Philosophical Logic

The textbook for the course is Ted Sider’s Logic for Philosophy (OUP, 2010), and tutorials will be based on James Studd’s logic exercises and philosophy tasks. You can find these on the course Canvas page. There are also Faculty lectures for the course, given in Hilary Term. It is essential that you attend these. Lecture slides and notes are on the Canvas page; previous years’ can be found here.

In weeks 4 to 8, you will be completing some philosophy tasks: short essays on philosophical issues relating to that week’s topic. For these, you will need to complete the TASK READING below. More introductory pieces are starred (*). There is also a small amount of FURTHER READING. This can be postponed until the vacation, and will help you deepen your understanding of the issues.

Many of the readings are online, and all can be obtained from the college or other libraries in Oxford, but if you are struggling to get hold of anything, email me, as I have PDF copies of nearly everything.

PHILOSOPHY TASKS

  1. Modal Propositional Logic
  2. Second-Order Logic
  3. Quantified Modal Logic
  4. Two-Dimensional Modal Logic
  5. Counterfactuals

PHILOSOPHY TASKS

TASK READING

*Bob Hale (2021) ‘The Logic of Metaphysical Modality’ in Otávio Bueno and Scott Shalkowski, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Modality (Routledge).

Nathan Salmon (1989) ‘The Logic of What Might have Been’ in The Philosophical Review 98(1), pp. 3–34.

Tim Williamson (2013) Identity and Discrimination, revised and updated ed. (Wiley-Blackwell), Ch. 8.

FURTHER READING

Michael Dummett (1993) ‘Could There Be Unicorns?’ in his The Seas of Language (OUP).

Tim Williamson (2016) ‘Modal Science’ in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46(4/5), pp. 453–92. Sections 1 and 2.

2. SECOND-ORDER LOGIC

TASK READING

*Øystein Linnebo (2011) ‘Higher-Order Logic’, §5, in Leon Horsten and Richard Pettigrew, eds. The Continuum Companion to Philosophical Logic (Continuum).

W. V. O. Quine (1986) Philosophy of Logic, 2nd ed. (Harvard UP), pp. 61–70.

George Boolos (1975) ‘On Second-Order Logic’ in Journal of Philosophy 72(16), pp. 509–527.

FURTHER READING

Stewart Shapiro (2005) ‘Higher-Order Logic’ in Stewart Shapiro, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic (OUP).

Ignacio Jané (2005) ‘Higher-Order Logic Reconsidered’ in Stewart Shapiro, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic (OUP).

3. QUANTIFIED MODAL LOGIC

TASK READING

*Karen Bennett (2021) ‘Actualism’ in Otávio Bueno and Scott Shalkowski, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Modality (Routledge).

Tim Williamson (1998) ‘Bare Possibilia’ in Erkenntnis 48(2/3), pp. 257–273.

Reina Hayaki (2006) ‘Contingent Objects and the Barcan Formula’ in Erkenntnis 64(1), pp. 75–83.

FURTHER READING

Ted Sider (2009) ‘Williamson’s Many Necessary Existents’ in Analysis 69(2), pp. 250–258.

Tim Williamson (2013) Modal Logic as Metaphysics (OUP), Chs 1, 2.1-2, 3, 4.1.

4. TWO-DIMENSIONAL MODAL LOGIC

TASK READING

*Steven T. Kuhn (2012) ‘Two-Dimensional Logic and Two-Dimensionalism in Philosophy’ in Delia Graff Fara and Gillian Russell, eds. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language (Routledge).

Gareth Evans (1979) ‘Reference and Contingency’ in The Monist 62(2), pp. 161–89.

Martin Davies and Lloyd Humberstone (1980) ‘Two Notions of Necessity’ in Philosophical Studies 38(1), pp. 1–30.

FURTHER READING

Scott Soames (2005) Reference and Description: The Case Against Two-Dimensionalism (Princeton UP), Ch. 6.

Christian Nimtz (2017) ‘Two-Dimensional Semantics’ in Bob Hale, Crispin Wright, and Alexander Miller, eds. A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, 2nd ed. (Blackwell).

5. COUNTERFACTUALS

TASK READING

*Kai von Fintel (2012) ‘Subjunctive Conditionals’ in Delia Graff Fara and Gillian Russell, eds. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language (Routledge).

David Lewis (1973) Counterfactuals (Blackwell), §3.4.

Robert Stalnaker (1984) Inquiry (Cambridge University Press), Ch. 7.

FURTHER READING

Eric Swanson (2012) ‘Conditional Excluded Middle without the Limit Assumption’ in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85(2), pp. 301–21.

Tim Williamson (2020) Suppose and Tell: The Semantics and Heuristics of Conditionals (OUP), Ch. 10.