161-438 Logic and Philosophy

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth-year honours in philosophy, and completion of two second/third-year philosophy subjects. No particular expertise with formal logic will be required beyond 161-115 Logic. However, experience in logic at second and third year is desirable together with interests in contemporary research in philosophy.

This subject will focus on the development of logic and its applications in other areas of philosophy such as philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics and ethics. In the work of Frege, Husserl, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap and their intellectual descendants, logic has grown hand-in-hand with these topics. The subject will focus on work at these fertile boundaries between disciplines. This year, we will concentrate on the nature and structure of proof and connections between interference and the theory of meaning. This course will contain both a formal component (where we look at different formal systems and examine their properties) and a discursive component, where we look at implications and applications to philosophical disputes over realism and anti-realism, the nature of quantification and reference to objects, and the connection between modality to the ontology of possible worlds.

• have learnt to think clearly and precisely;

• be able to present complicated reasoning in understandable ways;

• be able to foster attention to detail.

A 5000-word essay 100% (due at the end of semester).

A booklet of readings will be made available by the School.