This is the home page for Logic: Syntax and Semantics, at the Cape Cod Academy for Lifelong Learning.
slides showing tableau-building
the tableau rules, symbolically
I tweaked the class slides a little, to improve formatting and to eliminate the word "Either", which was causing unnecessary confusion
slides with lots of translation examples
The file of slides linked above is an expanded version of what we did in class. It is expanded in the sense that I added discussion, and also some exercises for you to do.
A VERY good exercise for you to do at the point is the one just after Example 20, in which I challenge you to make up 2 possible worlds. If you can understand and do this exercise you are doing great!
The slides from class tweaked for improved clarity (for example with minimal parentheses)
Note that our 5th class is October 19th. There are no ALL classes on October 12th, observing Indigenous People's / Columbus Day .
The plan for week 5 is twofold (i) show briefly how our formalization and tableaux making can be extended to richer logics than we have worked on (for example, treating quantifiers), and (ii) surveying applications of logic in the proverbial "real world".
We need to do a bit of (i) in order to make sense of (ii)
In the last class I'll talk about AI, with a focus on how AI is different from traditional logic.
This course is a first introduction to logic, motivated by questions such as these: What is a valid argument? What is the connection between logical arguments and truth in the real world? How much can human reasoning be captured by computers?
The format of the course will be lecture, guided by class discussion. There are no mathematical prerequisites for this class. That said, we will learn to work with a certain amount of symbolic notation. We will learn how to encode natural language in the form of logical sentences, and how to reason with arguments in this form.
Expected outcomes include sharpened critical thinking skills, insights into the difference between logical reasoning and rhetoric, and a framework for thinking about artificial intelligence. Readings will be provided.
Dan has a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Maryland. He taught logic and computer science to undergraduate and graduate students at Dartmouth, Wesleyan, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute and is still active in research. His teaching is inspired by his conviction that mathematical logic is one of the humanities.
Contact : dd at wpi dot edu