Logic and Methodology of Sciences

obligatory courses

Classroom

The aims of the course are: raising awareness of the phenomena which occur in language; making one sensible to the correctness of statements and argumentations; training students to use logical reflection and rational argumentation; reflecting on acquiring scientific knowledge and its validity.

Course topics:

The various sources of human beliefs and their evaluation; the main issues of the theory of cognition; the object of logic, its relationship to philosophy; the functions of language, the concept of truth; the calculus of sentences and its axiomatic approach; the calculus of names; elements of the calculus of predicates; deductive inferences and contradictory sentence systems; the reconstruction of tacit assumptions; errors in inferences; logical errors in statements; errors in definitions; Ethnic languages vs. artificial language, the problem of mutual translatability of ethnic languages, language vs. worldview; whether logic is a thing of convention; the most important laws of logic; types of fallible inference; methodological types of science, status of various claims in science, requirements of scientism; fact vs. interpretation, experience vs. theory; progress in science, different models of doing science; logic vs. rationality; constructive disputes, idle disputes and bogus disputes; most important eristic tricks.

S. Garczyński, Strzeż się tych błędów, Warszawa 1990.

Schopenhauer, Erystyka czyli sztuka prowadzenia sporów, Warszawa 1993.

Stanosz, Ćwiczenia z logiki, Warszawa 1980.

Z. Ziembiński, Logika praktyczna, Warszawa 2001.

Knowledge of logical fallacies that can be made in individual statements, inferences and definitions, resulting in avoiding them in oneself and recognising them in others. Knowledge of basic logical concepts, especially the concepts of deduction and self- contradiction. Ability to base one's own arguments on elementary sentence calculus and set calculus. Ability to communicate thoughts clearly, unambiguously and in accordance with one's intention. A sensitivity to eristic tricks that may be used in discussions.

Grading is based on a written examination in session.