PHL 110  Logic

Description
This course is a complete survey of both the theoretical and practical sides of the traditional Aristotelian (common sense, ordinary-language) logic that is used both in the great books of Western civilization and in ordinary conversation, with brief introductions to inductive logic and symbolic (mathematical or propositional) logic and to philosophical issues connected with logic.

Objectives
Having completed this course, students will be able to:

• Understand and apply the basic principles and techniques of logic, such as defining terms, formulating propositions, and creating and evaluating arguments
• Form the unconscious habit of thinking logically by having consciously learned and exercised the principles and techniques that make up each part of that logical habit.
• Critically evaluate common contemporary beliefs about the nature of the world, man, and God, and about values like success, pleasure, and power, by means of logical argument.

Course Designer

Dr. Peter Kreeft, known as one of the world's foremost experts in Christian apologetics, is a tenured professor at Boston College and teaches Logic at King’s. He is a regular contributor to many Christian publications and is a highly sought-after public speaker.

Dr. Kreeft’s witty writing animates over 50 books that cover a variety of subjects from moral relativism to angels and demons to surfing. He has also taught as an adjunct at more than 15 other colleges and centers across the U.S. Every week he makes the three-hour trip from Boston to New York because, as he says, “I absolutely love it here.”

Dr. Kreeft received his A.B in Philosophy from Calvin College, and his M.A. and Ph.D in Philosophy from Fordham University. He and his wife Maria have four children and four grandchildren. He is an avid Boston Red Sox fan.

Instructor

Graham Dennis earned a B. A. in Philosophy from the University of South Carolina and an M.A. in Philosophy from Boston University, where he studied with Dr. Peter Kreeft. He has over ten years of teaching experience, having taught religion courses, bioethics, rhetoric, logic, and Veritas Press’s Omnibus courses. In addition to teaching logic for King’s, Prof. Dennis is currently the Academic Dean of the Secondary School at Veritas Academy in Leola, PA, an instructor for Veritas Press’s online courses, and editor for The Examined Life, an online philosophy journal. His essays on Plato, The Hippocratic Oath, A Distant Mirror, Hobbes’ Leviathan, and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil have been published in Veritas Press’s Omnibus textbooks. Prof. Dennis lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and children.