Customer Reviews

Logic, Sets, and Recursion (Jones and Bartlett Books in Mathematics)

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I am studying in the University of Texas, Austin. I took up a course in Logic in the University and I really needed a good book to understand a subject like logic. First I went a no of other books but none could satisfy my needs and I did not find myself comfortable with any of the books. After a friend of mine referred to me, I went for this book. As I was going through some topics on which I really needed some help, it not only solved all my difficulties but I was really impressed by the writings and the work done in this book. I believe that this is a very very good book of logic as everything is given in a brief and self-explanatory manner giving the best general examples covering almost everything. The proofs are not at all hard as is the case with most of the other books of Logic and really makes the subject interesting. This book immediately lead to my A-GRADE IN THE COURSE but far more than that I LEARNT A LOT FROM THIS BOOK.

In brief, it is easy to read and grasp, well-explained , excellent examples, meta-language descriptions, making the book, believe me, the best book in logic and far better than other books. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.

Suggestion: A book of solutions for most of the problems of the above book as I was stuck on some problems and could not figure a way out.

As a graduate student I used to teach logic and basic number theory with this book -- I can't recommend it highly enough! These are topics that can make students have nervous breakdowns (it was the weed-out course for the computer science dept) but Causey lays it out so clearly and simply that most students were surprised at how much they could master in so short a time. Most importantly, after finishing this book, you will have acquired SKILLS, not just a headfull of definitions.

I remember taking the intro. logic class at UT with this book; I also remember the teacher, none other than Robert Causey, himself.
Thinking back, I can honestly say that Prof. Causey has encapsulated his entire course and then some in his work, "LS&R."

It's a good book if you're interested in dabbling in the subject, but if you're interested in learning some logic, in particular, mathimatical logic, this book is not the way to go.
The sort of rigor and feel one expects from a book on such matters is probably much better found in other texts such as Enderton's "An Introduction to Mathematical Logic."

I can attest to this since I found myself completely disoriented when I came to study what most consider to be formal logic. In a way, I felt like I had learned nothing of what I needed to in order to
understand mainstream formal logic. In defense of my old instructor, Dr. Causey, I did learn a great deal from his book,
but just not the sort of material that would have been most beneficial for formal logic.

While this book is hailed as a great intro. for computer scientists, anyone pursuing graduate study in computer science should also complement this book with Hodges', Chang's, or Enderton's.

Hope this helps...

I used this in a discrete math course that was a requriement as a computer science major. It served as a good introduction to set theory, logic proofs, and predicate calculus. While it isn't a "fun" or easy read, if you're looking for a way to learn the basics of these mathmatical fields then this is a good book for you. It is one of the few texts out there that you don't need a professor to explain.