Introduction to Logic

Rating:
Summary: This is the Logic textbook to keep!
Review: After comparing many good logic textbooks, I choose this one as my textbook for my class. From fallacies to Mill's methods, this book presents a well-organized view on each single subject. The only minor problem I have with the book is the way the rules of inference are presented. Nonetheless, this book is still one of the best textbook. The exercises are challenging and practical. Certainly, students should do more when time permits. There are many textbooks you won't miss after you graduate from college. But, this one you will like to keep to graduate school or professional school, and even to your work place.

Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: All I can do is echo the many enthusiastic reviews this book has already received. Copi covers a wide array of logics, formal and informal, classical and modern, and demonstrates their applications using real-life examples drawn from science, political journalism, and the law. He is lucid, nuanced, and insightful. Reading this remarkable textbook is the equivalent of taking introductory courses in symbolic logic, rhetoric, philosophy of science, and legal reasoning. I learned more from this one book than from an entire year at UC Berkeley. It's a keeper!

Rating:
Summary: An excellent text for the novice logician
Review: As a former philosophy student, I used this text in my introduction to logic class. Needless to say, I found the text easy to understand and it gradually introduced increasingly complex arguments for the student to consider. Each reader needs to be attune to the details in the text, but the exercises at the end of each section help implement the new-found knowledge.

Even after taking the course in logic, I still frequently find myself referring to this text, especially when I am developing my own arguments, either symbolically or in language. In everyday normal conversation, individuals engage in arguments. As this text teaches, it is important to understand the structures and functions of arguments. If you can understand the innate nature of arguments, either your own or another person's, then it becomes an invaluable tool to further develop and implement your arguments and detect fallacies.

To each logician, the most exciting section deals with fallacies. This book reviews over 30 different fallacies and uses examples to help the reader understand the where the errors in reasoning occurred.

Many philosophy professors, as I have learned, really regard Copi as the official authority in logic. Very few philosophers and logicians dislike Copi-style logic. Because this text implements many years of instruction and study in logic from Copi, it would follow that this text is an excellent source to introduce students to the world of logic. Oh, and logic really isn't something to be scared of anyway. We use it everyday. Some people just use it better than others. This is a great way be classified with the "better" group.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent text for the novice logician
Review: As a former philosophy student, I used this text in my introduction to logic class. Needless to say, I found the text easy to understand and it gradually introduced increasingly complex arguments for the student to consider. Each reader needs to be attune to the details in the text, but the exercises at the end of each section help implement the new-found knowledge.

Even after taking the course in logic, I still frequently find myself referring to this text, especially when I am developing my own arguments, either symbolically or in language. In everyday normal conversation, individuals engage in arguments. As this text teaches, it is important to understand the structures and functions of arguments. If you can understand the innate nature of arguments, either your own or another person's, then it becomes an invaluable tool to further develop and implement your arguments and detect fallacies.

To each logician, the most exciting section deals with fallacies. This book reviews over 30 different fallacies and uses examples to help the reader understand the where the errors in reasoning occurred.

Many philosophy professors, as I have learned, really regard Copi as the official authority in logic. Very few philosophers and logicians dislike Copi-style logic. Because this text implements many years of instruction and study in logic from Copi, it would follow that this text is an excellent source to introduce students to the world of logic. Oh, and logic really isn't something to be scared of anyway. We use it everyday. Some people just use it better than others. This is a great way be classified with the "better" group.

Rating:
Summary: A fundamentally profound introduction
Review: As I look back over my 35 years in education, as student and professor, few books have profoundly empowered me to meet the challenge of the "market" as this has. After you read this book you will never think the same. Once you become empowered you can never again be weak. Thanks to Copi I have vision where others are blind; I can make decisions with speed and grace while other stumble, fall and run in circles; I understand the symmetry and order of life while others still cannot, after long last, "get it". Read this text and keep it. As a college text it certainly has proven its classic value. It should however be kept as a reference text next to your computer, dictionary, thesaurus and bible. For the professional logician it is an excellent springboard. If however this is the only book you read on the subject you will be enlightened richly and irreversibly.

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: Copi provides a nice overview into Logic. This book covers topics such as forming definitions, propositions, categorical logic, fallacies, and modern symbolic logic. Also included are sections on causality and probability. Many exercises are provided at the end of each chapter (with the answers in the back for about 25% of them).
Copi however seems to adopt nominalism when discussing the square of opposition and the alleged "problem of the null class" and I disagree with his analysis here. This will be a minor philosophical point to most, and overall the book provides a nice and thorough introduction to logic.

Rating:
Summary: using words with the precision of mathematics
Review: Few books have been as influential in my academic career as this text. There is a very good reason why it has been published and purchased for over 30 years: excellence continues to sell. You must study this text. It is not a weekend read. It is an intoduction to a powerful, timeless and significant area of scholarship. True, in order to appreciate this book you must be willing to dedicate a fixed amount of time for serious study. Your instuctor must understand the subject also; a teaching assistant may not do the text justice. Having said that, it is a text and course of study that any serious college student can master. You do not need to be an engineering or math/science major to master the topic or enjoy the contents. Moreover, it can become a text you do not resell. Rather you will want to keep it on your shelf for many years to remind yourself of the intellectual acumen possible from dedicated and disciplined thinking. The endeavor will bear fruit for a lifetime. One caveat: after studying this book you may find yourself impatient with others who engage in unreasonable and illogical reasoning. But then, in important projects, do they really count?

Rating:
Summary: Best Overview and Introduction to Logic
Review: For the beginner, there's no better book to begin one's excursion into logic, both deductive and inductive, formal and informal, syllogistic and mathematical, propositional as well as predicate calculus. There is excellent competition, such as Bates' Introduction to Logic and Lemmon's book by the same name. But these books are limited in their scope, and not always as didactic and insightful as the Copi work. This book is certainly not exhaustive of all logical norms and forms, but it is quite comprehensive. I know of no other book which is so thoroughly diversified in the treatment of all logical styles and methods, and which does so with greater clarity and elegance of style. I wish this had been my textbook upon taking formal logic courses years ago; it is clearly superior to literally dozens of others that are either too simplistic or over the head of most beginning logicians.

Rating:
Summary: Ideal Text for Self-Study
Review: I bought this book (along with the study guide) and began self-studying the material to improve my logical ability. The book is relatively easy to understand even for novices with no prior training in logic and uses examples that are entertaining and interesting. The answers to select homework questions (about 1/4) are in the back so I would suggest that for self-study, either the study guide (which includes another 1/4) or the complete answer guide should also be purchased. The text itself is very fun to go through and I think Copi and Cohen do an amazing job as teachers. For those planning on taking the LSAT, this book may prove more beneficial than a test prep course if you want to understand the actual reasoning behind the test and not just regurgitate formulaic test-taking strategies.

Rating:
Summary: Readable, helpful, workable & a textbook too!
Review: I never saw the previous editions of this book (picked up the 9th ed.) and I believe that originally Copi was the only author, so I don't know whether Cohen raised or merely maintained the standard, but it is a very high standard indeed. I have another of Copi's older books (Symbolic logic) and it too is excellent, but this one is more generally useful and of course, broader in scope. Most unusually for a respectable size of textbook, this one permits one to read and work all the way through it for entertainment, as I did while commuting by rail a few years ago.

The coverage is good, the style is easy and clear, the material is sound and as an introduction to the field the book is excellent. The only hazard is that tyros working their way through may be fooled into thinking that now they "know logic" (No, this is NOT a hypothetical problem; I have encountered it in practice.)

But one can't allow for every kind of idiot, not even the predominant kinds.

If I were to propose any improvement to the copy I bought, it would be the addition (possibly in an appendix?) of a broader discussion of less conventional fields such as paraconsistent logic.

Overall I recommend the book highly and I am not lending out my copy.