Philosophy 0640

There are two crucial points to keep in mind.

This course is fairly easy at the beginning, but there is some difficult material just before the mid-term. The course starts to get more difficult after the mid-term, and it then quickly becomes very difficult. And the course is very cumulative: What we do later always depends heavily on what we've done earlier. If you get behind, it can be very difficult to catch up. It is therefore absolutely impossible to learn this material in the two weeks before the final exam, and, if you try to learn it that way, I can pretty much guarantee that you will fail the course. People do fail the course each time it is offered for this very reason. Don't be one of them.
As with any mathematical subject-matter, it is impossible to learn this material without doing a lot of exercises. The book contains many more than are assigned, and students are encouraged, even expected, to do additional exercises to improve their understanding of the material. Students should feel free to show any additional problems (or even assigned problems) that they have done to one of the instructors so as to get feedback on how they are doing. Students are also encouraged to work on the problems together—though, of course, submitted material should be a student's own work.
- There are example problems for each problem set except the first that not only show you the answer but show you how to get it. These have been found extremely useful by students.
- There are optional quizzes on Canvas for most of the lectures. (Some lectures do not really lend themselves to this format.) Since they are optional, you do not have to do them, but they are strongly recommended. They provide you with an easy way to check your understanding of the material from that lecture.

That said, here is how to learn logic:

You should read the book and attend the lectures. I will present the material in a way somewhat different from how it is presented in the book. It can be helpful to approach the material from slightly different perspectives. Moreover, not all material for which students are responsible is in the book.
- Recordings of lectures from the Fall 2020 Covid edition of the course are available in the Media Library on Canvas. You do not have to watch these, but I've posted them in case students should find them useful. (Students that year said it was very useful to be able to re-watch the lectures.) This year's lectures will, to some extent, differ from those ones, so I would not recommend skipping class and watching the lectures. That said, if you have to miss class for some reason, watching the relevant lecture would be a good idea.
  (Note that lectures will not always cover exactly the same material.)
You should expect to spend, on average, about two hours per class reviewing the material from that lecture and then reading the material for the next lecture. When we have review sessions (which we have for every problem set except the first), you should plan to spend this time reviewing the material for that problem set. Figure out what questions you have beforehand, so you can ask them in class.
As I have already said, learning logic means doing logic, so doing the problem sets, extra problems, and quizzes is perhaps the most important thing you will do. Note that the early problem sets are easier, and you should expect them to take less time. As the class progresses, the problem sets become harder, and you should expect those to take more time.
- As said elsewhere, the grade is based upon your performance on the in-class midterm and final, so you have to learn to do logic on your own. That makes it unwise to rely upon ChatGPT or similar tools to complete your problem sets. Prefect scores on the problem sets will not help you if you bomb the exams. Indeed, that would be very suspicious.
If you have any difficulties while doing the problem sets, or do not understand something that was said in lecture, then contact us for help right away. We are here to help you learn! You can visit us at office hours, or send us email, or just talk to us after class. You can ask any one of us for help. You do not specially need to visit the person who happens to be grading your problem sets.

You should expect to spend about 180 hours of time on this class, which breaks down as follows:

Class time: 36 hours
Reading and reviewing: 72 hours
Problem sets: 6 hours, on average, per problem set, totaling 42 hours
Reviewing for the mid-term exam: 9 hours
Reviewing for the final exam, including time spent at the formal review sessions: 18 hours
The final exam: 3 hours

Richard Heck Department of Philosophy Brown University