Philosophy 12A

What is it for an argument to be deductively valid? Intuitively, the conclusion must “follow from’’ the premises, or the truth of the premises must “guarantee’’ the truth of the conclusion. In this course we will look at how this notion is made formally precise in three systems of logic: sentential logic, monadic predicate logic, and full first-order logic. We will learn how to represent the logical forms of English arguments in each of these systems, and then develop a semantics as well as a system of natural deduction in each system to assess the validity of arguments given such formal representations. Upon completing the course, students can expect to be familiar with the basic concepts of symbolic logic, and to be in a better position to formulate and evaluate arguments in natural languages like English.