Dave Barker

The past twenty years have witnessed extensive collaborative research between computer scientists, logicians, linguists, philosophers, and psychologists. These interdisciplinary studies stem from the realization that researchers drawn from all fields are studying the same problem. Specifically, a common concern amongst researchers today is how logic sheds light on the nature of information. Ancient questions concerning how humans communicate, reason and decide, and modern questions about how computers should communicate, reason and decide are of prime interest to researchers in various disciplines. _Words, Proofs and Diagrams_ is a collection of papers covering active research areas at the interface of logic, computer science, and linguistics. Readers of the volume will find traditional research on process logics, issues in formal semantics, and language processing. In addition, the volume also highlights a particularly new area where all three disciplines meet—the study of images and graphics as information carriers and the diagrammatic reasoning supported by them.

The Hyperproof courseware package teaches the principles of analytical reasoning and proof construction using a carefully crafted combination of a textbook, desktop applications and online materials. Unlike traditional formal treatments of reasoning, the Hyperproof approach uses both graphical and sentential representations of information. This reflects common situations in everyday reasoning which involve information expressed in many forms, such as finding your way to a location using a map and an address, or interpreting a newspaper story involving both text and a graphic. Using Hyperproof the student learns to construct proofs of both consequence and non-consequence using an intuitive proof system which extends standard treatments of proof with sentential, graphical and heterogeneous inference rules. The approach allows students to focus on the content of proofs, rather than on the syntactic structure of formal sentences. Proofs of consistency and inconsistency as well as independence proofs may also be constructed in the system. The desktop application can be used to check the logical validity of all of the different types of proof. The Hyperproof courseware package contains more than 300 exercises, of which more than 250 can assessed by the Grade Grinder online assessment service. The courseware is supported by an extensive web site through which students and instructors can access online video lectures by the authors. Instructors also have the ability to create their own exercises for assessment and access to assessments of the work submitted by their students. Hyperproof builds on the Tarski s World and Language, Proof and Logic courseware packages from the same authors. The material in these packages can be combined to create a variety of different courses, or incorporate as engaging components of courses that teach logical reasoning, including formal linguistics, philosophy, mathematics, and computer science. "

__Language Proof and Logic_ is available as a physical book with the software included on CD and as a downloadable package of software plus the book in PDF format. The all-electronic version is available from Openproof at ggweb.stanford.edu._ The textbook/software package covers first-order language in a method appropriate for first and second courses in logic. An on-line grading services instantly grades solutions to hundred of computer exercises. It is designed to be used by philosophy instructors teaching a logic course to undergraduates in philosophy, computer science, mathematics, and linguistics. Introductory material is presented in a systematic and accessible fashion. Advanced chapters include proofs of soundness and completeness for propositional and predicate logic, as well as an accessible sketch of Godel's first incompleteness theorem. The book is appropriate for a wide range of courses, from first logic courses for undergraduates to a first graduate logic course. The software package includes four programs: Tarski's World 5.0, a new version of the popular program that teaches the basic first-order language and its semantics; Fitch, a natural deduction proof environment for giving and checking first-order proofs; Boole, a program that facilitates the construction and checking of truth tables and related notions ; Submit, a program that allows students to submit exercises done with the above programs to the Grade Grinder, the automatic grading service. Grade reports are returned to the student and, if requested, to the student's instructor, eliminating the need for tedious checking of homework. All programs are available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux systems. Instructors do not need to use the programs themselves in order to be able to take advantage of their pedagogical value. More about the software can be found at lpl.stanford.edu. The price of a new text/software package includes one Registration ID, which must be used each time work is submitted to the grading service. Once activated, the Registration ID is not transferable.