Logic: A Very Short Introduction New Ed Edition

Logic ReviewThis book changed my life. It was like knowledge medicine. It helped me eliminate a lot of what I don't want and acquire more of what I want. I'll comment on how I discovered the book and what was helpful in reading it.'A review, a positive review, was what helped me get this book. Reviews have been a huge toxic source of accumulating clutter and junk. A good review of something bad. This was not the case. This was a great review of something invaluable.In that review, the person suggested to reread sections and normally I just try to get through material as quickly as possibly for the reward finishing it. However, with this book I realized it was extremely well-written, I liked the author, and most importantly I had saught to have knowledge of and to understand the content for a very long time, many years, but had never had a good resource, the focus and/or the time. I had the time, I had the focus, and this book was the resource to learn logic and it's remarkable in that.Some closing points. The length. This book is almost like a reference it has so much information it it. Yes it is pitted or depicted as merely an introduction, but it's more than that and more useful than a reference. It has all the useless "bloat" writing eliminated from it. I would never have udnerstood logical notation (and am still very much a novice in understanding that notation but rereading parts of this book will assist in increasing understanding of notation and savviness with notation). I'm on chapter 11 currently andit's one of the few books I encountered where I can FOCUS and READ it and think about it and it was rewarding to do so. So many other books are just disgusting fart-bloat-hype, where the author thinks of something catchy and the author puts that on a cover or subtitle and peopel buy it. If you think about that non-logic stuff (non-math, non-computer science stuff), I get angry. An example is the "Four Agreeements". Horrible book and anyone who likes that book is not a friend. "Four Agreements" is generalized "tenets" written for the illogical status quo, pop culture, throng herd masses; it's useless drivel. The anti-thesis to that book is this book, a highly useful book of logic! All the four agreements can be refuted (you have to make assumptions at times for logical reasons).This book helped me move forward in my life. I achieved minimalism goals; it helped me accomplish things more efficiently. I am glad this book wasn't sold/marketed as a "User Manual for the Mind" because that would have been hoakey and would have brought the wrong (non-logical, pop culture, rubbish) audience, but it does help you use your mind more sharply.This book did help me learn somethign I love: logic. I will be rereading parts of it. The length is perfect. It's not some big technical book that's impossible to read. But it's very thorough and comprenensive. I could easily see how each chapter coudl be a book in itself but it's written so well and so clearly that is unnecessary and each chapter has tons of information (and moves comprehensively and doesn't need supplementary books, too).It covers all the notation mainly. I can alwasy refer back to that and I have it in electronic format so I can access it from anywhere, from any device.If this was longer with more explanations and examples and exercises I wouldn't have gotten throuhg it and I wouldn't have learned the logic and logical notation. I am very interested in revisiting parts of the book and because it's so concise, that will be enjoyable; this would not be the case of it were excessively long.I am in the process of writing a book where I provide protection for logical fallacies (which will be released on amazon.com and/or my site(s)) and this is congruent with that learning and writing.The brevity and the thoroughness makes it desireable to read, want to finish it, and possible to finish it.Other books would have been too long annd thus not helfpul. This book was helpful.Not merely a reference - comprehensive and thorough - but concise enough to be used as a reference.Short and great explanations.No other way to learn logic.I will reread sections and refer back to this; it may be the only book on logic I may ever need and def will likey be my main (if only, because it's so complete) on this field that has become so meaningful: logic!

It's absolutely incredible. How is it possible to teach a great amount of knowledge and understanding in a so short and accurate way. Moreover the approach of logic is so friendly that you can read it with pleasure from a to z.Chapters 14 and 15 are very hard to understand because the text is very summarized. Each word is important. I had to read it many times and use other books to make sure I understood.This book is both very condensed and very deep. You really need to reread it. I really like this style of books where every word is precious.

Logic is hard to teach, very likely because - pace Aristotle's contention that humans are the rational animal - most people just don't naturally think that way. Which, of course, is a good reason to learn logic to begin with (just like it's good to learn the basics of probability theory, despite, indeed because, of the fact that most people are intuitively really bad at probabilities - witness the success of the gambling industry). I must admit that when I was reading Graham's book (he is a colleague at the City University of New York where I also work) my first reaction was that he was taking an unusual and not necessarily easy path in his little introduction to logic. But the more I read the more I, ahem, saw the logic of his way of structuring the subject matter, and I think it actually works quite well in the end. The book does not give the reader the impression that everything is settled in logic. On the contrary, practically every chapter ends with a twist that softens some of the conclusions just reached, along the lines of "yes, but have you considered..." Graham's spefici field in logic has to do with paradoxes and what is called paraconsistency, and you will find quite a few references to the former subject (though not the latter, which is too technical for this level of treatment). Throughout the book you will also - amusingly, I thought - encounter several proofs of the existence of god, together with a clear explanation of why they run afoul of one or another principle of logic (i.e., they don't work). The last chapter is about further readings, but don't skip it, as it also offers an interesting little history of the field, which helps the reader put everything else s/he has read so far into the broader perspective of the human quest for knowledge about what makes and does not make sense to say about the world.

È un testo denso, solo apparentemente agevole.Richiedi molta ponderazione per seguire il percorso dell'autore, dialeteista e noneista.Consigliato specie per chi ha una certa preparazione in campo logico, e inclina verso le posizioni dell'autore.Consegna puntuale.

Esse livro realmente me ajudou muito a entender tanto o valor da lógica como os seus limites e as pontas soltas no estudo do tema. A dificuldade de leitura do livro é a dificuldade do tema. Eu senti que o autor se esforça mesmo em tornar as coisas simples, mas jamais perde o rigor e a precisão nas explicações. Eu recomendo fortemente a leitura para os interessados!

This book is really good, if you are interested in logic. Otherwise you have to read it slowly or some chapters even twice. All chapters are very short, sometime you feel it could have been explained in detail. I enjoyed it. Author provides examples which are easy to understand for beginners.

Very happy with this book. Have not read all of it yet, but from what I have read it is a very clear account of logic for beginners or those studying philosophy at the undergrad level.

This is a very compressed introduction to logic which has a more philosophical scope in its applications. However, it contains valuable information of what constitutes a mathematical proof, the original motivation of symbolic logic or mathematical logic. It is not, perhaps like any other introduction to logic, aimed at the lazy reader.