PH237      Half Unit
Advanced Logic

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Additional requisites:

Students should have taken Introduction to Logic (PH111) and obtained a grade of at least 65.

Students who have not taken PH111 should instead have taken Mathematical Proof and Analysis (MA102) or Introduction to Abstract Mathematics (MA103).

The course begins with taking a look at the big picture: the main problems and milestones of modern logic. Then, after a quick review of classical propositional and first-order predicate logic, the course delves into the central meta-theorems about classical logic (such as the soundness and completeness theorems). This will lead the way to an outline of the famous limitative results that have philosophical ramifications: Godel's incompleteness theorems and Tarski's undefinability theorem. The course ends with exploring extensions of and alternatives to classical logic, namely modal logic, provability logic, and intuitionistic logic.

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Students are required to hand in solutions for problem sets and to write an essay (word limit: 1500 words) on a topic that is selected from a list or proposed by the student with approval of the instructor in the Winter Term.

• Sider, Theodore (2010): Logic for Philosophy (Oxford University Press).
• Cameron, Peter J. (1999): Sets, Logic and Categories (Springer).
• Curry, H.B. (1963): Foundations of Mathematical Logic (McGraw-Hill).
• Smith, P. (2016): Godel without (too many) tears (available online).

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period

The exam questions are chosen from a list of questions that are made available at the beginning of the academic year ("seen exam").