Logic and Cognition

Timetable

The course consists of four in-class meetings (4 hours each) and a series of individual appointments, during which we shall discuss your terms papers (from topics through the process of writing and possible obstacles thereof to the final viva).

Module aim (aims)

The course is aimed at deepening participants’ insights into contemporary theory and practice of reasoning and
inference. On the theoretical side, we shall discuss the very notions of reasoning and inference from the point of view of cognitive science, considering the impact of the new influential psychologistic paradigm in logical research. On the practical side, we shall examine certain important developments in the analysis of reasoning and inference processes and their applications concerning moral reasoning and decision-making, the concept of rationality, as well as some methodological issues of empirical research on human reasoning.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Working knowledge of syntax, semantics, and metalogical concepts of classical logic, basic propositional modal, and three-valued logic. English B2

Syllabus

 

Week 1. What is University (for)?
Week 2. Two system theories of reasoning: proponents and critics
Week 3. Moral reasoning
Week 4. Rationality
Weeks 5.-13. Individual appointments, term paper writing

Reading list

J. E. Adler and L. Rips (eds.) Reasoning. Studies of Human Inference and Its Foundations., Cambridge UP, 2008.

A. R. Mele and P. Rawling (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, Oxford UP, 2004.

W. Ruegg (ed.) Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800–1945), Cambridge UP, 2004.

K. Stenning and M. van Lambalgen, Human Reasoning and Cognitive Science, The MIT Press, 2008.