Studying Logic at Uni

I woke up thinking - maybe I should flesh out the Logic course a bit more since it's an area which is slightly dying out in Philosophy. Most universities only offer it as an option rather than making it compulsory, which is a shame. It is very different from the rest of the course because Logic is more of a skill you have to keep practising, rather like maths. So I got through a huge stack of paper just working through Logic exercises, very much like everybody does when they study maths at school. It is not maths as such because, unlike maths, it is more thinking-based. In maths you just follow the rules of maths to get the right answer, whether it makes sense or not. One of my favourite areas of maths was geometry which, like my Latin (which I studied at degree level just prior to my BA Philosophy), has come in handy when reading Spinoza's Ethics. However, I much prefer Logic to maths because it makes sense and it requires thinking through a process rather than doing robotic calculations. 

There is a reason why the Logic rule is the way it is, which I find interesting in itself. Also Logic is useful, unlike maths, whereby you learn a lot of stuff you never need in life! 

The Logic module was structured more like an MA module: 1 hour lecture by a lecturer followed by a 1 hour seminar led by a PhD student (which had too many people in it unlike an MA module. I know this because I sat in on a few MA modules. A worthwhile experience!). Unfortunately, there was only one Logic assignment that year, given out at the end of the autumn term. I would have preferred more Logic assignments because it is helpful to see how Logic is being marked because there was an exam in it at the end of the year (every year ends with exams in the modules for that year). Whereas between all the other modules, we submitted fortnightly essays of roughly 2-3,000 words. 

I don't understand why we didn't have the Logic specialists in the department teaching the Logic module. After all, all other modules were taught by specialist lecturers, which is what you anticipate given the university's prospectus. Nevertheless, a Kantian lecturer took the Logic lectures instead of e.g. Professor Ian Rumfitt, the Head of Department (who was floating about the 2010 conference the previous academic year). Apparently, Rumfitt suggested an extra reading book ie Lemmon's 'Beginning Logic' - This book is not aptly named because there is not much of a beginner's feel about it! But I spotted a teacher's companion book to accompany it so I could check my answers. Hence, I liked that book because it made me self-sufficient in Logic. I could go through all the exercises and check I was on the right track. It also meant I didn't have to bother with the extra Logic tuition some of my friends on my BA course said they did with a tutor who taught on the foundation course. The Logic lectures were also attended by the foundation course students but they left after the lecture. On the BA, we carried on to the seminars where we were rushing through a thick volume by Tomassi! A PhD student took the seminars but I was surprised it wasn't Simon Hewitt, simply because he was the best PhD student for the job. The PhD student we had was fine but there was no doubt that Simon Hewitt was a cut above the rest for Logic. Why? Because his brain is hard-wired for Logic. He could talk non-stop enthusiastically about it for hours! 

An initial hurdle I discovered, which is a drawback in Logic, is that you have to overcome the need to adjust to different Logic symbols and layouts between Logic books, which makes it confusing for beginners and means you have to keep balancing too many different approaches in your head when you want to do extra reading in other books or find more exercises to do for practice. For instance, 'not' can be written using two different symbols, depending on which style you are using, which is why in my research I explain what my Logic symbols mean. Someone who has learnt one symbol for 'not' may not recognise the one I'm using so it could become unreadable without me being very clear. Tomassi was the set style of Logic symbols etc we had to follow on the course but the book has its limitations and you can't cross-apply everything you learn in Tomassi to other Logic books, including Lemmon. 

However, the Logic I use in my research is not based on Tomassi, partly because it is only a beginner's book therefore doesn't fit what most Logicians use. I've collected a huge amount of Logic books over the years (both books which mainly consist of Logic exercises as well as various types of philosophical logic books) and I've tried to use the symbols and layouts which come up the most often. 

Why am I bothering to explain? Because it is easy to assume someone merely jumps into doing research from nowhere. I certainly have done a huge amount of extra, intense hours on top of my degree and beyond, in many ways, Logic being only one of a number. I also studied another Logic course, post-degree. 

On top of that, I was not starting uni as an 18 year old, fresh out of school. I was an adult student with very good qualifications, a lot of academic experience, study skills and life experience. I was also an athlete which is why I chose a part-time degree as a mature student so I could continue playing ITF tennis tournaments throughout the course, especially during the 4 month summer break to ensure I had 100% attendance in person at uni, which I did!