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Philosophy 230: Introduction to Formal Logic

 

Student Learning Outcomes

  1. Students will explain and apply the basic concepts essential to a critical examination and evaluation of argumentative discourse;
  2. Students will use investigative and analytical thinking skills to examine alternatives, explore complex questions and solve challenging problems;
  3. Students will synthesize information in order to arrive at reasoned conclusions;
  4. Students will evaluate the logic and validity of arguments, and the relevance of data and information;
  5. Students will recognize and avoid common logical and rhetorical fallacies.

 

The Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) are achieved through the Course Objectives (COs). Each Learning Outcome is targeted by one or more Course Objective, and each Course Objective targets one or more Learning Outcome. Course activities are designed to meet specific Course Objectives, and student performance on these activities will be monitored and assessed. These activities include lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, and examinations. Their purpose is to serve as effective means of meeting the Course Objectives and thereby achieving the Student Learning Objectives.

 

Course Objectives

  1. Students will recognize and produce definitions of basic concepts essential to critical examination and evaluation of argumentative discourse: e.g., argument, premise, conclusion, deductive validity, deductive soundness, truth functional validity, quantificational validity.
  2. Students will recognize and make competent use of important logical operations, such as negation, conjunction, disjunction, conditional, and quantification.
  3. Students will translate English sentences into two basic languages used in formal logic, viz., the language of truth-functional logic and the language of quantificational logic.
  4. Students will apply standard techniques of truth table and natural deduction for truth-functional logic, involving important inference rules (e.g., modus ponens, modus tollens, reductio ad absurdum, disjunctive syllogism) to determine important truth-functional logical properties and relations: e.g., truth functional validity, truth functional consistency, truth-functional equivalence.
  5. Students will apply standard techniques of natural deduction for quantificational logic, involving important inference rules (e.g., universal instantiation, existential elimination) to determine important quantificational logical properties and relations: e.g., quantificational validity, quantificational consistency, quantificational equivalence.
  6. Students will recognize and avoid common logical fallacies: e.g., affirming the consequent, denying the antecedent, confusing ‘only if’ with ‘if’, and confusing ‘some’ with ‘some but not all’.

 

The SLOs are targeted by the corresponding COs as follows:

SLO 1 SLO 2 SLO 3 SLO 4 SLO 5
COs 1-5 COs 3-5 COs 2. 4. 5 COs 2-5 COs 2-6