Customer Reviews

A New Introduction to Modal Logic

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This book is the best introduction to Modal Logic I know, and it is great for reference too. It gives a general survey of modal propositional and even modal predicate logic (this latter is pretty difficult and rarely presented in introductory books). There is one feature of this book that I really love: the authors try to present everything without supposing anything on the part of the readers. I really suffer when I get a book that supposes that strange type of pre-requisite that appears to be everything minus the subject that is being presented - and sometimes the author even supposes that you have already met his subject before! Hughes and Cresswell write in a pleasant pace, sometimes repeating themselves, but this is good for educational purposes. I like their analogies: the presentation of K-validity as a modal game is really superb. They do not exagerate with mathematical formalisms, using only when indispensable, and this is good for the non-mathematician. I recommend it for every reader interested in logic in general, mathematicians or philosophers.

This is the best introduction to modal logic for all but very experienced logic students. However, the first printing (ISBN 0-415-12599-5 (hbk), 0-415-12600-2 (pbk)) has many annoying errors, especially in the exercises. Make sure to get a later printing. Right now I see only the very expensive hardbound edition, and only the error-loaded first printing, on the Amazon website.

Hughes and Cresswell (sounds like a deli sandwich, unfortunately) have written what is probably the best introduction to modal logic on the market. They are clear, orderly, organized--but they don't provide the student with anything to make his or her foray into the subject any more pleasant. It's a text for logicians-to-be with excessive-compulsive disorders; that would be most, but not everyone. The authors would do well to reformat their text, but the content is superb.

If you have never studied logic, this is the book for you. But if you have, find something else. This book is slow and it spends too much time on the deductive system in propositional logic. Tedious.