For more than six decades, and for thousands of students, Introduction to Logic has been the gold standard in introductory logic texts. In this fifteenth edition, Carl Cohen and Victor Rodych update Irving M. Copi’s classic text, improving on its many strengths and introducing new and helpful material that will greatly assist both students and instructors.
In particular, chapters 1, 8, and 9 have been greatly enhanced without disturbing the book’s clear and gradual pedagogical approach.
Specifically:
- Chapter 1 now uses a simpler and better definition of "deductive validity," which enhances the rest of the book (especially chapters 1 and 8-10, and their new components).
- Chapter 8 now has:
- Simpler definitions of "simple statement" and "compound statement"
- More and more detailed examples of the Complete Truth-Table Method.
- A detailed, step-by-step account of the Shorter Truth-Table Method (with detailed step-by-step examples for conclusions of different types)
- A more complete and detailed account of Indirect Proof
- A detailed justification for Indirect Proof treating each of the three distinct ways in which an argument can be valid
- A new section on Conditional Proof, which complements the 19 Rules of Inference and Indirect Proof
- Explications of proofs of tautologies using both Indirect Proof and Conditional Proof
- A new section at the end of the chapter explaining the important difference between sound and demonstrative arguments.
- The Appendices now include:
- A new appendix on making the Shorter Truth-Table Technique (STTT) more efficient by selecting the most efficient sequence of STTT steps
- A new appendix on Step 1 calculations for multiple-line shorter truth tables
- A new appendix on unforced truth-value assignments, invalid arguments, and Maxims III-V.
In addition, a Companion Website will offer:
for Students:
- A Proof Checker
- Complete Truth Table Exercises
- Shorter Truth-Table Exercises
- A Truth-Table Video
- Venn Diagram Testing of Syllogisms
- Hundreds of True/False and Multiple Choice Questions
for Instructors:
- An Instructor’s Manual
- A Solutions Manual
www.routledge.com/cw/9781138500860
Irving M. Copi was a logician who studied under Bertrand Russell while at the University of Chicago. He held appointments at, among other institutions, Princeton University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Among the books he published before his death in 2002 was The Theory of Logical Types (Routledge, 1971).
Carl Cohen is the Senior Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, having taught at this university since 1955. Among his many published books is his account of the battle over affirmative action at the University of Michigan, A Conflict of Principles (2014). His most recent book is a concise philosophical rejection of all forms of race preference, Both Wrong and Bad (2018).
Victor Rodych is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lethbridge. He has published extensively on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics. Together with Timothy Pope, Rodych is working on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Writings on Mathematics and Logic, 1937-1944, to be published in five volumes by Cambridge University Press.
