Propositional Logics: The Semantic Foundations of Logic

This book is a survey and overview of the major systems of propositional logics, answering the question, "If logic is the right way to reason, why are there so many logics?" Each system is presented both formally and with philosophical motivation in Epstein's renowned clear style.

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.