Instructor for 80-150 ‘‘Nature of Reason’’

Instructor of Record for the course 80-150 ‘‘Nature of Reason’’. Syllabus here.

``This course provides an accessible introduction to the historical development, within the Western tradition, of philosophical ideas regarding the nature of reasoning and rationality from ancient to modern times, with a focus on mathematics and the sciences. The course is divided into three parts. The first part traces the search for deductive methods for obtaining certain knowledge, starting with Euclid and Aristotle, all the way to the work of Boole and Frege in the nineteenth century, which marks the beginning of modern logic. The second part focuses on the history of skepticism about empirical knowledge and inductive reasoning, covering the ideas of philosophers such as Descartes and Hume, along with various replies to skepticism—for instance, in the works of Bayes. The third and final part of the course is devoted to discussing the development and the basic elements of the theory of computation, as well as the most prominent theories of the nature of the mind and mental processes, culminating in the computational conception of the mind that underlies contemporary cognitive science.’’

Description here.

Pedagogical Goals:

This course was largely adapted from the textbook “Thinking Things Through” by Clark Glymour, as well as Francesca Zaffora Blando’s syllabus for the same course. This course was an absolutely delight to teach. Some units, in particular the unit on Bayesian epistemology and Bayesian solutions to the problem of induction, I hope to use in future versions of Arguments and Logical Analysis.