Customer Reviews

Logic: Second Edition

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Hodges, please get a second edition of this wonderful book back into print!!

This is probably the best intro there is to modern logic for people without prior training in science and math. The examples are all taken form linguistics and philosophy. Ironically, the author is also a high power mathematician, but he does not let that show. This is the book Quine should have written instead of his Elementary Logic. Also clearer and less threatening to sanity than Spencer Brown's Laws of Form.

(Note: the following review is of the 1st edition of Logic. I have not seen the second.)

In general, I would rate this a very good intro. to logic. The first half of the book lays the necessary groundwork cogently. Hodges builds from simple principles to increasingly complex logical concepts and constructs. In the first half of the book he takes nothing for granted, and the presentation is adequate for a complete novice. In the second half, however, Hodges leaves too many concepts inadequately explained/defined. It was considerably more difficult -- at times prohibitively so as a beginner -- to follow his argumentation. That said, Logic is not a textbook on the subject (though the first half of the book adequately serves the purpose). It is more of a cursory survey. As such, it's second half does not disappoint. Though the second half did not equip me to 'practice' logic as well as the first did, it certainly piqued my interest in pursuing further studies of the subject. Overall, a very readable and enjoyable book