Customer Reviews

Mathematical Logic (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics)

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As others have pointed out, this book is not for beginners, but is very well suited for those with some confidence in formal logic and axiomatized set theory. The book is just great if you want to deepen your understanding of the subject beyond what can be had from undergrad level courses on the topic. It should be required reading for any student of computational logic.

The question this book addresses is not "why logic?", or "what is a formal logic?", but more specifically, "why is first-order predicate calculus with equality such a good foundation for mathematics?"

The formal mathematics is organized and presented so clearly and precisely that I felt I was admiring a fine crystal structure.
The notation used may seem excessive to some, but it actually is the least amount of notation that could be gotten away with without resorting to glossing over fine distinctions. For example, many logic books assume a fixed countably infinite number of function and predicate symbols, which leads to some confusion when comparing different axiomatizations of the natural numbers, or of groups. This book on the other hand is crystal clear on how such different axiomatizations are related to each other. Another subtle point I never noticed before about first-order predicate logic but that is pointed out in the footnote on page 73 is that one might think it possible that just because a formula can be proven with one choice of predicate and function symbols, it might not be provable with a different choice of symbols. It turns out that this cannot happen as a simple consequence of the completeness theorem! (p. 85)

The book explores second-order predicate logic and makes explicit some of the difficulties, such as incompleteness and even the problem of how closely the truth of a formula in second order logic depends on what we take as true in set theory: different axiomatizations of set theory lead to different semantics for second-order predicate logic!

There is a great chapter on the incompleteness theorems, and in addition to Goedel's theorems, there is a section on Register Machines (a version of Turing Machines) and a proof of the undecidability of arithmetic using the halting problem, as well as a more general theorem about the undecidability of any theory that can encode the workings of a Register Machine.

The next section is a reasonable presentation of the mathematical underpinnings of logic programming.

The book concludes with an algebraic characterization of elementary equivalence followed by two deep theorems by Lindstrom that demonstrate the uniqueness of first order predicate calculus among formal languages with set theoretic semantics.

This is *the* excellent mathematical logic book for anyone sufficiently familiar with the aims and spirit of mathematical logic. However, it is probably *not* suitable for a first introduction.

Some of the informal discussion expects the reader to supply the sense, and hence could be misleading for a novice (or even incorrect if taken literally!) On the other hand, the discussion is crystal clear and illuminating for someone with a bit more of background.

This book will not provide philosophical enlightenment to students of logic (esp. to those who seek such enlightenment in the first place), but it will provide good understanding of the study of general mathematical structures and their relation to logic. The prospective reader should first get acquainted with the model theoretic point of view (i.e. with its aims and presuppositions) before tackling this book. Good sources are: the first few chapters of Wilfrid Hodges's "A Shorter Model Theory" and the relevant articles by Jaakko Hintikka which were published in the journal "Synthese" in the late 1980's.

Intended for a one-semester course, it ignores some of the usual topics in a survey course so it can give a deeper treatment of the nature and adequacy of mathematical proofs. It slights number theory, second-order logic, nonstandard analysis, and set theory. There is only enough on recursion and computability to support the main topic, but it goes deeper than usual on limitative results.

What it does cover it does very well. Motivation is rich and exercises follow well from the text. Proofs are very clear. Overall, there is much greater coherence in the development of ideas than you usually see in a survey text.

While the writing is very good, there is a shortage of definitions, examples, and exercises. Notation is not always clearly introduced and they adopt so many abbreviations it's hard to keep track of what things mean. I also thought that it was not as clear in the second half, maybe due to the multiple authors. Still, I would choose it over Enderton unless you need lots of exercises for class use.

This is probably one of the best introductions to mathematical logic for those with sufficient mathematical maturity. I especially enjoyed the treatment of the completeness theorem for first-order logic (using Henkin's Theorem), and the treatment of Godel's incompleteness theorem, and Trachtenbrachts incompleteness theorem for second-order logic. Compared to other books, this book tends to go light on the notation.

If you do not have sufficient math maturity, then you may want to try Smullyan's book on the subject.

Learning mathematical logic from this textbook is a little like learning to rock-climb by going straight to the half-dome. Most likely, you'll fall to your death. But if you're strong enough and lucky enough to endure the climb, you'll look back on how far you've come and have an "OH MY GOD I ACTUALLY DID THAT???" moment of clarity like nothing else you've ever experienced :-)

This is a truly excellent book -- one I've used (along with other other books) to teach mathematical logic for 20 years. (The new edition provided welcome coverage of logic programming.) Traditionally, logic pedagogy has tended to revolve around which colleges or universities are involved. You will need to have sharp students to take full advantage of this textbook. In addition, some proof construction environment/proof checker is a good thing to have accompany the textbook; the same would hold of model finders. For grad students in my lab, I require familiarity with the book, sooner or later.

For those who are mathematically inclined, this is the best upper-undergrad textbook introducing mathematical logic.

Not a very good text for beginners. There are other good books like the ones by Mendelson, A. Margaris and tons of others.

This is an excellent book in its field. It is well-written, clear and presents insights as well as tools.

This is perhaps the most cryptic book I have laid hands upon. The book can be written in a much simpler tone and as such, tends to confuse the reader more than it educates. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is seeking a quick cure to insomnia or wants an insightful perspective of the mind of a mental patient.