Product Description

With the same intellectual goals as the first edition, this innovative introductory logic textbook explores the relationship between natural language and logic, motivating the student to acquire skills and techniques of formal logic. This new and revised edition includes substantial additions which make the text even more useful to students and instructors alike. Central to these changes is an Appendix, ′How to Learn Logic′, which takes the student through fourteen compact and sharply directed lessons with exercises and answers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #288515 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
"The book is truly comprehensive, detailed and lucid throughout; in fact it is one of the friendliest introductions to logic I have ever read." Nimrod Bar–Am, Tel Aviv University

From the Back Cover
Logic is, and has always been, an essential part of philosophy. It employs concepts which are crucial for understanding thought and language, and demands a mastery of procedures and techniques. With the same intellectual goals as the first edition, this innovative introductory logic textbook explores the relationship between natural language and logic, motivating the student to acquire skills and techniques of formal logic.

This new and revised edition includes substantial additions which make the text even more useful to students and instructors alike. Central to these changes is an Appendix, ′How to Learn Logic′, which takes the student through fourteen compact and sharply directed lessons with exercises and answers. Other new material includes a discussion of the truth tree method for both Sentential and Predicate logics, an account of alternative notations, and the provision of answers to selected exercises that figure in the main body of the book.

About the Author
Samuel Guttenplan is Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has published widely in the areas of logic, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language and is editor of A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind (Blackwell Publishers, 1994).

Customer Reviews

Basic, Brief and Clear
This is a beautiful introduction to Logic. There are many examples and the reader is encouraged to think!! I use this book with great success among philosophy students taking their first ever course on symbolic logic.

I strongly recomend it!

mind the gap
I am working my way through this book on my own. I have briefly studied a little logic before.

Generally the explanations are excellent and easy to understand. However, there are occasions where Guttenplan makes a leap with a throwaway such as 'as it can be seen' when it can't without further explanation.

At one point I thought that I was going to have to give up but the book is structured in a strange way. After the conventional chapters there is a series of lessons - I don't really understand why. I found the answer to my problem here and I hope that if I get stuck again the relevant lesson will help.

I got hold of this book as further reading suggested by another volume. I did get stuck with that one, so thank goodness for this.

The reader is given a thorough grounding in manipulating symbols before moving on to 'real' problems. To some this may be a little tedious but I think that it builds confidence. I became stuck on the previous book because I got to a stage where I could not handle the so called real problems and, again, because there were too many gaps.

To anyone wanting to study alone, this is probably the best you will find.

One small gripe...
This is a great introduction to the subject with clear examples and useful exercises to confirm the grasp of the subject. My one small gripe is that Guttenplan tries to over-simplify some elements to the point where they mean very little. Basic logic, like maths, is a process that you either understand or you don't. No amount of "putting it another way..." really helps with that understanding. Even so, I haven't yet found a better book on the subject.