Winter 2022
04124880 Philosophical Logic

Course Information

Instructor Dr. Bruno Bentzen

TAs Huayu Guo

Office Location Chengjun Complex 4, 306

Office Hours Wed 3:00–5:00 PM (or by appointment)

Email bbentzen at zju.edu.cn

Credits 32 hours (8 weeks)

Course Description

This course focuses on the philosophical examination of the fundamental concepts of logic, with emphasis on their motivation of different logics that extend, restrict, or deviate from the so-called classical propositional and first-order logics.

Course Materials and Resources

This course is roughly based on the textbook:

• MacFarlane, J. (2020). Philosophical Logic: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge.

Course objectives

Upon the successful completion of this course, you will:

1. gain a deeper understanding of second-order quantifiers

2. be familiar with the central concepts of logic;

3. have a basic understanding of the K, T, D, B, S4, and S5 modal logics

4. distinguish between the semantic and proof-theoretic accounts of logical consequence

5. acquire a better understanding of intuitionistic logic

Assessment and grades

• Final exam 50%

• Homework 40%

• Participation 10%

Homework

Each homework assignment must be completed and turned in on time. I wish to evaluate your performance, so your homework should reflect your own efforts. Homework will be assigned weekly every Thursday and will be due on the following Thursday in class. No late homework will be accepted. If you missed the deadline because you were ill or for some other valid reason, please send me an email. Your solutions must be written legibly. The corrected homework will be returned to you on the Tuesday that follows the due date.

Attendance policy

You are expected to attend every lecture and be on time. If you cannot come to class due to an emergency please let me know as soon as possible. If you miss a class it is your responsibility to make up the material missed and catch up with your classmates.

Feedback

I welcome feedback, be it positive or negative. If you wish, you can do this by speaking to me directly after class, sending me an email, or, if you prefer, sending me an anonymous note. Giving feedback will not affect your grade, neither positively nor negatively, but it will help me to see my lectures from different angles and develop new ways of improving them.

Schedule (tentative)

Week 01: Preliminaries (Ch. 1)

Week 02: Quantifiers (Ch. 2)

Week 03: Modal logic (Ch. 3)

Week 04: Conditionals (Ch. 4)

Week 05: Semantic logical consequence (Ch. 5)

Week 06: Proof-theoretic logical consequence (Ch. 6)

Week 07: Relevance (Ch. 7)

Week 08: Review session and final exam

Please let me know if you find any broken links.