Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

This text offers a balanced treatment of reasoning in ordinary language and formal techniques that enhance understanding of reasoning. The text begins with an extensive treatment of inductive reasoning that includes inductive generalizations and causal arguments. Since students are already familiar with these types of arguments in everyday life, they can appreciate the point of studying them in a systematic way. The text contains many timely features, lively and straightforward prose, and numerous examples and exercises drawn from many areas of knowledge. It combines a sensitive treatment of ordinary language arguments with a simple but rigorous exposition of basic principles of logic.

Merrilee Salmon is Professor Emeritus in the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.