The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell Philosophy Guides) [Hardcover]

Lou Goble (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0631206922 | ISBN-13: 978-0631206927 | Edition: 1

This volume presents a definitive introduction to twenty core areas of philosophical logic including classical logic, modal logic, alternative logics and close examinations of key logical concepts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Suppose your friend – or your student, or yourself – knows a little logic and a little philosophy. If you wish that person to gain an early appreciation of philosophical logic, then this book is a perfect gift – or assignment, or purchase. Written by outstanding philosophical logicians, its clear and authoritative chapters guide the reader directly into the heart of each topic. There are enough details to create genuine understanding, but not so many as to intimidate. The term 'guide' is exactly the right word for this splendid book."
Nuel Belnap, University of Pittsburgh

"This is an excellent collection of articles covering the main areas of philosophical logic, written by front-line, internationally known researchers in the field. It should be available in every serious library."
Dov Gabbay, King's College, London

"This volume on philosophical logic is a welcome and manageable resource. The editor is to be congratulated both on his choice of material and on his choice of collaborators. The result is a well-balanced mix of authoritative overviews of classical mathematical logic and up-to-date accounts of topics in linguistics and computer science."
Krister Segerberg, Uppsala University

"These twenty chapters cover the areas of logic of greatest interest to philosophers, and also to computer scientists, linguists, and cognitive scientists. They are written by world-class authorities in their fields and give comprehensive and definitive introductions to their subjects."
Ernie Lepore, Rutgers University

"For those interested in the philosophy of logic an excellent place to turn would be The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic edited by Lou Goble. The book consists of 20 specially written essays by distinguished figures in the field, each with an editor's introduction."
Times higher Education Supplement

"The intended readership is philosophers and logicians, but there is much that will be of interest to computer scientists, cognative scientists and theoretical linguists. The Book is accessible to non-experts and experts will find much substance in the essays."
Studia Logica

Book Description

The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic is a cutting edge volume that introduces 20 core ideas of philosophical logic, including classical logic, modal logic, alternative logics, & close examinations of key logical concepts. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 520 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (August 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631206922
• ISBN-13: 978-0631206927
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,465,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reference for Philosophers, January 12, 2006

By 

Aaron Rutledge - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell Philosophy Guides) (Paperback)

This book is NOT an introduction to philosophical logic. If you have not had ample exposure to formal logic or mathematical reasoning this book will likely be out of your reach (I would recommend that you start with Gensler's "Introduction to Logic", take a couple courses in Calculus and then tackle this book). For those with the requisite background this work offers a direct, concise rendering of the various subfields of formal philosophical logic including propositional logic, predicate calculus, Godel's Theorem, Fuzzy Logic, Modal Logic, Deontic Logic and much more. The text stresses rigour, so its paragraphs are dense with definitions and symbols. There are no excercises and, as such, this book is best used as a reference. This book is highly recommended for anyone with a solid background in formal logic who is looking for a broad collection of essays to explain the philosophical implications of various systems of formal logic.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the small squiggles between squaggles and loops, January 28, 2007

By 

Michael De (St Andrews, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell Philosophy Guides) (Paperback)

There is a brief and probably terse-for-most introduction to classical first-order logic by Hodges. It spans 23 pages, so it's expected. However, if you have some formal training, e.g. from an introductory course on predicate logic, many of the articles in the book won't be too tough. Some of them seem surprisingly advanced (e.g. the ones on intuitionist logic, many-valued logics, and relevant logics, respectively), either because the authors are being thorough or unnecessarily complicated. It is apparent when they are guilty of one rather than the other (or both for that matter). E.g., the intuitionist article is just thorough, and the introduction of combinators in the relevant logics chapter doesn't fit for this sort of introduction to the subject (though the rest of it is quite good).

Otherwise, most of the chapters are accessible and very good introductions to various areas of philosophical logic with the added bonus of containing decent bibliographies and "Suggested further readings" at the end of each. A quick look at the introduction reveals that the list of contributors are currently at the forefront of their respective fields. It is one of the better anthologies on philosophical logic available, especially for the price.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, interesting, June 10, 2009

By 

rbnn (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell Philosophy Guides) (Paperback)

Good survey of various interesting topics. Highlight is certainly a superb and enthralling chapter on incompleteness by Raymond Smullyan. He has some great and thought-provoking puzzles, and some very minimal descriptions of incompleteness, first and second.

For some of the other chapters, I would have preferred a clearer discussion of the exact deep theorems. Thus, the epistemic and modal discussions seemed a bit definition-heavy.

Maybe it's me, but I find the reverse subset symbol for implication less clear than the double arrow one. Not sure why they use the former.

Would have preferred more on probability, although there is one chapter. Notably missing is a discussion of fuzzy logic. Maybe quantum logic would have been helpful too.

Valuable reference.