Logical methods in philosophy

Course goals

- Familiarity with different approaches to philosophical logic beyond classical propositional and first-order logic.
- Appreciation for the role of logic in (theoretical) philosophy.
- Logical literacy: 
- Capacity to read philosophical texts that make use of logical methods.
- Confidence to employ logical methods in your own work.

Content

This course is part of the in-depth courses Taal, geest en wereld.

LAS and TCS students who follow this course as part of the core curriculum of their major, need to complete a compulsory preparation course/assignment. See for more information: https://tcs.sites.uu.nl/

Logic is everywhere in philosophy. This is especially true in theoretical philosophy: philosophers of language, epistemologists,
metaphysicians, philosophers of language ... they all frequently use logic in their work. But more often than not, this logic goes beyond what you learn in your standard introduction to logic, i.e. classical propositional and first-order logic. This course  covers different non-classical logics with an eye on their philosophical applications. These logics include many-valued logics, modal logics, relevance logics, free logics and so on; and the applications include Aristotle's sea-battle, essence, the ontological argument ... and much more. 

In this course, we will study both the technical details of these logical systems as well as their philosophical applications. At the end of this course, you will hopefully have acquired "logical literacy," i.e. the capacity to read philosophical texts that make use of logical methods and the confidence to apply logical methods in your own work.
 

Additional information