Phil 220: Symbolic Logic 2 — course description (Fall 2015)

University of Alberta
Faculty of Arts
Department of Philosophy


PHIL 220:   Symbolic Logic 2  —   Fall term (2015/16)

Katalin Bimbo

First-order logic (FOL) has been thoroughly investigated in the last 130 or so years, and it is a very well understood logic.  FOL gains its importance from its wide applicability and from its place in the landscape of logical calculi and formal languages.

Some elements of classical logic are studied in the course Phil 120, which is a prerequisite for this course.  (The prerequisite can be waived upon request in certain cases.)  This course is a more detailed and more formal study of some of the same topics that were touched upon in Phil 120, together with new and more complex questions and methods from FOL.  For example, we start to look at some first-order theories, which are concrete applications of FOL.

The course intends to develop and advance your understanding of certain components of FOL along with their interactions.  Among these components are the truth-functional connectives, the quantifiers, the identity predicate, as well as proof systems and models.  The course will enhance your ability to formalize some subtle and crafty natural language sentences.  Toward the end of the term, you will have a chance to learn about resolution, which is a quite practical proof system for FOL, and to take a glimpse at induction and set theory.

We will use a textbook that was written by world-class logicians who aimed at providing an excellent text and superior tools for learning logic.  The textbook is accompanied by a software package that contains Boole, Fitch and Tarski's world — three programs that are named after famous logicians.

These programs provide a lot of opportunity for experimentation, exploration and learning.  (No programming or computer science experience in needed for this course.)


Time:   M, W, F  12:00 pm – 12:50 pm
Text:   Barker-Plummer, D., J. Barwise and J. Etchemendy, Language, Proof and Logic, 2nd ed., CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA, 2011.   (required)


  For further information, please contact the instructor at Image of email address.
The (official) course outline is available in the e-classroom during the course.


[Last updated on April 14th, 2015.]