4th sem

Course Contents:

 a) Logic and Arguments, Deductive and Inductive Arguments, Argument forms and arguments, statement forms and statement, Truth and Validity. Categorical propositions and classes: quality, quantity and distribution of terms, translating categorical propositions into standard form.

b) Immediate inferences: Conversion, Obversion and Contrapositon, Traditional square of opposition and Immediate Inferences based there on; Existential Import, symbolism and Diagrams for categorical propositions.

c) Categorical Syllogism: Standard Form categorical Syllogism; The Formal nature of Syllogistic Argument, Rules and Fallacies, General Rules; To test Syllogistic Arguments for validity (by applying general rules for syllogism); To solve problems and prove theorems concerning syllogism.

d) Boolean Interpretation of categorical propositions; Review of the Traditional Laws of Logic concerning immediate inference and syllogism; Venn Diagram Technique for Testing Syllogisms, Hypothetical and Disjunctive Syllogisms, Enthymeme, The Dilemma.

e) Induction: Argument by Analogy, Appraising Analogical Arguments, Refutation by Logical Analogy.

f) Causal Connections: Cause and Effect, the meaning of “Cause”; Induction by Simple Enumeration; Mill’s Method of Experimental Inquiry; Mill’s Method of Agreement, Method of Difference, Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, Method of Residues, Method of Concomitant Variations; Criticism of Mills Methods, Vindication of Mill’s Methods.

g) Science and Hypothesis: Explanations; Scientific and Unscientific, Evaluating Scientific Explanations; The pattern of Scientific Investigation; Crucial Experiments and Ad Hoc Hypotheses.

h) Probability: Alternative Conception of Probability; The Probability Calculus; Joint Occurrences; Alternative Occurrences.