Spring 2017

Matt Waples, Photographic Paintings Using Light and Miscellaneous Liquids, 2014.

Details

Instructors

Overview

This course is an introduction to formal reasoning. In the first part of the course, we study a simple system of deductive logic. In the second part of the course, we study probability theory and explore some examples of reasoning with probability in philosophy and science.

Objectives

The aim of this course is for students to significantly improve their capacity to:

• Extract and evaluate deductive arguments from written text.
• Extract and evaluate inductive arguments from written text.
• Apply the tools of deductive logic and probability theory to the analysis of arguments.
• Extract, explain and evaluate the arguments contained in philosophical texts.
• Understand the central arguments and theories contained in the assigned readings.
• Contribute to constructive philosophical discussion.
• Write clear, concise, and well organised philosophical essays.

Assessment

Requirements:

• Two exams.
• Two 6–8 page papers.
• Attendance and participation.

The final grade will be determined approximately as follows:

Assessment dates:

Policies

Attendance and Lateness

Students are required to attend all classes on time. An explanation for every absence or late attendance must be submitted in writing to the instructor. Every failure to attend class on time will count against the component of the final grade awarded for attendance and participation, unless an explanation is received and approved at least one day prior to the class in question. Requests for exceptions will be considered on a case by case basis, and typically granted only when related to an illness or other unforeseeable change in life circumstance. Students who have been excessively absent will be considered to have unofficially withdrawn and will be given a final grade of F.

Integrity

It is a condition on passing this course that students read and adhere to the NYU Shanghai policy on academic integrity as described in the current NYU Shanghai Academic Bulletin.

Course Materials

All notes, readings and assignments can be found here.

Schedule

Meeting 1: What is Logic? (Monday 6 February)

• Teller, Paul. 1989. A Modern Formal Logic Primer, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1-1. URI: http://tellerprimer.ucdavis.edu/pdf/

Section I: Deductive Logic

Meeting 2: Truth Functions (Wednesday 8 February)

• Teller (1989, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4).

Meeting 3: Compounds and Transcription (Monday 13 February)

• Teller (1989, 1-5, 1-6, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3).

Meeting 4: Equivalence (Wednesday 15 February)

• Teller (1989, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3).

Meeting 5: Expressive Completeness (Monday 20 February)

• Teller (1989, 3-4).

Meeting 6: Review (Wednesday 22 February)

Meeting 7: Review (Monday 27 February)

Meeting 8: First Exam (Wednesday 1 March)

Meeting 9: Validity and Conditionals (Monday 6 March)

• Teller (1989, 4).

Meeting 10: Natural Deduction (Wednesday 8 March)

• Teller (1989, 5).

Section II: Probability Theory

Meeting 11: Basics (Monday 13 March)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 2-4).

Meeting 12: Conditional Probability (Wednesday 15 March)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 5-6).

Meeting 13: Applications (Monday 20 March)

Meeting 14: Bayes' Theorem (Wednesday 22 March)

• Hacking (2001, Chapter 7).

Meeting 15: Review (Tuesday 28 March, Room 309, 3–4pm)

Meeting 16: Second Exam (Wednesday 29 March)

Meeting 17: Kinds of Probability (Monday 10 April)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 11-12).

Meeting 18: Bayesianism I: Credence and Coherence (Wednesday 12 April)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 13–14).

Meeting 19: Bayesianism III: Conditionalisation Coherence (Monday 17 April)

• Hacking (2001, Chapter 15).

Meeting 20: Application: Probability in the Law I (Wednesday 19 April)

• Dawid, Philip. 2002. “Bayes’s Theorem and Weighing of Evidence by Juries”, in Swinburne (Ed), Bayes’s Theorem, Oxford University Press, Oxford, Vol. 113, pp. 71–90. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197263419.003.0004.

Meeting 21: Application: Probability in the Law II (Monday 24 April)

• Peter Green, “Letter from the President to the Lord Chancellor Regarding the Use of Statistical Evidence in Court Cases”, 23 January 2002. URI: http://goo.gl/V1mKAn
• Sesardic, Neven. 2007. “Sudden Infant Death or Murder? A Royal Confusion About Probabilities”, in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 58, No. 2, June, pp. 299–329. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axm015.

Meeting 22: Frequency (Wednesday 26 April)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 16-17).

Meeting 23: Significance, Power and Confidence (Wednesday 3 May)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 18-19).

Meeting 24: Bayesianism, Likelihoodism, Frequentism (Sunday 7 May)

• Sober, Elliott. 2008. Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, §§1.1-1.6.

Meeting 25: Application: The Reproducibility Crisis I (Monday 8 May)

• Ioannidis, John P. A. 2005. “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”, in PLoS Medicine, Vol. 2, No. 8, August, pp. e124. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124.

Meeting 26: Application: The Reproducibility Crisis II (Wednesday 10 May)

• Collaboration, Open Science. 2015. “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science”, in Science, Vol. 349, No. 6251, August, pp. aac4716. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716.
• Mitchell, Jason. 2014. “On the Evidentiary Emptiness of Failed Replications”, July. Unpublished manuscript. URI: https://goo.gl/qAyT4i.

Meeting 27: Application: Power Posing I (Monday 15 May)

• Carney, Dana R. and Cuddy, Amy J.C. and Yap, Andy J. 2010. “Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance”, in Psychological Science, Vol. 21, No. 10, October, pp. 1363–1368. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797610383437.
• Ranehill, Eva and Dreber, Anna and Johannesson, Magnus and Leiberg, Susanne and Sul, Sunhae and Weber, Roberto A. 2015. “Assessing the Robustness of Power Posing: No Effect on Hormones and Risk Tolerance in a Large Sample of Men and Women”, in Psychological Science, Vol. 26, No. 5, May, pp. 653–656. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797614553946.
• Carney, Dana R. and Cuddy, Amy J. C. and Yap, Andy J. 2015. “Review and Summary of Research on the Embodied Effects of Expansive (vs. Contractive) Nonverbal Displays”, in Psychological Science, Vol. 26, No. 5, May, pp. 657–663. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797614566855.

Meeting 28: Application: Power Posing II (Wednesday 17 May)

• Simmons, Joseph P. and Simonsohn, Uri. 2017. “Power Posing: P-Curving the Evidence”, in Psychological Science, Vol. 28, No. 5, May, pp. 687–693. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797616658563.
• Garrison, Katie E. and Tang, David and Schmeichel, Brandon J. 2016. “Embodying Power: A Preregistered Replication and Extension of the Power Pose Effect”, in Social Psychological and Personality Science, Vol. 7, No. 7, July, pp. 623–630. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1948550616652209.
• Carney, Dana R. 2016. “My Position on “Power Poses””. Unpublished manuscript. URI: https://goo.gl/7NJsro

Updated: 11 May 2017