Course Syllabus: Introduction to Logic, Summer 2010
James Simmons
jamesasimmons@hotmail.com
Office: Seminary Place 1, Room
Office Hours: By Appointment
Phone: skype name: introduction.to.logic
My email address is jsimmons@philosophy.rutgers.edu
Email sent to the hotmail address listed on the ecollege site may be missed.
Course This is a first course in logic. No previous knowledge of logic, philosophy
Description or mathematics is required. The course will provide an introduction to the
central concepts of logic and the language of first-order logic (FOL). We
will learn how to construct formal proofs in both propositional and
quantificational logic. This is a hybrid course, which means that it
combines traditional face-to-face teaching methods with an online teaching
component.
You will all be familiar with the requirements of a face-to-face class: you
must come to class, ask questions, contribute to discussions and present
solutions to problems. You may be less familiar with the requirements of a
hybrid course. In addition to the requirements of a traditional face-to-face
class (though with less actual class time), you are expected to:
1. contribute to online discussions (there are both guided discussion
threads, designed to engage a particular issue, and general
discussions, designed as a forum for you to raise problems and
questions more generally about the material we cover);
2. complete the online reading comprehension quizzes before the end
date of each unit (unit end dates can be found in the Schedule, under
Course Home, and in the Calendar). Each quiz will be password
locked, and you will be given a five day period to complete them;
3. participate in the scheduled ClassLive problem sessions (ClassLive
sessions can be found under the Chat tab), during which we will
work through practice problems together; and
4. work cooperatively in small groups to solve assigned problems, for
submission either to the eCollege site, or for presentation in class.
In order to facilitate this small group work, each small group has an
assigned, private chat room, which can be found under the Chat tab.
How much participation in online discussions and ClassLive sessions is
required? Obviously, there is no easy answer to this question. What I would
like is for the online discussion threads to act as a knowledge source for you
to return to throughout the course, and to this end I would ask you to raise
all of your questions in the appropriate threaded discussion. (Of course, you
must ask questions during regular class time as well.) Even if you have no
comprehension questions, you can contribute to the threads by helping your
fellow students out, and contributing to discussions on issues of which you
have a firm grasp. I would like to see at least one contribution per unit per
student, though your contribution may be as little as a simple genuine
question.
Class attendance is required. We have too few sessions together to regularly
skip them and expect to do well.
Course
Students should be aware of and abide by Rutgers Academic Honesty
Policies and
Policies, available here: http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml
Procedures
Grading Your final grade will be determined by the quality of your homework, your
Policy performance on the online reading comprehension quizzes, your in-class
and online participation (including attendance), and your scores in the
midterm and final exams.
10% Homework Assignment 1
10% Homework Assignment 2
15% Midterm Exam
10% Homework Assignment 3
10% Homework Assignment 4
10% Online Reading Comprehension Quizzes
10% Participation (in class/contribution to online discussion threads, etc.)
25% Final Exam
A
90
B+ 85
B
80
C+ 75
C
70
D
60
F
<60
A note about logic: you may find that, at the beginning of the course, the
material is easy to understand, and the reading comprehension quizzes and
homeworks require little effort. If that is the case, don't be seduced into
thinking that you can get an A in the course without doing any work. The
material in the second half of the course is much harder, and it will take (for
most of you) lots of thought, reading and question-asking to master. On the
other hand, you may find logic difficult and unintuitive from the outset. If
this is the case, do not think that it will get easier. The material covered in
this class is cumulative: if you do not understand what we do in the first
class, you will not understand what we do in the second. If you're finding
the work tough-going, we must address the problem immediately. Ask
every question you have, and do not be worried that your questions are
confused, trivial or stupid: most of your classmates will be wanting an
answer to the very same question.
Textbook(s) The textbook contains a software package and a non-transferable
registration ID# for an online grading system that we will be using
throughout the semester. As such, each student enrolled in the course will
have to buy a new copy of the textbook package.
Required: Language, Proof and Logic -- Barwise, J. and Etchemendy, J.
CSLI, 2007
Location
Mondays 10:10-12:00pm, Scott Hall, 219. Wednesday Meetings online at a
time to be arranged.
Virtual I will hold virtual office hours on Tuesdays, 6pm until 8pm, and by
Office appointment. To come to my virtual office hours, you will need to
Hours download skype from http://www.skype.com/ and then search for my
course account, which is under the username introduction.to.logic.
Schedule
July 12th: Introduction, Atomic Sentences & The Logic of Atomic Sentences
Reading: pp. 1 - 15, pp. 19 - 31, pp. 41 - 66.
July 14th: The Boolean Connectives & Their Logic
Reading: pp. 67 - 89, pp. 93 - 117.
July 19th Methods of Proof for Boolean Logic
Reading: pp. 127 - 140.
July 21 & July 26: Formal Proofs and Boolean Logic & Conditionals and the Logic
of Conditionals.
Reading: pp. 142 - 175, pp. 176 - 197, pp. 198 - 213.
July 28th: Introduction to Quantification
Reading: pp. 227 - 251.
August 2nd: Midterm Exam on Propositional Logic
August 4th: The Logic of Quantifiers, Multiple Quantifiers & Methods of Proof for
Quantifiers
Reading: pp. 257 – 279, pp. 289-304, pp. 319-337.
August 9th & August 11th: Formal Proofs and Quantifiers
Reading: pp. 342 - 363
August 16th: Final Exam