Quick question: I’m excited to be teaching a course on “Reasoning and Rational Decision Making” this fall. The department’s brief course description is as follows:
Analyzing and evaluating arguments, basic logical framework, Aristotelian logic and beginning logic of sentences, fallacies, fundamentals of probability, decision theory, and game theory.
There are no prerequisites, and students taking this course are typically getting their first glimpse at logic. Clearly, expecting students to develop a thorough understanding of, and facility with, Aristotelian logic, propositional logic, probability theory, decision theory, and game theory in a course like this would be to expect too much. Thus, my larger goal for this course will be to give them a very basic understanding of the workings and objectives of basic formal logic, probability theory, and decision theory. I’ll try to spark their interests in these formal theories by showing how they can be applied to the study of human reasoning and by exploiting some fallacies, paradoxes, and the like that arise when we apply them in this way. If I have students who want to take upper-level courses in any of these formal areas as a result of my course, I’ll be very happy.
So that tells you a bit about the course and how I want to approach it. Now the question: What textbook(s) might be appropriate for a course like this? It would be ideal if there was a text that covered the basics of each of these formal theories (at a very introductory level) and does some philosophy of logic too — discussing the relation and application of the theories to human reasoning. I like Hacking’s intro to probability, but I would like something that spends more time on basic deductive logic … and I’d like more ideas anyway. What do you all think?
Jonah N. Schupbach
Horacio Arló-Costa
Jeff Helzner
Gregory Wheeler
Jon Williamson
Vincenzo Crupi
Jake Chandler
Arthur Paul Pedersen
Sonja Smets
Carlo Martini
Jonah,
I don’t know if it entirely suits your needs (it is really more of an intro to philosophy textbook and the last three chapters probably won’t fit the class very well), but the first thing that your question made me think of was Glymour’s Thinking Things Through.
I am using Sinnott-Armstrong and Fogelin’s Understanding Arguments right now, and it seems to have most of what you are after. There doesn’t seem to be any game theory, though.
Hi Jonah,
maybe some selected parts of this could be of help:
Eric Steinhart, MORE PRECISELY,
Broadview Press, Vancouver (BC).
http://www.ericsteinhart.com/TOOLS/tools-home.html
Cheers.
Jonah,
The course description is hard to match up with a real course I think. There are tons of “critical thinking” books that talk about aristotelian logic, propositional logic, fallacies, etc. I have never found one I like. But I have never had a course like that where I could dream of doing game theory. I have talked about super basic statistics and some causal reasoning. Lots of books include that at the end. Then there are courses that are sort of paired with deductive logic. I suppose you could spend a week on aristotelian logic and a bit more on propositional logic if you wanted to, but the goal would be to introduce probability, decision theory, game theory. Michael Reskik’s Choices is pretty decent. There is a new intro to decision theory by Martin Peterson which has sections on probability theory, decision theory, game theory, social choice. That looks like a decent course in itself. I haven’t looked at that book carefully. You are going to be at Utah a long time. My advice would be to try to teach that second course on a regular basis which is super good for undergrads I think (and best taught after they have taken deductive logic). And try to separate it from critical thinking which should be its own course for students who aren’t even ready for deductive logic.
Oh – and I just have to say. Clark Glymour’s book is meant as a first course introduction to philosophy. But it has a section on the Lowenheim Skolem theorem and paradox for god’s sake!
Thanks Jonathan, Chris, Vincenzo, and Joel! Let me know if you think of any other ideas; in the meantime, I’ll be looking these texts over.
I think that Bradom Fitelson is teaching a similar course at Rutgers this semester or he will do so in the near future. He told me that he planned to write a textbook for his class, so he might know the literature pretty well. It might not be a bad idea to contact Brandon and ask him. Good luck with the course!
Sorry, I consistently misspelled Branden’s name. Actually a mixture of Brandom and Branden might be an interesting phenomenon