Customer Reviews

Introduction to Logic (13th Edition)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Just bothers me to see this fine text with a low overall rating because some benighted guy--a previous reviewer--didn't like the condition of his personal copy of the book or how it was delivered. Does he know what a book review is?

In short, Copi and Cohen's text is a highly respected one and for good reason: it is rigorous, accurate, and elegantly written. The explanations are as clear as they can be. The exercises are plentiful, and many are taken from the _New York Times_, which makes them "real life" examples of arguments. That makes the exercises more difficult but ultimately more useful for logic students.

Irving Copi is the original author of this book; Carl Cohen took over as co-author several editions ago, after Copi passed. There is a certain book on the market that outsells it, but that other book is modeled on Copi's and "dumbed down." (Logic instructors reading this know which book I am referring to.) So if you want the original great logic text rather than a book "made simple" for marketing purposes, look to Copi and Cohen.

This is still the very best book ever published for undergraduates of all disciplines and other interested non-specialists to learn the basics of logical reasoning and scientific arguments. The exercise collection is phantastic, and the very useful, easily accessible online self-test facility for the 13th edition is even better than the previous one.

I liked this intro to such an important topic the first week in Seminary Class (Logic). The only draw-back was that I kept reading through it as I forsook too much of my other classes and their books.

The heady materal is easy to follow if you go in order. And it is helpful for students in any field. You must know these concepts and the truth therein will make you a better philosopher, scientist, housewife, epistemologist, pastor, and person.

I know it sounds like I oversold this, but after many years, I still love it and since they keep releasing new editions, the author or his family keep raking in the bucks that were well-earned.

Buy this and do not put it down:

- Read it at the bank,

- In the post office line

- In the car at long stop lights,

- At the DMV

You will look forward to such boring events if this book is in hand.

Send me your old copies when you are finished with yours if cannot sell it.

Overall this book is an acceptable text for a first course in logic. I find myself torn between using this book and Salmon's _Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking_. One thing I particularly like about the Copi and Cohen text are the summaries on the reverse of the cover and the first page. Also, summary boxes throughout the text are helpful for students. There are a few things I find quite annoying besides the price, however:

1. The overemphasis on Aristotelian syllogistic logic. Anyone who takes a second course in logic (or a course in symbolic logic) quickly learns that syllogistic logic is terribly limited in application. What it does, it does well, but it is like using a machete for surgery when you could be using a scalpel. More emphasis on symbolic logic would have been preferable.

2. The text contains mistakes. In this edition, for example, the second statement of equivalence on p. 443 is incorrect: ~(x)Mx=~(Ex)~Mx. There should be no negation in front of the universal quantifier. The instructor manual with solutions has a large number of errors. This is a problem if the instructor chooses to supply the students with the solution set, as it can create confusion. A book in its 13th edition should not have such basic errors as the one on p. 443.

3. The presentation of Mill's Methods is not as clear as it could be. I prefer Salmon's.

4. Some of the rules of inference in the section on sentence logic are nonintuitive and this makes the material more difficult than is necessary for students. One such rule is "absorption." It is an unnecessary rule. A complete and more intuitive rule set can be found in Paul Teller's _A Modern Formal Logic Primer_ (vol. 1). Teller's book is available for free on his website. I have had much more success teaching sentence logic from Teller's text than the Copi and Cohen.

These complaints notwithstanding, I think this is a fine text, perhaps the best of a bad lot (with the exception of Salmon's text, may be). There's no shortage of logic texts out there, and perhaps that is because logic instructors are so particular in how the material is presented that they take it upon themselves to write their own texts, hence the (unnecessary) proliferation of logic texts. This book is a good standard.

I bought this book because it was required for a Logic class I recently took. There is a lot of information to learn from the book, but it's written well and easy to understand. I'll admit I wasn't very interested in Logic before the class, but after reading and understanding the concepts I really enjoy it. I was originally planning to sell the book after using it, but since I enjoyed studying logic so much I decided to keep it.

This book makes the material much more difficult than it needs to be, in several ways.

* The book spends a lot of time on material that does not really help students learn how to reason well. In fact, much of the material actually hinders learning of what is really important. For example, in the chapter on categorical propositions, the book goes into great detail about the traditional square of opposition. The book then discusses the modern square of opposition and then says it will use the modern square instead of the traditional square. It would be best if the traditional square were not discussed at all. The discussion not only wastes the students' time, it adds to their confusion.

* Many of the examples and exercises quote from passages that are unclear. When first learning about logical concepts, students do not need to have poor writing adding to their confusion. I understand the desire to use passages that one might encounter in everyday life, but at least many of the passages should be rewritten before being assigned to students.

* Many of the exercises in the early chapters cannot be done without some knowledge of material covered in later chapters. For example, in order to correctly determine whether or not some passages contain arguments, students need to know whether or not certain sentences support others.

* Often the instructions for the exercises are unclear. There have been times when I had to look in the answer book to see what kind of answer the authors wanted. How can we expect students to know what to do in those cases?

* The derivation rule set needs to be revamped. The authors claim that "this set of nineteen rules serves as an ideal compromise: a list of rules of inference that is short enough to master fully, yet long enough to do all that one may need to do with reasonable efficiency." However, the authors are wrong. They would do much better to add rules for excluded middle introduction, conditional proof and indirect proof. Adding these three rules would allow many proofs to be done much more simply than before. The addition also would allow dropping some rules, such as absorption and exportation, that are confusing and seldom, if ever, used. In addition, such a rule change would allow the authors to cover proofs of theorems. (Note: It is true that the book discusses indirect proofs, but having an actual indirect proof rule rather than just a strategy would be an improvement.)

The book could be improved if there were solutions to the problems presented at the end of each section. The test questions presented as supplemental material on the website are difficult and not equivalent to an "Introduction to Logic" course. The questions are too advanced.

great condition, received the book on time, and it was purchased at a reasonable price! I saved more than 20% compared to the rest of my classmates!

I needed this for a philosophy class at a community college. I found the text to be boring, long, and hard to read. This might be because of the subject matter, but normally, I'm interested by philosophical views. Definitely not a "for fun" read.

Book was just as described. Some markings but very usable. I would buy from them again...