logic through multiple quantifiers. The goals of the course include becoming familiar with the nature and scope of symbolic logic, including an understanding of what constitutes rigorous formal reasoning, and the development of the ability to reason well, both in formal systems and in ordinary language.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Advice:
The material becomes significantly more difficult. It behooves you, therefore, to make every effort to do well on the early units. The later units also build on, and presuppose, the material covered in earlier units.
Logic is not a spectator sport. 99.9% of you cannot succeed in this course without regularly doing all or most of the exercises, even when these are not assigned as home work.
There are, or at least we will all pretend there are, no dumb questions about logic. If you don’t understand something in the readings, or something said in class, ask.
Class assignments and grading
Requirements: There will be five tests, the fifth one taken on the day for which the final examination is scheduled (there is no final examination). The bulk of your grade will be determined by how you do on these five tests. But doing well on quizzes and homework, and participating in class discussion, can raise your grade somewhat.
Make-Ups: On the final examination day you may retake any one test you have missed. There will be no other make-up days. If you have taken all of the first four tests, you may retake any one of them on the final examination day without prejudice. That is, if you do better the second time, that grade will count and if you do not, the grade from the first time you took the test will count.
Tentative Schedule:
Unit 1: Chapters 1 and 2: Sentential Logic, Symbolization and Syntax
Test: April 4
Unit 2: Chapters 3 and 4: Truth-Tables and Truth-Trees
Test: April 20
Unit 3: Chapter 5: Derivations
Test: May 9
Unit 4: Chapters 7 and 8: Predicate Logic Symbolization, Syntax, and Interpretations
Test: May 23
Unit 5: Chapter 9: Truth-Trees
Test: Final Examination Day
