Diversity Reading List

Comment: This article provides a very clear explanation of the scientific realism/Van Fraassen's constructive empiricism debate highlighting scientific realists' main difficulty, i.e find a proof that entities posited by science are real. Presupposes some background on the above mentioned themes.

Comment: Presupposes some familiarity with Aristotelian and Fregean logic, as well as ideas in analytic philosophy of language (e.g., theories of reference). This would be a good piece for countering the prejudice that nothing worthy of being called logic was done in the classical Chinese tradition. It is also a good piece for expanding students' imaginative horizons and showing them how their ideas of what logic is have been culturally shaped.

Comment: This paper proposes a certain characterisation of what it is to have knowledge of logical principles which makes it compatible with the way in which we reason ordinarily. It can be seen as an alternative to Harman's view in 'Change in View' according to which ordinary people do not at all 'employ' a deductive logic in reasoning. Thus this paper could be used in a course on the role of logic in reasoning, following the reading of Harman's work. More generally, this reading is suitable for any advanced undergraduate course or postgraduate course on the topic of rationality.

Comment: This article deepens the role of model an data in the scientific investigation taking into account the scientific practice. Obviously, a general framework of the themes the author takes into account is needed.

Comment: This paper considers the measurement problem in Quantum Mechanics from a logical perspective. Previous and deep knowledge of logics and Quantum Mechanics' theories is vital.

Comment: This article introduces all the necessary tools in order to understand both the proof-theoretic and the model-theoretic aspects of first-order classical logical consequence. As such it can be used as a main reading in an introductory logic course covering classical first-order logic (assuming the students will have already looked at classical propositional logic). Moreover, the article covers some metatheoretic results (soundness, completeness, compactness, upward and downward Löwenheim-Skolem), which makes it suitable as a reading for a slightly more advanced course in logic. Finally, the article includes a brief incursion into the topic of logical pluralism. This makes it suitable to be used in a course on non-classical logics with an introduction module on classical logic.

Comment: This book can be used in a variety of advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 8 may be useful in an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate course, where an emphasis is placed on classical logic and on a range of different proof calculi (mainly for classical logic). Chapters 4, 5 and 6 deal almost exclusively with non-classical logics. Chapters 7 and 9 are rich in meta-logical results, including results that have been obtained specifically using sequent calculus formalizations of various logics. These last five chapters might be used in a graduate course that embraces classical and nonclassical logics together with their meta-theory. To facilitate the use of the book as a text in a course, the text is peppered with exercises. In general, the starring indicates an increase in difficulty, however, sometimes an exercise is starred simply because it goes beyond the scope of the book or it is very lengthy. Solutions to selected exercises may be found on the web at the URL www.ualberta.ca/˜bimbo/ProofTheoryBook.

Comment: Very good article for philosophy of science and philosophy of probability courses. It works perfectly to build basic knowledge on the theme of probability.

Comment: Previous knowledge both on Platonism in philosophy of mathematics and scientific realism is needed. Essential paper for advanced courses of philosophy of science.

Comment: This book would be ideal for an introductory course on symbolic logic. It presupposes no previous training in logic, and because it covers sentential logic through the metatheory of first-order predicate logic, it is suitable for both introductory and intermediate courses in symbolic logic. The instructor who does not want to emphasize metatheory can simply omit Chapters 6 and 11. The chapters on truth-trees and the chapters on derivations are independent, so it is possible to cover truth-trees but not derivations and vice versa. However, the chapters on truth-trees do depend on the chapters presenting semantics; that is, Chapter 4 depends on Chapter 3 and Chapter 9 depends on Chapter 8. In contrast, the derivation chapters can be covered without first covering semantics. The Logic Book includes large exercise sets for all chapters. Answers to unstarred exercises appear in the Student Solutions Manual, available at www.mhhe.com/bergmann6e, while answers to starred exercises appear in the Instructor's Manual, which can be obtained by following the instructions on the same web page.