[FOM] Logic packages

[Jesse Alama]

Thomas Forster <T.Forster at dpmms.cam.ac.uk> writes:

> Do list members have any favourite computer aids for teaching logic to 
> undergraduates?  I have been using JAPE, which has many virtues, but it 
> does have the disadvantage that it supports Kalish-Montague-style box 
> proofs - which is something i am trying to wean my bairns off.

There is a long tradition of the use of computers to assist logic
education at Stanford, going back (at least) to Pat Suppes.  Currently,
one undergraduate course (PHIL 50 "Introductory Logic") and one mixed
graduate-undergraduate course (PHIL 150 "Basic Concepts in Mathematical
Logic"), given three times per academic year, are based on Jon Barwise
and John Etchemendy's _Language, Proof and Logic_
(http://lpl.stanford.edu).  The package is currently maintained by a
team within Stanford's CSLI (Center for the Study of Language and
Information).  The Barwise and Etchemendy book makes extensive use of
three computer programs:

* Boole: evaluate propositional formulas;

* Tarski's World: build simple first-order structures and evaluate
  sentences in them;

* Fitch: construct first-order Fitch-style natural deduction
  proofs.

In addition, the Barwise-Etchemendy LPL framework includes programs with
which students can submit their work to dedicated servers and be
evaluated; the evaluations are sent to them by email (and optionally to
an instructor or teacher's assistant).

Is this the kind of computer teaching aid that you had in mind?

Jesse

-- 
Jesse Alama (alama at stanford.edu)