Professor Horisk is moving her Wednesday afternoon office hour to Wednesday morning from 10-12. And Jared is moving his Thursday morning office hour to Tuesday morning from 10-11. As always, we are available for appointments outside these times. Since we've fallen a little behind, the reading schedule has been updated on the syllabus . The Philosophy Department's course listings for this coming Summer and Fall are posted on the department's homepage .
Logic is the study of arguments.
We will translate arguments into a symbolic language and formulate rules for the symbolic arguments. This procedure is adopted because translation into the symbolic language reveals logical structure, and because the rules for arguments in the symbolic language are simpler and more precise than the rules for arguments in natural languages. The goal of the course is to cultivate skill in recognizing the logical structure of arguments, and skill in constructing derivations for valid arguments. A derivation shows how the conclusion can be obtained from the premisses in a series of steps conforming to the derivational system. The rules of a derivational system are formulated with mathematical precision and reliance on them makes logic mathematical.