Formal Logic PHIL4014

  • Academic Session: 2025-26
  • School: School of Humanities
  • Credits: 20
  • Level: Level 4 (SCQF level 10)
  • Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: Yes
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No
  • Curriculum For Life: No

Short Description

This course introduces students to the meta-theory of propositional and predicate logic.

Timetable

16x 1hr lectures, 4x 1hr seminars over 10 weeks as scheduled in MyCampus. This is one of the honours options in Philosophy and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available in MyCampus.

Requirements of Entry

Available to all students fulfilling requirements for Honours entry into Philosophy, and by arrangement to visiting students or students of other Honours programmes.

Assessment

A two-hour examination worth 70%; two take home assignments worth 15% each.

Main Assessment In: April/May

Are reassessment opportunities available for all summative assessments? Not applicable

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

Course Aims

This course aims to:

 

Provide students a firm understanding of proofs in propositional and predicate logic;

Introduce students to the meta-theory of propositional and predicate logic;

Provide students opportunities to complete their own proofs in these systems.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

Use the method of proof by induction on length of formula and length of proof;

Find a formula in disjunctive normal form for any given truth table;

Determine whether a set of connectives is expressively adequate;

Prove propositional sequents and simple sequents of predicate logic;

Prove the soundness and completeness theorems for propositional logic;

Explain the main ideas in Tarski's truth definition for predicate logic and the soundness and completeness theorems for predicate logic.
· Explain the main ideas in the soundness and completeness theorems for predicate logic;
·
Determine simple properties of binary relations.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.