Predicate Logic: The Semantic Foundations of Logic - Softcover

Epstein, Richard L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0534558461 ISBN 13: 9780534558468

Publisher: Wadsworth Pub Co, 2000

Synopsis

A presentation of the fundamental ideas that generate the formal systems of predicate logic. This text clearly relates predicate logic to reasoning in ordinary language, with hundreds of examples of formalization, with a clear theory of how to formalize ordinary arguments. The writing is exceptionally clear and easy to read.

About this title

About the Author

Richard L. Epstein received his B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1973. After writing two monographs and a research text in mathematics, he made accessible to undergraduates the mathematics, history, and philosophy of the theory of computable functions in his highly acclaimed undergraduate text COMPUTABILITY, written with Walter Carnielli. In the 1980s he began to work more in philosophy, and has published two volumes, PROPOSITIONAL LOGICS and PREDICATE LOGIC, in his series on the semantic foundations of formal logic. His new FIVE WAYS OF SAYING "THEREFORE": ARGUMENTS, PROOFS, CONDITIONALS, CAUSE AND EFFECT, EXPLANATIONS is a major unification of many areas of work in the foundations of reasoning. His text CRITICAL THINKING has been widely adopted to teach the fundamentals of reasoning to undergraduate students, along with his SCIENCE WORKBOOK FOR CRITICAL THINKING. He recently issued the second edition of the shorter POCKET GUIDE TO CRITICAL THINKING. He is currently working with Alex Raffi, the illustrator of Critical Thinking, on a book called AMERICAN GESTURES. Dr. Epstein is a founding member and head (G.A.He continues to write both research and teaching texts, while walking his two dogs along the Rio Grande in Socorro, New Mexico.

Review

"This book is for philosophers and researchers in artificial intelligence or natural language processing. It is dedicated to designing a foundation for as many logics as possible....can be worthwhile reading." --Computing Reviews

"This book bridges a gap often felt by students of the humanities when starting with formal logic in the style of the usual textbook, and it intends to make the (hidden) relations of logic and language more transparent. . . .this is not an introduction to first-order logic as usual in mathematical logic, but an important supplement to such an introduction for the non-mathematician as well as for a philosophically minded mathematician."--Zentralblatt für Mathematik und ihre Grenzgebiete Mathematics Abstracts

About this edition

• Publisher: Wadsworth Pub Co
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0534558461
• ISBN 13: 9780534558468
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 412