Logic & Philosophy of Science

Course Description


Course:  LPS 246;Phil 246
Name:  Phil of Logic
Description:  This seminar will examine the traditional ways out of the apparent paradoxes in logic occasioned by words like 'Vulcan' (the putative planet) and phrases like 'the number resulting from dividing 5 by 0', objections to those resolutions (including Frege's, Russell's and Hilbert and Bernays), and the development of the distinctive approach called free logic. It will present proof theories, model theories, for the various species of the free logic approach, and will look at applications both in philosophy and in areas such as computer science. Finally, it will examine the philosophical foundations of this non-standard--though increasingly much less so
-- version of elementary logic (predicate logic with identity).