PHIL. 160
Weekly Schedule of
Topics and Readings
Spring Semester 2019
Prof. Dowden
Schedule of topics and
readings
(also you should read all the weekly supplementary material within
Canvas | Modules):
Week 1: Survey of What Is Ahead.
Reading: Chapters 1 and 2 in the Nolt textbook.
Week 2: Propositional Logic: Syntax and Semantics.
Reading: Chapter 3.
Week 3: Propositional Logic: Proofs.
Reading: Chapter 4.
Week 4: Propositional Logic: Metatheory.
Reading: Browse (i.e., skim) chapter 5.
Week 5: Predicate Logic with Identity and Functions.
Reading: Chapter 6.
Weeks 6-7: Predicate Logic: Semantics, Venn-Euler diagrams.
Reading: Chapter 7.
Weeks 8-9: Inference, Binary Relations, Soundness, Completeness.
Midterm
Reading: Browse Chapters 8 and 9. Skip 9.4.
Week 10: Undecidability and What Computers Cannot Compute.
Reading: Chapter 10.
Week 11: Formal Systems, Post Production Systems, Robinson Arithmetic, and Non-standard Models.
Reading: See Canvas.
Week 12: Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems and Tarski's Undefinability Theorem.
Reading: Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem – An Informal Explanation Of The Argument by Joshua Mozersky .
Viewing: "Gödel and the Nature of Mathematical Truth," by Rebecca Goldstein
Weeks 13-14: Alternative Logics: Modal Logic, Free Logic, Multi-Valued Logic, Relevance Logic, Higher-Order Logic, Fuzzy Logic.
Reading: Chapter 15.2
Optional reading: Kinds of Alternative Logics
Week 15: Review.
The above schedule of course topics may be changed somewhat as
we progress through the semester, but these changes, if any, will not
affect the schedule of the homeworks and tests. I will be simplifying
many of the book chapters; there is much more material there than we can
study carefully.
Updated: April 25, 2019