Overview

Brimming with visual examples of concepts, derivation rules, and proof strategies, this introductory text is ideal for students with no previous experience in logic. Symbolic Logic: Syntax, Semantics, and Proof introduces students to the fundamental concepts, techniques, and topics involved in deductive reasoning. Agler guides students through the basics of symbolic logic by explaining the essentials of two classical systems, propositional and predicate logic. Students will learn translation both from formal language into English and from English into formal language; how to use truth trees and truth tables to test propositions for logical properties; and how to construct and strategically use derivation rules in proofs. This text makes this often confounding topic much more accessible with step-by-step example proofs, chapter glossaries of key terms, hundreds of homework problems and solutions for practice, and suggested further readings.

Full Product Details

9781442217416

Table of Contents

Reviews

The author provides visually convincing examples that illustrate the concepts of symbolic logic effectively, a feature not commonly found in similar textbooks. The abundance of sample symbolizations and proofs in this book makes it ideal for classroom use. -- Masato Ishida, University of Hawaii Agler's Symbolic Logic: Syntax, Semantics, and Proof is a remarkably clear and systematic introduction to first-order formal logic. Notably, Agler does an excellent job in showing why we use these particular rules through multiple examples and step-by-step explanations of how they develop from general considerations of meaning and truth. This method of building up to the rules of symbolic logic will be incredibly helpful in improving student understanding, since it presents the formalism as something to be understood, rather than simply memorized. -- Daniel Brunson, Morgan State University

Author Information

David Agler is a lecturer in philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University.

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