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Product Description
Logic for Philosophy is an introduction to logic for students of contemporary philosophy. It is suitable both for advanced undergraduates and for beginning graduate students in philosophy. It covers (i) basic approaches to logic, including proof theory and especially model theory, (ii) extensions of standard logic that are important in philosophy, and (iii) some elementary philosophy of logic. It emphasizes breadth rather than depth. For example, it discusses modal logic and counterfactuals, but does not prove the central metalogical results for predicate logic (completeness, undecidability, etc.) Its goal is to introduce students to the logic they need to know in order to read contemporary philosophical work. It is very user-friendly for students without an extensive background in mathematics. In short, this book gives you the understanding of logic that you need to do philosophy.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've been looking for something like this for ages. I'm a PhD student who works with logic a lot (my thesis is formal semantics/philosophy of language etc) but I'm not a logician and I'm certainly not a mathematician. There are lots of introductory logic texts out there which cater to non-mathematicians (I like Paul Tomassi's) but I've always lamented the fact that doing any further logic meant reading books written for people with a maths background. This book is written with people like me in mind. It's not patronizing; it's sometimes slow going, but where it is hard work, it's hard because the material is tough, not because you have to learn to "speak maths" before you can read it.
It covers metalogic including soundness and completeness proofs; It'll teach you the basics of model theory and set theory; and it's great for semantics of predicate logic. It also includes a detailed section on modal logics. Then it covers non-classical logics (including Graham Priest's paraconsistent system).
If I had to come up with a criticism, it would be that the set theory section could be more detailed. It doesn't go into any axiom systems, for example. It does give you a nice version of Cantor's diagonalization proof though. Still, this isn't a set theory text; it just gives you what you need to handle the set theoretic notation that comes up through the rest of the book and on that score, it is excellent. Halmos's "Naive Set Theory" is already really accessible so if you're looking for more on set theory go there (although that doesn't cover axiom systems either, as the name suggests).
In short, this book is an accessible way to teach yourself all the logic you need for post-grad work in metaphysics or any area of philosophy where you need some technical knowledge without needing to be an all-out logician. It has exercises and answers and walks you through the construction of the various proofs in clear and concise English. Thank you Theodore Sider!
It covers metalogic including soundness and completeness proofs; It'll teach you the basics of model theory and set theory; and it's great for semantics of predicate logic. It also includes a detailed section on modal logics. Then it covers non-classical logics (including Graham Priest's paraconsistent system).
If I had to come up with a criticism, it would be that the set theory section could be more detailed. It doesn't go into any axiom systems, for example. It does give you a nice version of Cantor's diagonalization proof though. Still, this isn't a set theory text; it just gives you what you need to handle the set theoretic notation that comes up through the rest of the book and on that score, it is excellent. Halmos's "Naive Set Theory" is already really accessible so if you're looking for more on set theory go there (although that doesn't cover axiom systems either, as the name suggests).
In short, this book is an accessible way to teach yourself all the logic you need for post-grad work in metaphysics or any area of philosophy where you need some technical knowledge without needing to be an all-out logician. It has exercises and answers and walks you through the construction of the various proofs in clear and concise English. Thank you Theodore Sider!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Excellent and comprehensive
29 Dec 2010
Format:Paperback
I took Ted Sider's class at NYU, for which we used this book as the text. It is really an excellent intro to logic -- accessible without scrimping on technical details. It is also very comprehensive for a single-volume logic intro, covering many of the varieties of logic that are found in contemporary analytic philosophy.
Some caveats: firstly, this book is indeed an "intro" to some less-than-standard logics, but it is not an "intro" generally, and it really falls more squarely in the category of "intermediate" difficulty (filling a rather gaping hole in the available literature, between bare introduction and technical jungle). Readers looking for a purely beginning introduction to formal logic should look elsewhere (there is an abundance of good material at that level). Secondly, the purpose of the book is quite clearly to provide the technical equipment required for a working knowledge of certain logic-heavy areas of philosophy, and this book is not aimed particularly toward, say, mathematicians. That said, as an overview aimed at providing a solid groundwork for understanding the many flavors of logic one encounters in philosophical writing, it is probably the best book you can get, in my humble opinion. A solid second-place goes to that two-volume series by LTF Gamut, which is also quite widely available, and shares many of the same merits as this.
Some caveats: firstly, this book is indeed an "intro" to some less-than-standard logics, but it is not an "intro" generally, and it really falls more squarely in the category of "intermediate" difficulty (filling a rather gaping hole in the available literature, between bare introduction and technical jungle). Readers looking for a purely beginning introduction to formal logic should look elsewhere (there is an abundance of good material at that level). Secondly, the purpose of the book is quite clearly to provide the technical equipment required for a working knowledge of certain logic-heavy areas of philosophy, and this book is not aimed particularly toward, say, mathematicians. That said, as an overview aimed at providing a solid groundwork for understanding the many flavors of logic one encounters in philosophical writing, it is probably the best book you can get, in my humble opinion. A solid second-place goes to that two-volume series by LTF Gamut, which is also quite widely available, and shares many of the same merits as this.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Too much and too little
27 Sep 2011
Format:Paperback
First let me say that the writing in this book is terrifically clear. The presentation of logical material is really good and the author hits all the right notes in the philosophical asides that show up now and again. Depending on your background this book could be a worthwhile read. So why only three stars? My complaint is that this book is superfluous. Let me explain. The aim of this book is to provide an introduction to more advanced topics in logic, especially those that are of interest to philosophers. As such the book covers a tremendous amount of material including some basic metalogic for propositional and predicate logic, modal propositional logic, quantified modal logic, tense logic, deontic logic, three valued-logic, intuitionistic logic... you get the picture. And it manages all this in a rather skimpy 280 pages. As a result the coverage of each of these topics is very cursory. This means that, to my mind, any student who wants to really understand any of these topics is going to have to read some more thoroughly presented material anyway. So why not just read the thorough material in the first place, rather than this book. The flip-side of this problem is that the book is not particularly introductory. That is to say, if you can read Sider's book and understand it, you can probably read and understand many of the other logic texts out there. So, though the book is supposed to be an introduction to advanced logic, it is neither sufficiently introductory to justify its brevity, nor sufficiently detailed to justify its advanced presentation.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Excellent Intermediate Logic Textbook
23 Jan 2011
Format:Paperback
I highly recommend this book for intermediate/advanced logic classes in philosophy, as well as any philosopher interested in brushing up on fundamentals. Sider's presentation of soundness and completeness proofs for various logics is clearer and easier to understand than anything else I've encountered.
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