PHIL 155.001 – Introduction to Mathematical Logic

Instructor: Gillian Russell. This course meets MW 10:10 – 11:00 a.m. in MA 209 with a recitation on Fridays.

This course is an introduction to logic for students with no previous experience with the subject. Logic is the formal study of arguments, where argument is intended in a very specific sense. Whenever anyone puts forward a set of reasons for accepting a sentence, e.g.:

Most scientists are alarmists, so gobal warming is not a serious problem.

Or,

If the US joins the war, then the casualties will be much higher. But the US will not join the war, so casualty levels will be low.

they are providing an argument.
An argument in our sense is a sequence of statements, one of which is supposed to follow from, or be supported by, the others. In logic we are interested in characterising what makes an argument a good argument.

In this course we will study the semantics and proof theory for truth-functional logic and first order predicate logic with quantifiers, concluding with soundness and completeness proofs.

Students must have a new copy of this book (not a second hand one) otherwise they won’t be able to submit the homework.