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Logic and Philosophy: A Modern Introduction

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This text is designed for readers desiring a comprehensive introduction to formal logic that is both rigorous and accessible to those encountering the subject for the first time. Abundant carefully crafted exercise sets accompanied by a clear, engaging exposition give readers a firm grasp of basic concepts, which build to an exploration of sentential logic, first-order predicate logic, the theory of descriptions, and identity. As the title suggests, this is a book devoted not merely to logic; readers will also examine the philosophical debates that led to the development of the field.

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

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About the author

Alan Hausman

14 books

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Profile Image for Happy Reader.
434 reviews14 followers
April 9, 2008
This was the best intro textbook that I encountered during the time that I taught introductory symbolic logic. If I were to teach logic again, I would definitely look at the latest edition of this text.

The advantage over other intro symbolic logic texts is that it requires students to understand what they are doing in order to do proofs. (The previous textbook I used, not one that I chose but one that I was required to teach from, only taught students to crank through proofs and did not emphasize the ideas at all.)
Profile Image for Erik Graff.
5,170 reviews1,468 followers
June 22, 2011
This was the textbook for the one and only course I was assigned to teach while a T.A. at Loyola University Chicago. Comments about that are included in the review of the Instructor's Manual for Logic and Philosophy. About this particular introductory text I have no particular feelings. Naturally, I preferred the Tapscott text used when, a couple of years prior, I was introducted to symbolic logic.

Profile Image for Keith.
2 reviews
May 11, 2010
After taking a college intro course in logic I was eager to learn more. This book was a wonderful introduction to symbolic logic, and I was able to get through most of the sentential logic section (first half of the book) over break. It's full of exercises, and it explains how to do things step by step. If you want to study symbolic logic on your own, then I recommend this book.
Profile Image for Sarah Schoonmaker.
7 reviews3 followers
April 4, 2012
This book was most helpful to me learning symbolic logic. The explanations and examples are pretty clear compared to most other logic books.
Profile Image for Gil.
10 reviews
December 16, 2012
it was a nice book for the course. easy to read. truly made the concepts easy to understand. without it, i dont think i would have gotten the grade i did in Logic.
Profile Image for Alistair.
88 reviews103 followers
July 7, 2021
I bought this some while ago. An old girlfriend who was more into mathematical logic was more the inspiration behind me getting this.


In progress

Contents

Preface



Chapter One:Introduction
1. The Elements of an Argument - 1
2. Deduction and Induction - 4
3. Argument Forms - 6
4. Truth and Validity - 8
5. Soundness - 11
6. Consistency - 11
7. Consistency and Validity Compared - 12
8. Contexts of Discovery and Justification - 14
Key Terms - 15

Chapter Two: Truth-Functions - Page 16
1. Atomic and Compound Sentences - 16
2. Truth-Functions - 17
3. Conjunctions - 18
4. Variables and Constants - 20
5. Negations - 21
6. Parentheses and Brackets - 23
7. Disjunctions - 24
8. "Not Both" and "Neither...Nor" - 27
9. Material Conditionals - 29
10. Material Biconditionals - 31
11. "Only If" and "Unless" - 33
12. Symbolizing Complex Sentences - 35
Key Terms - 41

Chapter Three: Truth Tables - Page 43
1. Computing Truth-Values - 43
2. Tautologies, Contradictions, and Contingent Sentences - 48
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Chapter Four: Proofs
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Chapter Five: Conditional and Indirect Proofs - 108
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews

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