The School of Human Inquiry · philosophy, history & belief
Logic & Argumentation
How to tell a sound argument from a merely persuasive one, with formal tools and fair rules of engagement.
Find the argument, name the fallacy, weigh the evidence — for editorials, ads, and arguments at dinner.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~12 hours
Unit I — Anatomy of an Argument
Premises and conclusions · Indicator words · Standardizing a messy passage · Spotting the missing premise
Unit II — Common Fallacies
Ad hominem and the genetic fallacy · Straw man and steel man · False dilemma · Appeals to authority done right
Unit III — Weighing Evidence
Anecdote versus data · Correlation and cause · Base rates and why they matter · When experts disagree
Truth tables to quantifiers — a full first course in symbolic logic, with proofs you build yourself.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~30 hours
Unit I — Propositional Logic
Sentences and connectives · Truth tables · Validity, tautology, and contradiction · Natural deduction rules
Unit II — Proof Strategy
Conditional proof · Reductio ad absurdum · Derived rules and when to reach for them
Unit III — Predicate Logic
Names, predicates, and quantifiers · Translation from English · Models and counterexamples · Multiple quantifiers and scope
Unit IV — Edges of the System
Identity and definite descriptions · A glimpse of soundness and completeness · What formal logic cannot settle
The classical craft of moving an audience, taught with its ethics attached.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~16 hours
Unit I — The Classical Toolkit
Ethos, pathos, logos · The five canons of rhetoric · Reading an audience before addressing it
Unit II — Structure and Style
Arranging a case · Figures that clarify versus figures that fog · The plain style and when to leave it
Unit III — Persuasion and Its Ethics
Manipulation versus argument · The signatures of propaganda · Debating in good faith · Repairing a public argument gone wrong
The liar, the heap, and Newcomb's boxes — puzzles that break the rules to show where the rules are.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — Motion and Infinity
Zeno's racecourse · Supertasks · Hilbert's hotel and the sizes of infinity
Unit II — Truth
The liar paradox · Grelling's heterological puzzle · Tarski's way out and its price
Unit III — Choice and Knowledge
Newcomb's problem · The surprise examination · The preface paradox · Sorites: vague words and where they fail