Predicate Logic - Hardcover

Epstein, Richard L

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0983452180 ISBN 13: 9780983452188

Publisher: Advanced Reasoning Forum, 2012

Synopsis

The forms and scope of logic rest on assumptions of how language and reasoning connect to experience. In this volume an analysis of meaning and truth provides a foundation for studying modern propositional and predicate logics. Chapters on propositional logic, parsing propositions, and meaning, truth and reference give a basis for criteria that can be used to judge formalizations of ordinary language arguments. Over 120 worked examples of formalizations of propositions and arguments illustrate the scope and limitations of modern logic, as analyzed in chapters on identity, quantifiers, descriptive names, functions, and second-order logic. The chapter on second-order logic illustrates how different conceptions of predicates and propositions do not lead to a common basis for quantification over predicates, as they do for quantification over things. Notable for its clarity of presentation, and supplemented by many exercises, this volume is suitable for philosophers, linguists, mathematicians, and computer scientists who wish to better understand the tools they use in formalizing reasoning.

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Advanced Reasoning Forum
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0983452180
• ISBN 13: 9780983452188
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 430