Time Schedule:
Jeramy S. Gee
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 course is an introduction to formal reasoning. We will be concerned with the structure of deductive arguments and their validity. To examine questions of structure and validity, students will be taught two formal systems, sentential logic and predicate logic, that may be used to model arguments in natural language. Topics to be covered include semantic and syntactic ways of looking at validity including the use of truth tables; proofs; and models, and translations from natural language into logical formalism. The course itself will be divided into two sections. First we will study sentential logic, which examines inferential relationships between whole statements. Second we will study predicate logic, which is a more powerful system that can deal with subject-predicate relationships, among other things. As we study each system we will begin with translations and progress to semantic, and then on to syntactic, understandings of validity. TEXT: Modern Logic: A Text in Elementary Symbolic Logic, Graeme Forbes.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
