Professor Judy Pelham
pelham@yorku.ca

Logic is the study of argument and proof, and it is basic to philosophy as well as many (all)  other disciplines.  This course attempts to teach you to recognize three important concepts that you will use in philosophy and in a lot of other work:  validity, equivalence consistency.

Here is an example of a deductively valid argument:

Either the Liberals will win, or the Communist Party of Canada will win.

The Liberals will not win.

Therefore, the Communist Part of Canada will win.

This argument is valid because of its structure, not because of the truth status of its premises or its conclusion.  The course will teach you to distinguish validity of an argument from the truth of its conclusion.  In this and other ways its goal to make you a better reader and a better debater.

Technical requirements for taking the course: The lectures for the course are only available on the eCourse website. In addition lecture notes are made available on the website as well.  There will be quizzes taken via eCourse.  Students must have a functioning computer with a good internet connection that enables them to watch videos and input text.  Microphone and camera are not required.

Here are some useful links for student computing information, resources and help:

Student Guide to Moodle

Zoom@YorkU Best Practices 

Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide

Computing for Students Website

Student Guide to eLearning at York University

To determine Internet connection and speed, there are online tests, such as Speedtest, that can be run.]

Times and locations: [Clearly communicate to students that this is a course that will be remotely delivered, be an online course, etc.. Suggested language is provided in blue font.] Recorded lectures for this course are only available online. It is required that you listen to the lectures weekly.  There will also be quizzes you are required to take online. The Monday lecture time slot will be used for a Question and Answer session, and Problems lab. That means that questions about the lecture for that week can be asked in person on Mondays at 2:30, and sample exercises and problems can be demonstrated during that time. It is not compulsory to attend. The tutorials will be held in person on Wednesdays and in-person and attendance at tutorial is compulsory.  There will be in person testing.

Virtual office hours: Prof. Pelham will be available for office hours in person on Monday afternoons before or after the question and answer period.  Other times are possible either in person or online by appointment only.

A course pack containing parts of The Logic Book (Second Edition) by Bergmann, Moor and Nelson will be made available through the York University bookstore.

This course attempts to teach you skills that center around the understanding and the use of logical concepts.  And while this does require some things be memorized, the course is attempting to teach you skills. You can only do well in this course by keeping up with the reading, lectures, and the problem solving. The skills you will be leaning are cumulative, that means learning one earlier skill will enable you to move on and acquire more complex skills.  For this reason in the study of logic, you are strongly urged to  follow the schedule as the course goes on, and to regularly work to prepare the course problems and complete the assigned quizzes.

Tutorial Homework (completed or not): 10%

Weekly Quizzes: 20%

SL Test:  25%

SD Test: 20%

Final Exam : 25%

This course teaches skills which require regular practice and review.  To this end the tutorials are mandatory, and you will be asked to hand in homework, in tutorial, each week.  The lectures are pre-recorded and available on line for each week.  There will be in-person tests

1. To recognize the logical structure of sentences in English. To make this very clear we translate the logical words of English into symbols, and practice doing such translations
2. To recognize the logical structure of deductive arguments in English, and to be able to recognize the validity of an argument as well as be able to construct a counter example to prove that it is logically invalid.  We also discuss when two sentences are logically equivalent, and  when two sentences are inconsistent.
3. To be able to construct proofs that demonstrate the logical validity of English arguments.