Customer Reviews

A Concise Introduction to Logic

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

First, I am familar with the 6th edition, so my comments concern that edition. I have both learned from (as a student) and taught from (as an instructor) this book. The book's strength is in formal or deductive logic and not informal or inductive logic. (Although it covers inductive logic and critical thinking). This book should not be used by someone who is looking just to argue better, but is much more suited to an academic setting at the level of a senior in high school or college freshman/sophmore. I am not saying that it is a hard read or too technical, as a matter of fact, it is quite basic, but it is too dry for the average reader and you would simply not pick up the information from simply reading it; you would have to work the problems and interact with others who are also reading the book.

I teach introduction to logic at a local community college and I used this text for my class--once. I will not again. It is way overpriced, wordy, and badly structured. However, my biggest problem was that the questions the book would ask my students to answer in the homework would often (1) rely on knowledge not taught in the chapter, (2) had the wrong answer in the answer key, or (3) asked questions with many right answers but listed only one as right in the answer key.

Furthermore, the online www.ilrn.com homework was way too advanced for my students to work with. It requires long loadtimes, Java scripts, etc. The ilrn.com site also has quite a few *kinks* to work out (automatic grading is often wrong). Unless you have a class full of students with good computers, good internet connections, and some basic internet knowledge (e.g. how to install Java into their browser); the online homework will be more trouble then it's worth. If the *kinks* are worked out and ilrn.com is programed to require less of the computers (get rid of the Java!) then this has the potential to be a great service. Maybe, in the 13th or 15th edition this will be a good addition to the (otherwise crappy) book.

I will agree with another reviewer that the "CD is unnecessary." The CD covers the same material as the book, and so either the book or the CD is unnecessary. However, the book is miserable while the CD is excellent. If anything is unnecessary it is the book. The only saving grace for Hurley is the EXCELLENT CD-rom program that came along with 9th edition of his book. This is a 5-star computer program for learning logic and I would use it again in teaching my classes if the CD could be purchased seperately.

Since I also don't like the Copi and Cohen Intro to Logic text, it looks like spring quarter I am going to try using the Henry Gensler "Introduction to Logic." The software you get with the Gensler book doesn't look anywhere near as wonderful as what comes with the Hurley text, but at least the Gensler text looks like a good book.

Logic is something that all humans believe they practice, but few actually do it with regularity. Sometimes it is inconvenient to be logical, but the vast majority of the time it is due to a failure to understand what the rules of logic are. This book, designed to be a text for a college level course in logic, contains what you will need to be a logical person. The material is for a logic course taught more in a philosophical vein rather than in the mathematical format.
The chapter headings are:

*) Basic concepts
*) Language: Meaning and definition
*) Informal fallacies
*) Categorical propositions
*) Categorical syllogisms
*) Propositional logic
*) Natural deduction in propositional logic
*) Predicate logic
*) Induction

The exposition is conversational in tone and verbal in presentation. There are few formulas in the early chapters and there are a large number of problems at the ends of the sections. Most of the problems are textual in nature, and solutions to many of them are included in an appendix.
This book is a sound choice as a textbook in a course in basic logic; I found some of the examples used in the later chapters of value when talking about predicates in my course on the theory of computation.

This is a very nice introductionary book that justly exhaust various topics. Pros: Easy to read, and unoffensive to the readers' intelligence. Many examples, diagrams, summaries, and concatenations between the chapters are well done. Cons: Vague on some explanations, excessive in some passages, not enough answers provided for the exercises.

This book is set up and easy to follow. The examples and concepts from the chapters give plenty of examples to learn the concepts. Also, the examples in the end of chapter will give you extra practice, and you will learn the concepts quickly.

Whether or not you're planning on getting this book for a college or university course, or if you're getting it for personal interest, Hurley makes it easy to understand. The chapters are quick and easy to read, the examples and chapter problems are interesting, up-to-date, and sometimes humorous.

Unfortunately, the CD-ROM does not work with Macintosh computers. The book is still, however, a worthy purchase.

It would be nice if the author gave more than a smattering of answers for the problems in the book. If your instructor doesn't give these out to you in class or you didn't purchase the study guide, you are just screwed.


Edit:
*Note: Please see review on study guide. It's not worth the money. You're better off studying the CD that came with the book. Which in all fairness, while not a work of art, does help drive home the concepts.

..although sometimes wordy, as another reviewer pointed out. Hurley's biggest problem is that he doesn't write very clearly; this is not an issue in the early going, but as one gets into predicates and the symbolism of logic, one must be very clear in how one communicates the intricacies.

I used this book when I taught a logic block of my high school philosophy class, and found the CD most helpful. For that, I'll give this 3 stars. Yay.

I agree with Andrew T. Fyfe's review that CD is better than the book.

The book is unclear and makes it more complicated than it needs to be. I found myself many times saying to myself it would be much easier if this part was written or explained in another way. Also the questions at the end of each section don't have answers, which is VERY BAD. How are you suppose to learn when you don't know if you're right or wrong (The questions are hard, so it isn't something you can figure out once you've chosen an answer.)?

On the other hand, the CD covers everything the book purports to cover, except much clearer!!! Examples are given immediately after a topic is introduced and problems after examples. Answers to the problems are given instantaneously with an explanation why it is so. Plus you have a female reading to you so it's easier to focus, where as in the book, you easily lose track or lost focus of a difficult topic.

Conclusion:
Book Bad.
CD Good.

With the advent of mass scale personal computing in the early 1980's, Logic acquired a new aura of reverence from the lords and administrators of academia. After all, Logicians invented the computer, didn't they? And computer "languages" are second-order languages, aren't they? I mean to say - your computer thinks, talks, and breathes Logic. That's part of the reason why at some schools, undergrads can now fulfill their math requirement with an Intro Logic course, why it's a requirement for graduation at others, necessary transfer credit for others. More and more students are taking Logic than ever before.
But Logic's status in the cannon is not new. Back in the late middle ages, when that quintessentially occidental innovation - higher education - began, in places like Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, and Hiedlberg, Logicians ruled the roost. In those days, the students, male monks, would spend their afternoons engaged in the Disputatio, a marathon session of argument, in which the finer points in Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics (which comprise a good deal of what is discussed in Hurley) were bounced back and forth, with verbal thrusts and parries, that went by names such as Tu Quo Que and Ad Ignoratum.
Today, we have progressed to a degree, and Logic is a vast and vibrant field and discipline. Hurley is the most used introductory Logic text in the USA, probably the world. It is thought of as the standard text, supplanting Copi, used for many years. I have taught Hurley, the text used at my school, through three editions, since 2001.
My conclusion (as Hurley is wont to call that part of the argument that we in America generally refer to as the "claim") is that the perfect introductory logic textbook has yet to be written and likely will never be. That being the case, on the positive side of the ledger, Hurley is as good as it gets. The basics, if somewhat obliquely, are set forth in reasonably ordered, digestible chunks. There are practice exercises at the end of each section (while not nearly enough in most instances, more than in any of the other texts I've perused). More or less successful attempts are made to explain the way in which logic works. A paucity of space is given "the whys and wherefores". The standard introductory material (comprising surprisingly only about 67% of this ambitious book) is presented in traditional fashion, according to the basic instances of necessity in formal logic: first, entailment, then equivalence, then consistency (proof). There is a brief and difficult section on informal logic early on in the text. The book is written from a pragmatic and empiricist perspective, characteristic of the Deweyian style pedagogy embraced by most of the educators of Hurley's generation. I will say, despite its many flaws, Hurley made me the Logic teacher I am today, far more than any of the courses I took as a student. I learned to teach Logic, teaching Hurley.
Now - I will briefly vent my copious frustrations. The book is of uneven quality. Certain facets are superb, like the "strategies" at the end of the sections on natural deduction, and the glossary of key terms at the end of the text. And Hurley has a real talent for constructing helpful charts, which is generally evident. Others, such the crucial and challenging section on translation syntax (the rules delineated in section 4.7), tacked onto the tail-end of the section on Categorical Logic as an afterthought, are hidden in the flow of the text, rather than boldly set off, in flashing neon, as they should be. Others, such as the chapter on informal logic, are dated and inept. And a few, such as the section on Sorities are elliptical, simply atrocious, and must be supplemented by other material in the classroom for a decent explanation. Hurley shares in that circumambulatory obfuscation of the language that seems peculiarly endemic to Logicians and Mathematicians, which is, to say in the words of W.H. Auden, "loquacious when the watercourse is dry". And Hurley's prose is dry - like shredded wheat, without the milk. Boring. More seriously, as mentioned, this breed of writer has always seemed to me elliptical or evasive at critical points in the exposition, perhaps indicative of that philosophical den of iniquity from which they emerge. Prime example: Hurley is asking questions in the homework exercises in the first chapter, on page 49, which require an explanation of validity in conditional forms. Nowhere is this basic explanation to be found until page 322! Thus, one must empathize with the student who, in his review, claimed that the book "stinks" and that one must have the guidance of a qualified teacher to understand the subject. Hurley does put a burden on the underpaid teacher. And, as another reviewer points out, there are numerous errors in the answer keys which have remained uncorrected through a number of editions. Also, I preferred the more compact size of the answer key - Wadsworth went nuts with these "workbook style" versions, which don't work in my briefcase.
However, at the end of the day, it must be conceded that, as introductory logic courses are forcing houses for a certain type intellectual acumen deemed desirable at this juncture in the development of civilization, Hurley is up to the task.