PHL 389 Logic
Syllabus
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| Week
| Topic
| Reading
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| January 16, 18
| Set Theory
| Priest 0
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| January 23, 25
| Classical Propositional Logic and Completenesss
| Priest 1
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| January 30, February 1
| Basic Modal Logic
| Priest 2
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| February 6, 8
| Normal Modal Logics
| Priest 3
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| February 13, 15
| Nonnormal Worlds
| Priest 4
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| February 20, 22
| Conditional Logics
| Priest 5
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| February 27, March 1
| Intuitionistic Logic
| Priest 6
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| March 6, 8
| Many-valued Logics
| Priest 7
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| March 20, 22
| First-degree Entailment
| Priest 8
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| March 27, 29
| Quantified Modal Logic
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| April 3, 5
| Quantified Modal Logic
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| April 10, 12
| Nonmonotonic Logic
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| April 17, 19
| Nonmonotonic Logic
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| April 24, 26
| Dynamic Semantics: Noneliminative Approaches
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| May 1, 3
| Dynamic Semantics: Nondistributive Approaches
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This course is the required logic seminar for graduate students in the PhD program in philosophy. Its goal is to give students the logical background needed to work in a variety of areas of philosophy, including logic itself, but also including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and ethics.
We will begin by reviewing key concepts of set theory, including naive set theory, the set-theoretic paradoxes, axiomatic set theory, and inductive proofs. We will then move to a quick survey of some key results concerning classical first-order logic, including tableau systems, models, soundness, completeness, compactness and Lowenheim-Skolem-Tarski theorems.
The main emphasis of the course will be modal logic. We will begin with normal modal logics, including T, S4, and S5. We will then consider nonnormal systems such as S2 and S3; deontic logic; intuitionistic logic; many-valued logics; conditional logics; and relevant logics.
Once we have studied these logics in a sentential setting, we will combine modalities and quantifiers, considering Quine's objections to such a combination, Lewis's, Kaplan's, and Kripke's responses, essential and accidental properties, rigid and nonrigid designators, theories of descriptions, and other topics.
We will then introduce topics of recent and growing significance: nonmonotonic logics (in which the addition of new premises may make valid arguments invalid) and dynamic semantics.
Required text: Graham Priest, An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
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Announcements
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Welcome to the course!
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Requirements
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There will be three homework assignments (20% each, due February 13, March 20, and April 17), and a takehome final exam (40%, due May 10). A class presentation or a short paper may be substituted for one of the homework assignments.
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The Professors
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Daniel Bonevac is Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin. His book Reduction in the Abstract Sciences (1982) received the Johnsonian Prize from The Journal of Philosophy. The author of five books and editor or co-editor of three others, Professor Bonevac's recent articles include "Against Conditional Obligation" (Noûs, 1998), "Sellars v. the Given" (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2002), "Reflection Without Equilibrium," Journal of Philosophy (July 2004), "Free Choice Permission Is Strong Permission" (Synthese, 2005, with Nicholas Asher), and "The Conditional Fallacy," (Philosophical Review, 2006, with Josh Dever and David Sosa).
Josh Dever is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his undergraduate training at Princeton
University (AB Philosophy, 1991) and his graduate training
at the University of
California at Berkeley (Ph.D. Philosophy, 1998), where
he wrote his dissertation Variables
under the direction of Stephen
Neale and Charles
Chihara. Professor Dever works primarily in the philosophy of
language and philosophical logic, with interests in
the application of these fields to problems throughout
core areas of philosophy. His publications include
work on the principle of compositionality in formal semantics
and its philosophical consequences ("Compositionality",
a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Language", "Compositionality
as Methodology", Linguistics and Philosophy; "Modal
Fictionalism and Compositionality", Philosophical
Studies) and work on the consequences of direct reference
theories ("Complex Demonstratives", Linguistics and
Philosophy; "Believing in Words", Synthese).
His recent interests include the semantics,
logic, and philosophical applications of conditionals, and foundational issues
in the nature of semantic values.
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Professors: Daniel Bonevac, WAG 403, 232-4333, bonevac@mail.utexas.edu