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Set Theory and Its Logic, Revised Edition

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"Set Theory and It's Logic" has cast a long shadow since it's first appearance. It is quite simply the crowning work of one of the 20th century's most distinguished philosophers. Sober, clear, and direct (and yet unpretentious and very friendly), it is illuminating to anyone who has the patience to slowly sip it and consider the the way the arguments build up from line to line and page to page a seemingly indestructible house of cards. If one is unprepared for the rigors of the book, that can be easily remedied--Quine also wrote the best introductory book on Logic, "Methods of Logic", which he took through several editions before his death. That book assumes no backround in logic, and a beginner who works her way through the exercises will find herself well-prepared for the magic tricks in "Set Theory and its Logic". I wished we taught this stuff in the public schools, along with mathematics, and (to keep the old dialectic rolling) Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Tolstoy, Dickinson--the great poets. I might be dreaming, but we may have, at the very least, more ethical scientists, more humane poets, or just plain old more interesting people--who know what the foundations of their thoughts actually assume. A classic.