PHIL 125 - Logic

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Logic is the study of valid deductive arguments. Our central question in this course is: what makes an argument good or bad, in the strictest possible sense that an argument can be good or bad? In answering this question, this course teaches a skill: how to construct logically good arguments, and how to show whether an argument is logically good or not. This skill is not only central to logic itself and philosophy, but is widely relevant — to the law, to programming, to scientific research, to math, to linguistics, and to persuasive writing and speaking generally. You learn: how to represent the logical structure of natural language arguments (arguments written in English, for example) in a formal language (written in logical notation); what the basic logical operators are — such as negation, conjunction, etc. — and how to work with them when you construct and evaluate arguments; how to recognize and apply logical notions like consistency and validity; and how to demonstrate the logical validity or invalidity of arguments written in the formal language. Work consists of problem sets and in-class exams. Matt Moss.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS