Philosophy 5320.02, Spring 2009

Logic

Alexander R. Pruss

E-mail: alexander_pruss@baylor.edu

Course web page: http://AlexanderPruss.com/classes/logic/2009

Class times: Tu Th 9:30-10:45

Location: MH108

Office hours: Tu Th 11:00-12:00 in MH 213 and by appointment

Abstract:

The point of this course is to gain some formal tools that are useful in a wide-range of areas of philosophy:

· Propositional logic

· Quantificational logic

· Basic set theory

· Basic probability theory

· Basic modal logic

Grading and requirements:

· There will be a test on each of the first two topics, above. And there will be weekly assignments. Most of these will be exercises. A few will ask for brief philosophical reflection.

· In lieu of doing any proof problems in the weekly assignments yourself, you are permitted to write a qualifying computer program(s) and use it to generate the proofs. Moreover, if you have done this, on tests, you may skip any proof questions that your computer program(s) can solve, and then the instructor will run the program to generate your answers to the missing questions (you must supply the program(s) to the instructor, making available any necessary hardware). However, the instructor may ask you to solve one additional problem per each of the five major sections manually.

o A qualifying computer program is entirely written by you for this class, in a commonly-used imperative or object-oriented (but not declarative, functional or logical) general-purpose (in particular, not one designed specifically for logic, combinatorics or mathematics) programming language like C, C++, perl, java, BASIC, etc., without making use of any libraries except those customarily included with the language. Prolog, Haskell, Mathematica and Maple, and anything relevantly like one of them, are specifically forbidden. As an exception to the above rules, you are permitted to use off-the-shelf tools or libraries simply for parsing infix and prefix notation (e.g., gawk/bison; I also have some simple C code for translating infix to something like RPN that I can give you a copy of). Moreover, the qualifying program is not to be based on a database of canned solutions, but must generate solutions to a wide range of problems of a given type. You must provide the instructor with unobfuscated source code and, upon request, executables, and when handing in assignments, you must indicate which questions were solved by computer. Furthermore, you must be willing to explain and justify any portion of the code that the instructor asks about.

o Computer-generated proofs must be written out in the notation used in the class and are subject to exactly the requirements that human-generated proofs, with two exceptions. In human-generated proofs, I may deduct points for undue complexity. In computer-generated proofs, I have no objection to undue complexity as long as the whole proof is no more than ten pages long in 10-point single-spaced type, but I may deduct points for bugs in the program even if they do not affect the particular problem(s) at hand.

o Since I realize it may take a little while for you to write your code, and hence the program may not be available by the time the first assignment is due, if you take the computer option, you can take an automatic two-week extension on the first two weekly assignments.

Academic integrity:

Credible suspicions of lack of academic integrity will be typically reported to the University for further investigation. My default penalty for a failure in academic integrity is an F in the class. Plagiarism (of answers or code), impermissible forms of cooperation, etc. all count as failures of academic integrity.