Formal Logic II

Judgement and Reasoning

with

Phillbert Cheng

7 LESSONS

This course continues the study of formal logic by exploring judgement, propositions, and reasoning. Students will learn how thought is structured, claims are tested, and arguments are formed in ordinary language.

Buy Now

Buy Logic Bundle (2 Courses)

Judgement and Reasoning:

A guided study of how the intellect affirms, denies, and draws conclusions.

JUDGEMENT

Judgement is the intellect’s act of combining or separating concepts. It is where thought first becomes accountable to reality, and where truth and falsity first emerge.

PROPOSITIONS

Because judgement is expressed outwardly in declarative statements, the course examines the structure of propositions, their quantity and quality, and the ways terms function within them.

REASONING

Reasoning draws one judgement from another to form an argument. Students learn how syllogisms express valid reasoning and how to test them with precision.

A Preview of Judgement and Reasoning

This second course in our two-part series on Formal Logic begins with judgement, the intellect’s act of combining or separating concepts; and culminates in reasoning, where judgements are brought together in argument. More than a technical study, it is an invitation to become more fluent in the language of reason.

Course curriculum

1. The Second Act of the Intellect
2. Supposition
3. Opposition
4. Logical Equivalence
5. The Third Act of the Mind: Reasoning and the Syllogism
6. The Valid Moods and Figures
7. Syllogisms in Ordinary Language

About this course

2 hours
PDF Study Guide
7 Lessons

MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Phillbert Cheng

Dr. Phill Cheng is a scholar of ancient and late antique philosophy. His research interests include Aristotelianism, Platonism and Thomism, and the philosophy of education. At Zaytuna College, he has taught Material Logic, Formal Logic, and Philosophy. Dr. Cheng received his BA in Philosophy from Saint Mary’s College of California in 2005 and his MA in Philosophy from Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in 2008. He received his PhD from the Graduate Theological Union.

His PhD thesis, titled “Power, Likeness, and Unlikeness in Proclus Diodochus and Dionysius the Areopagite,” undertakes a fresh analysis of late Neoplatonic and Dionysian henology in examining how power, likeness, and unlikeness figure within Dionysius’s conception of creatures as finite and composite images of the infinite and simple Creator.

Dr. Cheng is proficient in Latin, Attic Greek, and Late Antique Greek. Dr. Cheng joined the faculty of Zaytuna College in Fall 2017.

CONTINUE YOUR JOURNEY

Designed as the continuation of the first course, this class helps students move from the analysis of statements to the construction and testing of arguments.