Essentials of Logic [Spiral-bound]

Irving M. Copi (Author), Carl Cohen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0130497975 | ISBN-13: 978-0130497970 | Publication Date: December 16, 2003 | Edition: 1st

For an undergraduate-level course in Introduction to Logic. *Rendered from the 11th Edition of Copi/Cohen, Introduction to Logic, this concise version presents a simplified yet rigorous introduction to the study of logic. All major topics and approaches in logic receive treatment. *Free interactive online tutorial! *Each text includes a free access code for-e Logic-a dynamic, interactive online tutorial program. This tutorial program offers animated examples, practice exercises, all text exercises, and a dynamic "logic toolkit" which enables students to solve logic problems.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the strengths of Copi has always been the number of exercises, and the addition of even more exercises is even better." -Robert Kimball, University of Louisville "I think the examples are the major strong suit of the text. There are plenty of them, many are very entertaining, others are modern and poignant, still others are historically enlightening. Excellent job." -Norman Schultz, Metropolitan State College of Denver --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

Rendered from the Eleventh Edition of Copi/Cohen, Introduction to Logic, the most respected introductory logic text on the market, Essentials of Logic is a truly concise version that presents a simplified introduction to the study of logic.

Special to Essentials of Logic!

• Ease of access—Content has been thoroughly rewritten without diminishing the authoritative accuracy and completeness.
• Hundreds of new exercises—New, simplified, and contemporary exercises are included throughout the text together with numerous exercises from Copi's Eleventh Edition to challenge students and enrich their understanding.
• Dynamic examples—Many illustrated to explicate key concepts and topics.
• Summary tables—Helpful summaries for students have been added throughout the entire text.
• Fallacy groupings—Discussion of fallacies is broken into three major groupings: fallacies of relevance, fallacies of ambiguity, and fallacies of presumption.
• Categorical syllogisms—The text analyzes each of the 15 valid forms of syllogisms and explains which forms are valid.
• Modern symbolic logic—Expanded treatment presents a more detailed account of the concept of logical equivalence.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 448 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1st edition (December 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130497975
• ISBN-13: 978-0130497970
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #565,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Genuine faux Copi and Cohen extract, November 14, 2005

By 

Jason Decker (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essentials of Logic (Spiral-bound)

I wish I had time to write a full review, because folks should really know what they are buying when they buy this book. Or at least they should know what they are *not* buying. They are *not* buying a distilled version of the classic Copi and Cohen text.

This book has some really unfortunate errors in it. Some are just typos, others are mistakes, but by far the most offensive are the philosophical errors. The philosophical errors are found in material that has been added to or completely reworked from the original C&C text.

I'll just give a couple examples (then I'll go try to prepare for tomorrow's class in which I'll need to correct the errors in this book without completely undermining it and myself):

1. On page 59, it is claimed that arguments that beg the question are always valid, but they are also *unsound* "unless the premise is already known to be true". Of course this weird epistemic notion of soundness isn't the usual one, and isn't the one that appears earlier in the book. It doesn't matter for soundness if you *know* that the premises are true, what matters is if they *are* true. So arguments that beg the question can be sound even if we don't know the premise(s) to be true.

2. Exercise 5 on page 61 asks the student to identify the fallacy of presumption in the following: "This computer game has lots of fighting in it. You'll like it."

The solution in the back of the book for this exercise says, "Converse accident. The generalization that most people like fighting and adventure-packed computer games is a hidden premise here and is being applied illegitimately to a case it does not necessarily govern."

Forget the fact that the original sentence doesn't obviously commit *any* fallacy (this is actually a problem with many of the new examples in the text). The solution in the back of the book accuses it of converse accident, but the justification given for this accusation really would have it as *accident* not *converse accident*. (Accident is when "a generalization is applied to individual cases that it does not govern" [p. 61].)

Imagine how confused students get checking their answers in the back of the book.

3. On the bottom of page 82 and the top of page 83, two charts are given to help summarize information about the distribution of terms in categorical propositions. Of course the two charts don't agree. One has S distributed in "All S are P"; the other has it undistributed. My students drew the most natural conclusion from this: truth is relative to page number.

I could go on and give many other examples.

Errors are inevitable, but not this kind of error. Advice: Have your students pay the extra 15 or 20 bucks and get Copi and Cohen. The real Copi and Cohen.

4.0 out of 5 stars It does what it comes to do..., June 18, 2007

By 

Shannon Wolo (Winston Salem, NC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Essentials of Logic (Spiral-bound)

Concise and well written, my only gripe with it is that my professor uses a slightly different version so the page numbers he always rattles off in class for homework don't match mine. I looked into this before I bought it but because it's not considered a different edition I had no choice and wanted to save $50. It was well worth it.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Logic Book!, March 22, 2011

By 

Books by College Students (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Essentials of Logic (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

So I took Logic and I found this book to be very helpful. I enjoyed this class so much I decided not to resale this book. I still refer to it from time to time.