Logic: A Very Short Introduction

Description

Graham Priest shows that formal logic is a powerful, exciting part of modern philosophy — a tool for thinking about everything from the existence of God and the reality of time to paradoxes of probability. Explaining formal logic in simple, non-technical terms, this edition includes new sections on mathematical algorithms, axioms, and proofs.

• Explains the basics of modern formal logic in non-technical terms
• Shows how logic and the rest of philosophy interrelate
• Covers non-classical as well as classical logic
• Contains a problem for each chapter so that readers can test their understanding
• Part of the Very Short Introductions series - over eight million copies sold worldwide

New to this edition

• This new edition includes two new chapters, on the subjects of algorithms and axioms, and proofs in mathematics.

About the Author(s)

Graham Priest, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center

Graham Priest is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center , as well as a regular visitor at the University of Melbourne (where he was Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy). His books include Doubt Truth to be a Liar (OUP, 2008), One (OUP, 2014), and Towards Non-Being (2nd ed. OUP, 2016).

Table of Contents

Preface to Second Edition
Preface to First Edition
1:Validity: what follows from what?
2:Truth funtions - or not?
3:Names and quantifiers: is nothing something?
4:Descriptions and existence: did the Greeks worship Zeus?
5:Self-reference: What is this chapter about?
6:Necessity and possibility: what will be must be?
7:Conditionals: what's in an if?
8:The future and the past: is time real?
9:Identity and change: is anything ever the same?
10:Vagueness: how do you stop sliding down a slippery slope?
11:Probability: the strange case of the missing reference class
12:Inverse probability: you can't be indifferent about it!
13:Decision theory: great expectations
14:Halt! What goes there?
15:Maybe it is true - but you can't prove it!
A little history and some further reading
Glossary
Problems
Problem solutions
Bibliography
General index