Product Description

Logic is often perceived as having little to do with the rest of philosophy, and even less to do with real life. In this lively and accessible introduction, Graham Priest shows how wrong this conception is. He explores the philosophical roots of the subject, explaining how modern formal logic deals with issues ranging from the existence of God and the reality of time to paradoxes of probability and decision theory. Along the way, the basics of formal logic are explained in simple, non-technical terms, showing that logic is a powerful and exciting part of modern philosophy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24430 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review

"This book is terrific... It covers a lot of ground, but in a wonderfully relaxed and interesting way."-Simon Blackburn, University of Cambridge and author of Think
"This text is ideal for giving students a quick introduction to formal logic or for adding pizzazz to an otherwise dry logic course."--Glenn Ross, Franklin & Marshall College

From the Publisher
black and white halftones and line drawings

About the Author
Graham Priest is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Queensland. He has also held positions at the University of St Andrews and the University of Western Australia. He is the author of In Contradiction, Beyond the Limits of Thought, and over 100 articles in philosophy books and journals. He has held visiting positions in universities in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, and Brazil, and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities.

Customer Reviews

Superb, comprehensive Intro to Logic
I am a novice in logic. But I need logic--some of it sophisticated--to understand a philosophy paper I am working with.
I found Graham Priestly's Logic, a Very Short Introduction superb and immensely helpful. I searched full-length texts, but I knew I would never wade through them. I didn't want to take the time for a college course. I searched the Web and found some excellent material, ... However, Graham's book proved far and away the simplest and best.
Here are the advantages I found. Some advantages are simply due to the brevity of the book that suited my needs, but some stand out in any context.
1. The book goes into topics early-truth tables and modal logic, for example. Copi's Introduction to Logic, while undoubtedly very good, and used in many logic courses, does not get to truth tables until Chapter 10 while Priest starts using truth tables in Chapter 2, page 9. Another text, Stephan Layman's The Power of Logic, did not get to modal logic until about page 450. Graham starts the topic in chapter 6, page 38, about 1/3 of the way through his book.
2. The book had every single logic symbol that I needed. I found no one book, full-length text or web source that did this. Equally important every symbol was used and discussed somewhere in the book. Some symbols were missing or introduced very late in other books.
3. Graham doesn't spoon feed the reader with great detail like other books, nor employ elaborate introduction to a topic.
4. Logic, a Very Short Introduction is about 10% the length of other books I looked at (Copi & Layman were about 550-650 pages, for example)-considering Graham's page size is probably ½ that of a normal book. Other books cost roughly 3 to 8 as much.
5. Graham has a very clear, engaging, and often humorous, style. The book is very well organized and written.
6. It is easy to get into meat quickly.
7. In a little over 100 pages, Priest uses a given chapter's logic to analyze a variant form of several classical philosophical questions. For example: the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God, fatalism, the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, the Argument from Design for God's existence, etc.
8. The book has an unusual amount of supplemental material-brief history of logic, glossary, list of symbols, problems ..., bibliography, general index and index of names.
9. Every chapter ends with a simple summary of the ideas it covers. There were numerous figures.
10. There were 13 illustrations ranging from cartoons, to art, to famous philosophers.
Of course, this is a short survey and so no one should think that any one topic is covered in depth. Breadth rather than depth is the book's objective.
The book could be used by:
1. Self learners
2. People taking a logic course who want a quick overview or supplement
3. People, who would like rudimentary familiarity with logic for their work, but do not need a college course or a full-length logic book.
...

Agreed - Excellent Comprehensive Introduction, For The Student
This isn't really a layman's introduction to logic. The antithesis of a layman isn't just someone who knows the terms and the functions involved in logic (let alone any specific discipline), but also the person who can quickly understand the concepts and methodically follow the steps the author takes in his explanations. In other words, the person who has good all-around comprehension skills. That being said, a layman might have trouble with this, but for a University student (especially a student of philosophy), this is a great introduction to prepare you for a course in logic. I hope this does not shy away anyone interested in logic, as the insight in this book is extremely valuable to anyone interested in logic. Professor Priest is arguably one of the greatest thinkers in logic in our time (at the very least).

That being said, this is still a "very short introduction to logic". This isn't a/the quintessential introduction, but if you are a student entering into an introductory logic class, this is a/the great book to help prepare yourself.

A logical choice
Graham Priest is author of several books on logic, including 'An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic' and 'Towards Non-Being: The Logic And Metaphysics Of Intentionality'. He has experience as a professor of logic at the University of Queensland in helping to determine the needs of those who are in need of logic help. This book, part of the Very Short Introductions series of Oxford University, is both an introduction and a refresher for those who have had logic before. Because of its brevity, it might be a bit too condensed for those looking for a logic course; however, used together with a larger text (Copi's logic book is the one I used in my early logic days), this VSI book provides good supplemental information and helps clarify key points.

This book provides an introduction both to symbolic logic as well as linguistic logic. Issues such as probability, truth and fact statements, conditional statements, decision theory and validity are all presented in clear, concise ways. There are fourteen chapters (a lot of chapters for book with barely over 100 pages of text), and each chapter deals with a few key points summarised in a pull-quote box at the end of each chapter. There are diagrams, sentences and equations to illustrate the points in visual as well as language terms.

The final chapter, 'A Little History and Some Further Reading', is a good short review of key figures and historical issues that underpin the material presented in the previous chapters. There is a helpful glossary of terms, and Priest also provides a page of logic puzzles and problems to be worked by the students, keyed to an Oxford University Press website that has the solutions to the questions.

This is a good book for review of logic prior to taking tests (such as the LSAT) or graduate courses that require understanding of logical thought processes (systematic theology or philosophy). As some reviewers have noted, this is not a lock-step presentation of standard analytic logic (indeed, many of Priest's other writings have a more non-standard approach), but does provide some good insights in the overall way in which logic is structured and done.