Formalized logic B

Teacher(s)

Verdée Peter;

Language

French

Prerequisites

Basic instruction in logic and philosophy of language.

Main themes

Each year this course will select a particular theme - for example, theories of grammaticality, meaning, discourse analysis, pragmatics, modal logics, lambda calculus, theory of proof, set theory, non-classical logic, contemporary approaches to ancient logic, etc.

Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	At the end of the course the student should be able to understand the background of current debates in logic understood as including the theory of argumentation (rhetoric) and philosophy of language and eventually be able to conduct research in one of these areas. At the end of the course the student should : Be able to use certain specific tools for research in logic and philosophy of language ; Have a good general grasp of the breadth of contemporary research, and if appropriate, of the history of logic and philosophy of language ; Be able to make use of contributions from other disciplines in philosophical research in logic and philosophy of language.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Content

Formal and informal theories of truth.
We will study the different philosophical approaches and formal theories of truth (truth as correspondence, truth as coherence, constructivist truth, deflationary truth, transcendental truth, paradoxes of truth, truth in mathematics, etc.). Some closely related topics will also be discussed: justification, provability, truthmaking, grounding. These themes will be treated from the point of view of logic, philosophy of mathematics and (analytic) metaphysics. The selection of specific topics will be made according to the interests of the students. These books will serve as the basis of our studies:

• Leon Horsten. The Tarskian Turn: Deflationism and Axiomatic Truth. MIT Press (2011).
• Truth and Truth-Making. E. J. Lowe & A. Rami (eds.). Mcgill-Queen's University Press (2009).
• Lynch, M. P. Mcgill (ed.). The Nature of Truth. MIT Press (2001).
• Blackburn, Simon and Simmons, Keith (eds.), 1999, Truth, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.). Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality. Cambridge University Press (2012)

Evaluation methods

Students can freely choose between the following choices:

1. a presentation of roughly one hour for the other students, followed by questions from other students and the professor) on a topic relevant for the contents of the course
2. a written essay followed by a discussion on the essay
3. an oral open book exam in the official examination period

Bibliography

• Leon Horsten. The Tarskian Turn: Deflationism and Axiomatic Truth. MIT Press (2011).
• Truth and Truth-Making. E. J. Lowe & A. Rami (eds.). Mcgill-Queen's University Press (2009).
• Lynch, M. P. Mcgill (ed.). The Nature of Truth. MIT Press (2001).
• Blackburn, Simon and Simmons, Keith (eds.), 1999, Truth, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.). Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality. Cambridge University Press (2012)

Faculty or entity

EFIL