Before you enter this course, read carefully this overview, course evaluation, course assignments, course mechanics, and self-check activities.

Course Title: Introduction to Logic

Instructor: Professor Ronald C. Pine, Ph.D.

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Course Credits: 3

Course Description:  The course develops basic techniques of analysis and an understanding of the principles and concepts involved in clear thinking.  Emphasized will be logical validity, deductive and inductive reasoning, fallacious arguments, symbolic logic, and scientific method as applied to criteria of reasonable evidence.

This course fulfills the Symbolic Reasoning requirement for the Foundation requirement for Honolulu Community College and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.  See the Manoa General Education requirements.

Prerequisites or Recommended Preparation: Should be able to read and write at the college level (Eng. 22 or 100), and possess basic Internet skills.

Course Purpose:  Because we live in a highly technological society, students should gain a basic understanding and appreciation of formal reasoning and its connection with the informal reasoning of every day life.  Students should also gain an understanding of the basic software foundations for our machines (computers, game consoles, cell phones, etc.), and the process of putting human thoughts into these machines.  Additionally, the course is based on the assumption that the less we think critically the more someone else will think for us -- usually with the intention of manipulating us. From this point of view, logic can be viewed as a defensive tool enabling each of us to defend ourselves against the onslaught of persuasive appeals that bombard our minds daily. As such it is an important element in the development of individual potential -- enabling us to be freer and more decisive individuals.

Course Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes:  Students will

• demonstrate an understanding of the beauty and power of symbolic systems, as well as their clarity and precision, through use of techniques of logical and quantitative analysis, with the intention of enhancing the student's reasoning skills and appreciation of abstraction, pattern recognition, and formal systems of analysis 

• demonstrate an understanding the concept of logical proof as a chain of inferences by producing symbolic chains of inferences of their own
  
 
• demonstrate skill in hypothetical reasoning, and gain experience in the presentation and critical evaluation of evidence
  
 
• demonstrate an ability to use symbolic techniques and formal rules in the context of problem solving by applying symbolic analysis techniques (translating, formal proof techniques, truth tables, argument pattern recognition) both to informal (fallacies) and formal reasoning.

Course Content and Schedule:

Week	Topic (s)
1	Chapter 1: Introduction and key terminology -- valid, invalid, and sound deductive arguments.
2	Chapter 2: Recognizing arguments.
3	Chapter 3: Inductive reasoning and probability.
4	Chapter 4: Informal Fallacies -- fallacies of relevance.
5	Chapter 5: Informal Fallacies -- fallacies of questionable premise, weak induction, suppressed evidence.  Exam on Chapters 1-5  = 120pts
6	.Chapter 7: Symbolic Translation. Exercises I, II, and III.
7	Chapter 8: Truth Tables. Exercises I, II, III, IV.
8	Chapter 9: Formal Proofs of Validity -- Step 1 Exercise.
9	Chapter 9: Formal Proofs of Validity -- Step 2 Exercise.
10	Chapter 9: Formal Proofs of Validity -- Step 3 Exercise and Translations.
11	Chapter 10: Formal Proofs of Validity -- Step 4 Exercise.
12	Chapter 10: Formal Proofs of Validity -- Step 5 Exercise.
13	Chapter 10: Formal Proofs of Validity -- Step 6 Exercise and Translations.
14	Chapter 11: Quantification Logic
15	Chapter 12: Fuzzy Logic
16	Final Exam = 200 pts.

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