Why do we teach what we teach in logic?
“...how come we learn Boolean logic but not Pearlean causation or even probability theory; how come you should expect a philosophy major to know set theory, but not computational complexity theory? Answer: because philosophers are a bunch of cliquey highschoolers.” “I think there are "scaffolding" problems with most philosophy major curricula that are also in the way. We see this with the way that basic logic is taught with classical logic as the default. Departments are responsible for providing something like a "well-rounded" philosophy education, and for the most part departments scaffold their courses so that what students learn coheres with what they'll need to understand to advance their understanding of philosophical texts in a wide variety of areas. Basic classical logic makes sense to emphasize and teach from this perspective, and "innovations" are put off "until later." Usually to graduate study or to advanced courses (if one's department has the faculty and student demand to run them). I've seen individual faculty introduce "innovations" (Probability theory, Relevance Logics) beautifully -- it CAN BE DONE -- but departments as a whole in such cases need to capitalize more on why changing basic logic curricula helps students. It's a tough road to travel.” “I think it's also partly historical: deductive reasoning (and hence formal logic) is something that philosophers have been studying for a very long time - in part because of the fascination with valid arguments, and in part because it's obvious what there is. But probability theory (or decision theory, or Bayesianism, etc.) is much more slippery - it developed later, and so philosophical teaching hasn't really caught up with it.” “With reference to [the second] comment, I've also seen individual innovations in teaching non-classical logic to first year students (instead of as a second course in logic). For example, there's Eric Schechter's book "Classical & Nonclassical Logics" (Princeton University Press, 2005) which teaches classical and then non-classical logic at the propositional level, and Diderik Batens' paper "Propositional logic extended with a pedagogically useful relevant implication", which is about teaching relevant logic to undergrads. But for the most part, classical logic still dominates first-year courses, and I've never actually seen a course in which first-years are exposed to non-classical logic.” Diderik Batens' paper: http://apcz.pl/czasopisma/index.php/LLP/article/view/1604 An argument for metalogic in basic logic courses: http://logicae.usal.es/TICTTL/actas/GabrielaHernandez.pdf From: https://www.facebook.com/groups/124530507743865/permalink/367161246814122/