PHIL 873

PHIL 873 Topics in Philosophy of Logic

PHIL873
Graduate Level Course
Fall
3 Units
In-person
3

Cross listed with PHIL 473

one-way Exclusions

Instructor: Adele Mercier

It covers extensions of classical logic: the logic of modalities (or what we mean by would-have, could-have, and should-have statements). It introduces students to possible worlds reasoning: thinking about the actual (eg I exist), the merely possible (eg I could have never existed), and the necessary (eg. I have the biological parents I have). These modalities have epistemic (eg. Knowledge implies belief), moral (eg. Obligation implies permission), temporal (eg. when do statements about the future become true?) and other interpretations which we survey. Then the course introduces students to non-classical logics (reasonings requiring more than the true and the false):  tri-valued logics (reasoning about the indeterminate), intuitionistic logics (reasoning about the unknown), multi-valued logics (reasoning about the more-or-less true), up to para-consistent logics (reasoning from contradictions). 

Assessments

Assessments

  • weekly exercises; a midterm; a final exam.