201 - 210 of 317 results for: PHIL

(Graduate students register for 254.) Syntax and semantics of modal logic and its basic theory: including expressive power, axiomatic completeness, correspondence, and complexity. Applications to classical and recent topics in philosophy, computer science, mathematics, linguistics, and game theory. Prerequisite: 150 or preferably 151.

This year's topic is Non-Classical Logic. May be repeated for credit.

How is it possible to make a rational decision when you don't know what the outcomes of your choices will be, and when you have to rely on others to cooperate? This course introduces some mathematical tools to answer this broad question (expected utility theory, choice theory, and voting theory) along with their philosophical motivations, uses, and limitations. Assessment will consist mainly of problem sets which include both math problems and short essays. Prerequisite: PHIL 150.

This class is a broad survey of the philosophy of logic. Topics to be covered include: the nature of logical consequence, logical constants, quantification and generality, second-order logic, substitutional quantification, the law of excluded middle, the law of non-contradiction, the liar paradox, logical pluralism, logical inferentialism, and logical conventionalism.Successful completion of PHIL 151 is a prerequisite for taking this class. And successful completion of PHIL 152 is strongly recommended.

Science is phenomenally successful at predicting and explaining the world we live in including our own biology. Without the technological advances brought about by science, our lives would be radically different: no electricity, no cars, no smart phones, no plastics, no arthroscopic surgery, no antibiotics, no GPS, and on and on. Science tells us what the fundamental structure of reality is like: space and time, the soup of fundamental particles occupying it and composing us, and the fundamental forces that govern their behavior. Many suspect that the world the sciences show us leaves no space for God(s), and maybe doesn't leave much space for things like morality or free will either. But does science really succeed in all of these ways or only in some of them? When it succeeds, what accounts for its success? What does it take for a way of investigating the world to count as scientific?

Graduate students register for 261C. In this seminar we look into what makes a good explanation through three complementary perspectives. Philosophy attempts to define the normative criteria that make a scientific theory explanatory. Cognitive science looks into the criteria implicit in our common sense choices of explanations. Explainable AI tries to operationalize these principles into protocols for rendering black-box models interpretable. We look into how the normative criteria of philosophers inform our cognitive theories, and how both provide perspective into the goals and methods of XAI.

Prerequisite: PHIL150 or consent of instructor. This is a general overview of the philosophy of mathematics, focusing on the nature of mathematical truth and knowledge, the metaphysics of mathematical objects, and issues arising from mathematical practice. Topics to be discussed will include logicism, intuitionism, formalism, Goedel's incompleteness theorem, platonism, nominalism, fictionalism, structuralism, the nature of mathematical rigor, the role of diagrams in mathematics, and mathematical beauty.

Graduate students register for 264. Scientific realism is the view that we should think that the sciences basically get it right about the fundamental structure of reality: there really are electrons out there as part of objective reality. Various forms of antirealism question various dimensions of the realist position. Some of those who question strong forms of realism are uncomfortable with the label antirealism for their own positions. We will attempt to make sense of the various positions, arguments, and methodological and substantive issues supposedly at stake in these debates. Instructor Permission Required. Prerequisites: PHIL 60, PHIL 80, PHIL 150, and one course in contemporary theoretical philosophy ( PHIL 180 to PHIL 189); or equivalent courses.

Graduate students register for 265. The topic for 25-26 is Philosophical Issues in Quantum Mechanics.