Philosophy 303

Philosophy 303 is an introduction to modern formal logic that is meant to
be accessible to undergraduate students at all levels. It is taught by Associate
Professor Jamie Tappenden of the Department of Philosophy.
The class meets from 10:10-11:00 AM MW in room G127 Angell Hall

Office Hours (Held in 2228 Angell Hall):
Wednesday 2:00 – 3:00

Thursday 1:30-3:00

Or By Appointment

Send e-mail to tappen@umich.edu

Grades will be assigned using this formula: 40% final, 20% midterm, 40% homework.

The class will be “curved” so final grades may be higher than raw grades (raw grades will not be lowered, though)

The one exception to the formula is: if someone does markedly better in the second half of the course (i.e. shows significant

improvement over the term) then the later grades will be weighted a little more heavily, depending on the degree of improvement, etc.

IMPORTANT DATES

Wednesday October 17 -- Midterm Exam

Oct. 15 – 16 --- Fall Study break

Nov. 22 – 23 --- Thanksgiving break

******MON DEC 10 ---- Final Test (in class) ----***********

Required Text: Logic, Algorithms and Formal Languages (chapters 1 – 9)

This book is part of a work in progress. The manuscript is available at this url:

http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~rthomaso/logic-intro.new/

(I will provide the password in class.)

WEEKLY HOMEWORK

Problem sets will be due at the end of nearly every week. (Except the week of the midterm, and the week before the final test.)

Solutions to the problem sets will be posted right after they are due. LATE PROBLEMSETS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

The grades will be calculated in terms of your best ten problem sets (discarding the lowest) so if there is some emergency or conflict, you can miss a problem set without a zero counting toward your grade. If you need to miss more than one, you’ll need a good reason, of the “documented illness or family emergency” variety.

· Assignment #1 Due Friday Sept. 14 -- Answers

· Worked examples for problemset 1

· Assignment #2 Due Friday Sept 21 -- Answers

· Worked examples for problemset 2

· Notes on Induction and Recursion

· Assignment #3 Due Friday Sept 28 -- Answers

· Assignment #4 Due Friday Oct 5 -- Answers

· Worked examples for problemset 4

· Notes on FSA’s for Unions of languages

· Assignment #5 Due Friday Oct 12 -- Answers

· Notes for the Week of Friday Oct. 12: Finite and Infinite counting; The Pumping Lemma

· Readings you are responsible for on the Midterm