Fall 2015

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

Details

Instructor

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. In the final week of the course we will have a discussion with Professor Jeff Erlich about reasoning with probability in neuroscience.

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 Students who have been excessively absent will be considered to have unofficially withdrawn and will be given a final grade of F.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.

Schedule

Meeting 1: What is Logic? (Tuesday 1 September)

• Teller, Paul. 1989. A Modern Formal Logic Primer, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1-1. URI: http://tellerprimer.ucdavis.edu/pdf/
• Hacking, Ian. 2001. An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Odd Questions.

Section I: Deductive Logic

Meeting 2: Truth Functions (Friday 4 September)

• Teller, Paul. 1989. A Modern Formal Logic Primer, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4.

Meeting 3: Compounds (Tuesday 8 September)

• Teller (1989, 1-5, 1-6).

Meeting 4: Transcription (Thursday 10 September)

• Teller (1989, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3).

Meeting 5: Equivalence (Tuesday 15 September)

• Teller (1989, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3).

Meeting 6: Expressive Completeness (Thursday 17 September)

• Teller (1989, 3-4).

Meeting 7: Review (Tuesday 22 September)

Meeting 8: First Exam (Thursday 24 September)

Meeting 9: Validity and Conditionals I (Tuesday 6 October)

• Teller (1989, 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4).

Meeting 10: Validity and Conditionals II (Thursday 8 October)

• Teller (1989, 4-5).

Meeting 11: Natural Deduction (Tuesday 13 October)

• Teller (1989, 5-1, 5-2, 5-3).

Section II: Probability Theory

Meeting 12: Basics (Thursday 15 October)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 2-4).

Meeting 13: Conditional Probability (Tuesday 20 October)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 5-6).

Meeting 14: Bayes' Theorem I (Thursday 22 October)

• Hacking (2001, Chapter 7).

Meeting 15: Review (Tuesday 27 October)

Meeting 16: Second Exam (Thursday 29 October)

Meeting 17: Bayes' Theorem II (Tuesday 3 November)

Meeting 18: Kinds of Probability (Thursday 5 November)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 11-12).

Meeting 19: Bayesianism I: Credence (Tuesday 10 November)

• Hacking (2001, Chapter 13).

Meeting 20: Bayesianism II: Coherence (Thursday 12 November)

• Hacking (2001, Chapter 14).

Meeting 21: Bayesianism III: Conditionalisation (Sunday 15 November)

• Hacking (2001, Chapter 15).

Meeting 22: Application: Probability in the Law I (Tuesday 17 November)

• 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 23: Application: Probability in the Law II (Thursday 19 November)

• 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 24: Frequency (Tuesday 24 November)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 16-17).

Meeting 25: Significance, Power and Confidence (Tuesday 1 December)

• Hacking (2001, Chapters 18-19).

Meeting 26: Bayesianism, Frequentism, Likelihoodism (Thursday 3 December)

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

Meeting 27: Application: The Reproducibility Crisis I (Tuesday 8 December)

• 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 28: Application: The Reproducibility Crisis II (Thursday 10 December)

Updated: 27 November 2015