Logic < University of California, Berkeley

This is an archived copy of the 2019-20 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.

Spring 2020 COVID-19 Measures

About the Program

Logical reasoning is essential in most areas of human inquiry. The discipline of Logic treats logical reasoning itself as an object of study. Logic has been one of the main branches of philosophy since Aristotle; it revolutionized the foundations of mathematics in the 20th century; and it has been called “the calculus of computer science,” with applications in many areas. Logic has also played an important role in the investigation of language and the mind, as the basis for formal semantics in linguistics and automated reasoning in artificial intelligence. With these interdisciplinary connections, Logic serves as a bridge between the humanities and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields. Studying logic enhances students’ abilities to reason and argue rigorously, to read and write analytically, to discern patterns amidst complexity, and to understand abstract structures. The Logic Minor (offered through the Philosophy Department) consists of three core courses in symbolic logic, which may be pursued in parallel tracks within Philosophy or Mathematics, plus a choice of three upper division electives from an array of courses in Philosophy, Mathematics, Linguistics, and Computer Science.

Visit Department Website

Minor Requirements

The Logic Minor at Berkeley consists of three core courses in symbolic logic, which may be pursued in parallel tracks within Philosophy or Mathematics, plus a choice of three upper division electives from a list of courses across Philosophy, Mathematics, Linguistics, and Computer Science.

All minors must be declared no later than one semester before a student's Expected Graduation Term (EGT). If the semester before EGT is fall or spring, the deadline is the last day of RRR week. If the semester before EGT is summer, the deadline is the final Friday of Summer Sessions. To declare a minor, contact the department advisor for information on requirements, and the declaration process.

Course Requirements for Logic Minors

Course List
Code	Title	Units
Introductory
PHILOS 12A	Introduction to Logic ¹	4
or MATH 55	Discrete Mathematics
Mathematical Logic
PHILOS 140A	Intermediate Logic	4
or MATH 125A	Mathematical Logic
Computability and Logic
PHILOS 140B	Intermediate Logic ²	4
or MATH 136	Incompleteness and Undecidability
Electives: Choose Three		10-12
At least two of these electives must be at the undergraduate level (unless an exception is granted by petition to the Logic Minor Committee). Note also that undergraduate enrollment in graduate seminars requires the consent of the instructor.

COMPSCI 172	Computability and Complexity [4]
LINGUIS 121	Formal Semantics [4] ³
LINGUIS 221	Advanced Formal Semantics I [3]
MATH 135	Introduction to the Theory of Sets [4]
MATH 225A & MATH 225B	Metamathematics and Metamathematics
MATH 227A	Theory of Recursive Functions [4]
MATH 229	Theory of Models [4]
MATH 235A	Theory of Sets [4]
MATH 236	Metamathematics of Set Theory [4]
PHILOS 134	Form and Meaning [4]
PHILOS 142	Philosophical Logic [4]
PHILOS 143	Modal Logic [4]
PHILOS 146	Philosophy of Mathematics [4]
PHILOS 149	Special Topics in Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics [4]
PHILOS 290	Seminar [3] ⁴
Students may optionally fulfill (at most) one of their electives with a course on related formal methods and reasoning, or other courses approved by petition: PHILOS 141, PHILOS 148, and COMPSCI 188.

Please note that PHILOS 140A and PHILOS 140B are typically not offered in the same academic year, but rather in alternate years. Also note that MATH 125A and MATH 136 may have additional prerequisites, determined by the instructor.

LINGUIS 121 requires LINGUIS 120 as a prerequisite.

The Logic Minor Committee will decide which instances of PHILOS 290 count as “Graduate Seminars in Logic” for the Logic Minor.

Please note: It is a policy of the College of Letters & Sciences that no more than one upper-division course may be included in both your minor and major program.

Faculty and Instructors

+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

Lara Buchak, Associate Professor. Game theory, decision theory, epistemology, philosophy of religion.
Research Profile

Wesley H. Holliday, Associate Professor. Philosophy, logic.
Research Profile

John Macfarlane, Professor. Ancient philosophy, philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology.
Research Profile

Paolo Mancosu, Professor. Philosophy, philosophy of mathematics and its history, philosophy of logic, mathematical logic.
Research Profile

Antonio Montalban, Associate Professor. Mathematical logic.
Research Profile

George Necula, Assistant Professor. Software engineering, programming systemsm, security, program analysis.
Research Profile

Stuart Russell, Professor. Artificial intelligence, computational biology, algorithms, machine learning, real-time decision-making, probabilistic reasoning.
Research Profile

Thomas Scanlon, Professor. Mathematics, model theory, applications to number theory.
Research Profile

Sanjit Seshia, Associate Professor. Electronic design automation, theory, computer security, program analysis, dependable computing, computational logic, formal methods.
Research Profile

Theodore A. Slaman, Professor. Mathematics, recursion theory.
Research Profile

Hans Sluga, Professor. Political philosophy, recent European philosophy, history of analytic philosophy, Frege, Wittgenstein, Foucault.
Research Profile

John Steel, Professor. Mathematics, descriptive set theory, set theory, fine structure.
Research Profile

Umesh Vazirani, Professor. Quantum computation, hamiltonian complexity, analysis of algorithms.
Research Profile

Seth Yalcin, Associate Professor. Philosophy of language, logic, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, semantics, metaphysics.
Research Profile

Emeritus Faculty

John W. Addison, Professor Emeritus. Mathematics, theory of definability, descriptive set theory, model theory, recursive function theory.
Research Profile

Robert Anderson, Professor Emeritus. Finance, probability theory, mathematical economics, nonstandard analysis.
Research Profile

Charles S. Chihara, Professor Emeritus.

Alan D. Code, Professor Emeritus.

Leo A. Harrington, Professor Emeritus. Mathematics, model theory, recursion theory, set theory.
Research Profile

+ Richard Karp, Professor Emeritus. Computational molecular biology, genomics, DNA molecules, structure of genetic regulatory networks, combinatorial and statsitical methods.
Research Profile

Paul Kay, Professor Emeritus. Linguistics, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, pragmatics, syntax, semantics, lexicon, grammar, color naming, lexical semantics, grammatical variation, cross-language color naming, the encoding of contextual relations in rules of grammar.
Research Profile

Ralph N. McKenzie, Professor Emeritus. Mathematics, logic, universal algebra, general algebra, lattice theory.
Research Profile

W. Hugh Woodin, Professor Emeritus. Mathematics, set theory, large cardinals.
Research Profile

Lotfi A. Zadeh, Professor Emeritus. Artificial intelligence, linguistics, control theory, logic, fuzzy sets, decision analysis, expert systems neural networks, soft computing, computing with words, computational theory of perceptions and precisiated natural language.
Research Profile