A Concise Introduction to Logic is an introduction to formal logic suitable for undergraduates taking a general education course in logic or critical thinking, and is accessible and useful to any interested in gaining a basic understanding of logic. This text takes the unique approach of teaching logic through intellectual history; the author uses examples from important and celebrated arguments in philosophy to illustrate logical principles.
The text also includes a basic introduction to findings of advanced logic. As indicators of where the student could go next with logic, the book closes with an overview of advanced topics, such as the axiomatic method, set theory, Peano arithmetic, and modal logic. Throughout, the text uses brief, concise chapters that readers will find easy to read and to review.
Table of Contents
Part I: Propositional Logic
- 1. Developing a Precise Language
- 2. “If…then….” and “It is not the case that….”
- 3. Good Arguments
- 4. Proofs
- 5. “And”
- 6. Conditional Derivations
- 7. “Or”
- 8. Reductio ad Absurdum
- 9. “… if and only if …”, Using Theorems
- 10. Summary of Propositional Logic
Part II: First Order Logic
- 11. Names and predicates
- 12. “All” and “some”
- 13. Reasoning with quantifiers
- 14. Universal derivation
- 15. Relations, functions, identity, and multiple quantifiers
- 16. Summary of first order logic
Part III: A Look Forward
- 17. Some advanced topics in logic
About the Contributors
Author
Craig DeLancey is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at SUNY Oswego. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University. His publications include Passionate Engines: What Emotions Reveal about the Mind and Artificial Intelligence, with Oxford University Press. He has been a fellow of the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, a fellow of the National Endowment of the Humanities, and has received research funding from the Army Institute of Basic Research. When not teaching philosophy or doing research, he writes science fiction.