Symbolic Logic (5th Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Solid introduction to the study
Review: Copi's textbook lays out all the basic concepts of symbolic logic necessary for progressing on to more advanced work. Some people have commented that his treatment is outdated, but a thorough understanding of chapters 6, 8, and 10 should equip anyone to understand the newer forms of notation. Chapter 7 is notably excellent, but seemed out of place, being the most advanced of the whole book which leads to most of the "further reading" topics. Proof of the redundancy of "indirect proof" (chapter 3?) and multi-modal logic beyond binary values were other very notable highlights.

A few criticisms: The quantification rules of first order predicate logic are explained rather tersely for a primer, and I was glad to have used Virginia Klenk's book originally when encountering these concepts. (Although Klenk's explanation of EI and UG are not standard and will make transition very confusing if you cannot grasp the validity of her methods.) Not all of the exercises are worked out at the back of the book, which leaves you up the river without a paddle if Copi has solved only one problem in order to explain some concept which then still isn't clear. Finally, the binding on this book is just AWFUL. In all the copies that I have seen, the glued pages were breaking away from the spine after but a few months of regular use. Perhaps the newer edition remedies this, but I haven't had experience with it.
Despite these rather minor shortcomings, Copi's work unfolds almost as systematically as the content it teaches. This was an excellent introduction.

Rating:
Summary: Great, But Outdated
Review: I thourougly enjoyed learning from this book, and it became the foundation of my analytic philosophy knowledge.

That said, I do not recommend this book as a text for those attempting to learn logic today. The symbolic language that is used and the mode of problem-solving demonstrated by Copi in this work is long since outdated and using this text will only confuse a logic amateur when they move on to more current and complicated logic.

Rating:
Summary: fond memories
Review: i too have a warm place in my heart for this classic textbook. it's true that its methods of symbolization and proofs are a bit dated nowadays, but its explanations are crystal clear, and that's nothing to sneeze at. overall, though, if you are just starting out in symbolic logic, you might find howard pospesel's books more useful and perhaps a bit cheaper. but you can't go wrong with either author.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent text dealing with 2nd order predicate calculus.
Review: My Background: Graduate Computer Science student, emphasis in complex programming.

Most programmers never get beyond the first-order (unquantified) predicate calculus introduced in the standard finite math course. This text goes to the next level in formal logic, teaching how to prove or disprove that a quantified expression follows logically from a group of premises.

Copi's notation is concise, leads to elegant proofs, and to proofs which are much shorter than many of the tree methods.

Even if you don't feel that you have the stamina to take on quantified logic, the book is an excellent text to unquantified rules of inference. But the real wealth here is the treatment of UI, UG, EI, and EG. To become fluent with this notation requires diligently working the host of example problems in each chapter, but the result will be problem-solving abilities that are much more flexible than the abilities of mathematics alone. You may find yourself becoming addicted to formal logic! Steve

Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: This book should be required reading for all young teens. Although Copi's method of teaching logic is not the most modern, it is the most useful for developing critical thinking and language skills in people who do not intend to be logicians. Mastering this material will give children a foundation that will help them in unexpected ways in all walks of life.

Rating:
Summary: Great, But Outdated
Review: This was my first textbook on logic and it has a warm place in my heart. It is not very current or modern, and it's probably not appropriate for teaching logic in the math or computer science departments, but otherwise, it's a lovely book. The two nicest features of this book are the wealth of interesting exercises and the emphasis on language: The correspondence between sentences in English and propositions in logic.

Re the logical structure of English sentences, I would like to note that I used many of the exercises from this book in a logic class I taught a few years ago, and was stunned to see the difficulties students were having: Difficulties in comprehending the logical structure of a sentence in English and then expressing this structure using Boolean connectives and quantifiers. I found this discovery both alarming and curious.

Rating:
Summary: a classic textbook on logic
Review: This was my first textbook on logic and it has a warm place in my heart. It is not very current or modern, and it's probably not appropriate for teaching logic in the math or computer science departments, but otherwise, it's a lovely book. The two nicest features of this book are the wealth of interesting exercises and the emphasis on language: The correspondence between sentences in English and propositions in logic.

Re the logical structure of English sentences, I would like to note that I used many of the exercises from this book in a logic class I taught a few years ago, and was stunned to see the difficulties students were having: Difficulties in comprehending the logical structure of a sentence in English and then expressing this structure using Boolean connectives and quantifiers. I found this discovery both alarming and curious.

Rating:
Summary: This is "the" book to use.
Review: This was the book I used when I took symbolic logic in college. Very self explanitory - the book can be used to learn symbolic logic on your own. Why? Simply because it's fun!