LOGIC, REASONING, & PERSUASION
FALL 2025

Syllabus
Instructor: Adrian Liu (Contact: adrian.liu@rutgers.edu)
Times: Mondays and Wednesdays, 5:40pm-7:00pm
Place: Campbell Hall General Purpose Classroom 1 (CA-A1)
Office hours: M 3:30-5pm, or by appt, 106 Somerset St, 527 / Zoom

HANDOUTS

 Deductive Reasoning
  1. Handout 2-1 | Handout 2-2
  2. Handout 3-1
  3. Handout 4-1 | Handout 4-2 | Handout 4-3
  4. Handout 5-1 | Handout 5-2
  5. Handout 7-1
Inductive Reasoning
  1. Handout 8-2
  2. Handout 9-1 | Handout 9-2
  3. Handout 10-1 | Handout 10-2
  4. Handout 11-1
  5. Handout 13-1 | Handout 13-2
  6. Handout 14
  7. Handout 16

ASSIGNMENTS

SCHEDULE BY WEEK
WEEKS FOURTEEN & FIFTEEN (Dec 1, 3, 8, 10) Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment.
  1. Monday, Dec 1: Inductive and Deductive Fallacies. Handout 14.
  2. Wednesday, Dec 3: Wrap Up + Review for Midterm 2.
  3. Monday, Dec 8: Midterm 2: 5:45-7:00.
  4. Wednesday, Dec 10: Conclusion. Overview of the class, takeaways, next steps. Handout 16
WEEK THIRTEEN (Week of November 24th, 2025) Office Hours: Monday 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment.

Monday, November 24th: Large Reasoning Models
Handout: Handout 13-2.
  • Read the following (very short) piece: Alison Gopnik, Stone Soup AI. Then, read the following opposing views on the question of whether AI can reason: As you read, note down what you take to be the strongest arguments for and against the conclusion that contemporary AIs can reason. Think back to our discussions of what counts as reasoning.

Wednesday, November 26th: No Class (Friday Classes). PSET 2 due today.
WEEK TWELVE (Week of November 17th, 2025)
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment Thursday and Friday.

Wednesday, November 19th: LLMs and Probabilistic Reasoning Handout: Handout 13-1.
  • Read: Mitchell: Can Large Language Models Reason?
  • Read: Mitchell: The LLM Reasoning Debate Heats Up
    WEEK ELEVEN (Week of November 10th, 2025)
    Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment Tuesday.

    Monday, November 10th: More on Evidence-For and Independence Wednesday, November 12th: The Final Part of the Evidence-For Lemma, Evidence-For and Argument Maps, LLMs
    WEEK TEN (Week of November 3rd, 2025)
    Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment Thursday and Friday.

    Monday, November 3rd: Bayes' Theorem Wednesday, November 5th: More on Bayes' Theorem
    WEEK NINE (Week of October 27, 2025)
    Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment Tuesday.

    Monday, October 27th: Logic and Probability Truth Tables
    • Handout 9-1.
    • Midterm Solutions
    • Read: Odds and Ends, Chapter 2. Some of the chapter will be review from the first half of class; other concepts will be new. Recall that "validity" is what we called "truth-preservation." What the chapter calls "propositions" is what we've been calling "statements."
    • Read: Odds and Ends, Chapter 3. Concentrate on the basic concept in each subsection. It is okay if you don't follow the more complicated parts.
    Wednesday, October 29th: Practicing Conditional Probability

    WEEK EIGHT (Week of October 20, 2025)
    Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment Tuesday.

    Monday, October 20th:
    • MIDTERM ONE, 5:45-7:00 (exam designed to be taken in 1 hour or less.)
    Wednesday, October 22nd: Base Rates.
    WEEK SEVEN (Week of October 13, 2025)
    Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment Tuesday.

    Monday, October 13th:
    • Review Problem Set
    Wednesday, October 15th:
    • Practice Midterm. See handouts above in "Exams" section for practice midterm and solutions! The actual midterm will be this same format. Writing Assignment Part 1 Due.
    WEEK SIX (Week of October 6, 2025)
    Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:00pm-4:00pm in the department and on zoom, and by appointment Tuesday.

    Monday, October 6th: Wednesday, October 8th: NO CLASS.
    WEEK FIVE (Week of September 29, 2025) Problem Set 1 Due Wed Oct 1 at 5:40pm, in class or on Canvas.
    Office Hours: Monday 1:30-3:00pm on zoom, and by appointment.

    Monday, September 29th:
    • Topic: Beyond Truth-Preservation -- Informal Argument Mapping
    • Handout: LRP Handout 5-1
    Wednesday, October 1st:
    WEEK FOUR (Week of September 22, 2025) Problem Set 1 Posted: PSET 1

    Extra Office Hours This Week:
    • 3:00pm-5:00pm, Wed Sep 24. In Person, Philosophy Department, 527.
    • 7:30pm-9:00pm, Wed Sep 24. In Person, Philosophy Department, 527, and on zoom.
    • 10:00am-12:00pm, Fri Sep 26, on zoom.
    I can also meet, by appointment (email me), on zoom. But please try to make one of the other times before emailing me!

    Monday, September 22nd:
    • Topic: Even More Truth-Preservation: Review and Translation.
    • Read before class: Handout 4-1
    Wednesday, September 24th:
    • Topic: The Gluestick Machine, Normative Logic Machines, The Aylsworth and Castro Argument.
    WEEK THREE (Week of September 15, 2025) Monday, September 15th: Wednesday, September 17th:
    • Topic: More Truth-Preservation
    • No new reading, but review Handout
    WEEK TWO (Week of September 8, 2025 Monday, September 8th: Wednesday, September 10th:
    • Topic: Premises, Conclusions, Positions, and Arguments.
    • Read before class: Aylsworth and Castro
      • re-read §1 "Introduction" and §2.1, "No, because it would be cheating", including the footnotes. You don't have to read §2 before §2.1 (most of pages 3-4).
      • Handout for Class: Week 2-2 Handout.
      • Answers to Exit Quiz (note: the order might not have been the same on your sheet):
        • "48 Products that might just make you the happiest traveler on the globe": Not a statement. This is just a very long noun.
        • "Can I guess your favorite Taylor Swift album based ONLY on your ideal fall day?" : Not a statement. This is a question. If we made it "I can guess your favorite Taylor Swift album based ONLY on your ideal fall day," this would be a statement.
        • "An 87-year-old New Yorker outwitted a scammer, and the Internet is absolutely obsessed": Is a statement.
        • "Anthony Bourdain's hiiiighly specific Trump critique is going viral again": Is a statement.
    WEEK ONE (Week of September 1, 2025) Wednesday, September 3rd:
    • Topic: Introduction to the course!
    • Pre-reading: syllabus.
    • Get ahead: read (or begin reading): Aylsworth and Castro.

    OVERALL SCHEDULE

    Week 1: Introduction

    • 0.1 Week 1 (Sep 03): Introduction Wednesday Sep 3.

    Weeks 2-8: Deductive Reasoning

    • 1.1 Week 2 (Sep 08, 10): How to figure out what an argument is doing.
    • 1.2 Week 3 (Sep 15, Sep 17): Identifying different types of argument
    • 1.3 Week 4 (Sep 22, Sep 24): Evaluating the strength of an argument
    • 1.4 Week 5 (Sep 29, Oct 01): Evaluating larger arguments.
      • PSet 1 due Wed Oct 01
    • 1.5 Week 6 (Oct 06, Oct 08): Evaluating larger arguments, part 2.
    • 1.6 Week 7 (Oct 13, Oct 15): Deciding How to Engage with an Argument
      • Midterm Review Oct 15
      • Writing Assignment Part 1 Due Wed Oct 15
    • 1.C Week 8 (Oct 20, Oct 22): Midterm and Review.
      • Midterm 1 Mon Oct 20
      • Introduction to Inductive Reasoning: Base Rates

    Weeks 9-15: Inductive Reasoning

    • 2.1 Week 9 (Oct 27, Oct 29): Evidence
    • 2.2 Week 10 (Nov 03, Nov 05)
      • Writing Assignment Part 2 Due Variable Dates This Week and Next
    • 2.3 Week 11 (Nov 10, Nov 12)
    • 2.4 Week 12 (Nov 17, Nov 19)
    • 2.5 Week 13 (Nov 24, Nov 26) (Friday Classes Nov 26)
      • [catch-up day Nov 24]
      • Pset 2 due Wed Nov 26
    • 2.6 Week 14 (Dec 01, Dec 03)
    • 2.C Week 15 (Dec 08, Dec 10)
      • Midterm 2 Mon Dec 08

    Rutgers — New Brunswick
    Department of Philosophy
    106 Somerset St, 5th Floor
    New Brunswick, NJ 08901


    © 2026 Adrian Liu