General Logic

I invite you to visit me during my office hours and to talk with me via telephone and e-mail. I always welcome your comments and questions, and I’m exceptionally happy to talk with you about the course material or about other philosophical or administrative matters.

Department office: ST 522

Department phone: 818.677.2757

Aims of the Course: This course is designed to introduce the principles and methods of sound reasoning and in so doing to provide you with a necessary skill for formulating and evaluating arguments. To that effect, the course is divided into three sections. First, you will become familiar with the basic concepts of logic, and you will learn to recognize certain informal fallacies. Next, you will become familiar with the methods of categorical logic. Last, you will become familiar with the methods of statement logic, and with some of the methods of inductive logic. Each of these methods is useful, if not crucial, in making everyday decisions (for example, the decision for whom to vote) and in evaluating arguments that you encounter in business proposals, in doctors’ recommendations, in magazine or journal articles, and even in friendly discussions.

This course satisfies the “Critical Reasoning” (A.2) section of the General Education Program, which recognizes critical reasoning as a fundamental competence. Courses in this section of General Education take reasoning itself as their focus. Their goals are to provide students with criteria and methods for distinguishing good reasoning from bad and to help students develop basic reasoning skills that they can apply both within a broad range of academic disciplines and outside the academic environment. Students are expected to acquire skill in recognizing the logical structure of statements and arguments, the ability to distinguish rational from non-rational means of persuasion, skill in applying the principles of sound reasoning in the construction and evaluation of arguments, and an appreciation of the value of critical reasoning skills in the pursuit of knowledge.

Required Text: Layman, C. Stephen, The Power of Logic, 3^rd edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005).

Attendance and Homework: Since you are responsible for any and all material presented in class, regular attendance is essential to doing well in this course. Furthermore, logic is akin to mathematics, for example, in the following respect: becoming proficient in logic requires the development of a certain set of skills. And you can’t develop those skills without practice. This means, among other things, that you should diligently work on logic both in class and outside of class. Both class attendance and completing the homework assignments are therefore essential to doing well in this course.

The deadline this semester for dropping a course with only the instructor’s signature is Friday, September 16. After that date, according to CSUN’s regulations, withdrawals will require additional approvals and can be obtained only for “serious and compelling reasons” and provided that there is “no viable alternative”. See CSUN’s Schedule of Classes and Catalog Supplement, online at http://www.csun.edu/a&r/current/. If you enroll in a course and do not officially drop it, you will remain enrolled and will receive a grade, even if you never attend. There are no “automatic” drops, and I cannot drop you from any of my classes.

Students with Disabilities: If you have a disability, please identify yourself to me and to the University so that we can reasonably accommodate your learning and the preparation and evaluation of the work that you must do for this course. Please contact the Center on Disabilities, Student Services Building, Room 110, 818.677.2684 (Fax: 818.677.4932; E-mail: sdr@csun.edu.) For more information, visit the COD’s website at the following address: http://www.csun.edu/cod.

Evaluation: Your final grade in the course will be based on the following:

Exam 1	September 29	27%
Exam 2	November 3	28%
Exam 3	December 8	30%
Other	5 (out of seven) quizzes	15%

Grades: I will use the plus/minus grading system. Letter grades are assigned according to the following system:

100-92% = A	86-83% = B	76-73% = C	66-63% = D
91-90% = A-	82-80% = B-	72-70% = C-	62-60% = D-
89-87% = B+	79-77% = C+	69-67% = D+	59-0% = F

I encourage verbal participation in lectures, in office hours, or by phone, as well as participation via e-mail. Such participation can benefit you in a number of ways: it will help you to gain a deeper understanding of the material and will thus help you to perform better on exams and quizzes. Furthermore, if your final grade falls just short of some higher grade, the quality of your verbal participation will be considered as grounds for improving your final grade.

Cheating and Plagiarism: I consider academic dishonesty a very serious issue. If you are unclear about what constitutes academic dishonesty or about the possible repercussions of and penalties for acts of academic dishonesty, please consult the California State University, Northridge Student Conduct Code (see pp. 530-531 of CSUN’s 2004-2006 Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog). You’ll find links to the Code and other helpful resources at the following address: http://www.csun.edu/~studaff/student_conduct.html. Moreover, I subscribe to and will enforce California State University, Northridge’s Policies on Nondiscrimination and Student Conduct, which include its policy on Academic Dishonesty and the Faculty Policy on Academic Dishonesty, as they are stated on pages 529-533 of its 2004-2006 Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog.

Exams: The exams are designed, of course, to determine whether you understand the material covered in class and in the homework assignments. There will be three exams, one after each of the three main sections of the course. You may take a make-up exam only if either (a) you have received, prior to the scheduled date of the exam, my permission to do so, or (b) you miss the exam due to a documented medical or family emergency.

Quizzes: Seven quizzes will be administered over the course of the semester. Your scores on five of those seven quizzes will count toward your final grade for the course. The quizzes will cover recent material, and will feature problems similar to those in recent homework assignments. No make-up quizzes will be administered.

Schedule
Course Introduction	August 30	Introduction; Critical Thinking
The Basic Concepts of Logic, and Informal Fallacies	September 1	Arguments: Basic Concepts; Forms and Counterexamples The Power of Logic (PL) Introduction to Chapter 1, §§ 1.1-1.3	All problems in Exercise 1.1 All problems in Exercise 1.2 All problems in Exercise 1.3, Parts A, B, and C
	September 6	Homework Review ** Quiz 1 **
	September 8	Arguments: Validity, Soundness, Strength, and Cogency PL § 1.4 (and revisit § 1.1)	All problems in Exercise 1.4
	September 13	Arguments: Identifying Arguments; Visually Representing their Logical Structure PL §§ 2.1-2.2, Appendix to Chapter 2	All problems in Exercise 2.1, Part A All problems in Exercise 2.2 All problems in Exercise: Appendix to Chapter 2
	September 15	Homework Review ** Quiz 2 **
	September 20	Informal Fallacies: Irrelevant Premises; Ambiguity PL Introduction to Chapter 4, §§ 4.1-4.2	All problems in Exercise 4.1 All problems in Exercise 4.2, Part A
	September 22	Informal Fallacies: Unwarranted Assumptions PL § 4.3	All problems in Exercise 4.3
	September 27	Homework Review Review for Exam 1 ** Quiz 3 **
	September 29	** Exam 1 **
Categorical Logic	October 4	Categorical Logic: Statements; Translating Ordinary Statements into Standard Categorical Form PL § 5.1	All problems in Exercise 5.1
	October 6	Categorical Logic: The Traditional Square of Opposition PL § 5.2	All problems in Exercise 5.2
	October 11	Homework Review ** Quiz 4 **
	October 13	Categorical Logic: Syllogisms PL § 6.1	All problems in Exercise 6.1, Parts A and C (Note: In Part C, there’s no need to specify the mood and figure.)
	October 18	Categorical Logic: Translating Ordinary Arguments into Standard Syllogistic Form PL § 6.1 continued
	October 20	Homework Review ** Quiz 5 **
	October 25	Categorical Logic: Venn Diagrams PL § 6.2	All problems in Exercise 6.2
	October 27	Categorical Logic: Venn Diagrams and Categorical Syllogisms PL § 6.3	All problems in Exercise 6.3 All problems in Exercise 6.7, Part B (Note: Use Venn diagrams to assess the validity of the arguments in Exercise 6.7)
	November 1	Homework Review Review for Exam 2 ** Quiz 5 **
	November 3	Exam 2
Statement Logic, and Induction	November 8	Statement Logic: Symbolizing English Arguments PL § 7.1	All problems in Exercise 7.1
	November 10	Statement Logic: Truth Tables PL § 7.2	All problems in Exercise 7.2
	November 15	Statement Logic: Using Truth Tables to Evaluate Arguments PL § 7.3	All problems in Exercise 7.3
	November 17	Homework Review ** Quiz 6 **
	November 22	Statement Logic: Abbreviated Truth Tables PL § 7.4	All problems in Exercise 7.4
	November 24	Induction: Compared with Deduction PL § 10.1	All problems in Exercise 10.1
	November 29	Induction: From Authority and By Enumeration PL § 10.2	All problems in Exercise 10.2
	December 1	Induction: Arguments from Analogy PL § 10.4	All problems in Exercise 10.4
	December 6	Homework Review Review for Exam 3 ** Quiz 7 **
	December 8	** Exam 3 **

Note: Everything in this syllabus, including the reading assignments, the homework assignments and the dates of exams and quizzes, is subject to revision. I will announce any and all revisions in class and, in general, do my best to make sure that everyone knows about revisions. If you miss class, you must nevertheless submit assignments according to any revisions that I make to the Schedule. You should either make sure that you don’t miss class or find a sure way of becoming aware of any revisions that I make to the Schedule or to the syllabus.

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