First-Order Logic (Dover Books on Mathematics)

by Raymond M. Smullyan (Author)

16 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0486683706

ISBN-10: 0486683702

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This completely self-contained study, widely considered the best book in the field, is intended to serve both as an introduction to quantification theory and as an exposition of new results and techniques in "analytic" or "cut-free" methods. Impressed by the simplicity and mathematical elegance of the tableau point of view, the author focuses on it here.
After preliminary material on tress (necessary for the tableau method), Part I deals with propositional logic from the viewpoint of analytic tableaux, covering such topics as formulas or propositional logic, Boolean valuations and truth sets, the method of tableaux and compactness.
Part II covers first-order logic, offering detailed treatment of such matters as first-order analytic tableaux, analytic consistency, quantification theory, magic sets, and analytic versus synthetic consistency properties.
Part III continues coverage of first-order logic. Among the topics discussed are Gentzen systems, elimination theorems, prenex tableaux, symmetric completeness theorems, and system linear reasoning.
Raymond M. Smullyan is a well-known logician and inventor of mathematical and logical puzzles. In this book he has written a stimulating and challenging exposition of first-order logic that will be welcomed by logicians, mathematicians, and anyone interested in the field.

First-Order Logic (Dover Books on Mathematics)

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Series: Dover Books on Mathematics
Paperback: 158 pages
Publisher: Dover Publications (January 30, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0486683702
ISBN-13: 978-0486683706
Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 5.5 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #101,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #32 in Books > Science & Math > Mathematics > Pure Mathematics > Logic
- #693 in Books > Textbooks > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics

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A Stripped-Down Exposition of a Bare-bones Subject

ByJames R. Mccallon June 15, 2001

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a book by a man I knew for his books of puzzles-chatty books of great originality that have fun with the paradoxical possibilities of logic. Here he is the teacher of logic, and aside from an occasional phrase, the serious mathematician. However, Smullyan's originality shines through in this book as well. He presents logic as a branch of mathematics rather than an abstraction of ordinary language. And he uses a method from the recent literature, tableaux, to build his proofs in a simple and satisfying way. He gets directly to the main result as to the provability of valid sentences using this method for both the propositional calculus and the predicate calculus.
Smullyan procedes rapidly because he makes some assumptions about the reader's knowledge. The reader must understand the difference between mathematics and meta-mathematics-that is, should be able to separate out the talking about the sentences of the system, which may contain (among other signs) the conjunction, disjunction, and negation, from the more-or-less informal arguments that prove assertions about these sentences using natural language, with its "and", "or", and "not". Moreover, the concept of "proof" is used at two levels: the particular tableau that constitutes a proof of a sentence, and the "proofs" about tableaux and other concepts of the "system".
Besides this, the reader should have a good feel for recursive definitions, which are used everywhere. Finally, this model reader should know the difference between countably-infinite sets and uncountably-infinite sets.
I knew all that, but still found the text slow going, maybe because I have been away from mathematics for decades. But there is another reason, too. Smullyan has divorced logic from its roots: logics are simply recursively-defined sets of sentences and mappings, and that is that. No discussions, ala WvO Quine, on the history or linguistic difficulties of a concept, just definition and proof. This is an abstraction of a subject which is already an abstraction. So I usually found myself trying to understand what it all meant, in other than these stark set-and-mapping terms. On the other hand, many difficulties caused by the details of historical development of the subject vanish, and the results stand-... simple, directly derived.
This is a slender Dover volume, of high quality and low cost. I would have given the book 5 stars, but for two things. The exercises are too hard, sometimes, and without answers, and the index is very poor. Still, I think the treatment is the best around for those who want to use logic as a basis for studying incompleteness or proof theory. It is not to be confused with a more full-blown treatment that also treats logic as a branch of the humanities.

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Great stuff.

ByJason Ton March 2, 2004

Format: Paperback

First, this isn't one of Smullyan's popular puzzle books- its a serious mathematics text. Second, don't use this as your first exposure to first-order logic (note the title doesnt say "Introduction to ...")- although logically self-contained, it requires some experience to appreciate what a neat little book this is.
It's not a general mathematical logic text- there is no model theory (beyond basic Skolem-Lowenheim), incompleteness, recursion theory, or set theory. It covers tableaux (this alone is worth the price of the book), Hilbert-style axiomatic systems (briefly), sequent systems, Gentzen's Hauptsatz and Extended Hauptsatz, Craig's and Beth's theorems, and more. But the heart of the book is completeness theorems, their proofs, and closely related material such as compactness and Herbrand-like theorems. Smullyan shows there are two main approaches to completeness (analytic vs. synthetic), breaks each into stages, provides nice abstracted formulations, and usually gives several different proofs of each result. The centerpiece is his "Fundamental Theorem of Quantification Theory", a theorem associating a truth-table tautology with every valid first-order sentence (check out the amazingly slick proof of completeness for the the Hilbert-style system that this provides). Similar constructions such as magic sets are also discussed. All this forms a much more extensive and illuminating look at completeness proofs than I've seen elsewhere.
The first-order logic used in the book has no equality and no function signs. There are few exercises, most of them simple. Smullyan writes clearly and with an appropriate amount of rigor (but its not as polished as his later books). Makes a great supplement to more general-purpose introductory mathematical logic books. If you haven't seen the tableau method yet buy this book immediately. Experienced readers will appreciate the sophisticated coverage of completeness proofs.

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a classic

ByTodd Eberton February 15, 2002

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I mainly bought this book because of the influence it has had on numerous modern-day logic texts. If you are unfamiliar with the tableaux method for structural proofs, then you will gain alot from reading this, as it provides a different perspective from the more popular Hilbert-system approach. Tableaux systems, of course, have been made popular because they are easy to program with a computer. Please see Gallier's "Logic for Computer Scientists" for more on this matter.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Four Stars

Smulyan is the master! I am his padawan!

Published 3 months ago by Mgavi Brathwaite

One Star

The author is need of a basic composition class. Mathematicians still need to write

Published 3 months ago by Cathy Sc Ott

Five Stars

Five star

Published 4 months ago by Ederson Safra

Smyllyan broughts a most important topics in first-order logic as ...

Smyllyan broughts a most important topics in first-order logic as well as some theory not teached in standard university classes education programs.

Published 7 months ago by Antti Piironen

Five Stars

Great!

Published 1 year ago by bdonaat

Three Stars

great book but it does speak over my head

Published on July 18, 2014 by MD90

Dense, clear, factual... A thrill !!!

... A thrill if you can cope with the high-speed, no fuss, complete but concise style, i.e. Smullyan's way at its best !

Published on February 28, 2012 by André Gargoura

An Oddity But a Good-ity. Wait, that's terrible.

The reviewer from Illinois gave a very good characterization of Smullyan's style here:
"Smullyan has divorced logic from its roots: logics are simply recursively-defined...Read more

Published on January 29, 2003 by J. Wiley

Great as a Reference, Probably Not for True Beginners

This is an excellent reference! It has more material covered in just 155 pages than most other works address in twice as much space. I refer to it very often.

Published on December 12, 2001 by Dino

Too Concise

This book covers a lot of territory with very few words, and most of those words are so unexplanatory that, if one doesn't have a good understanding of formal logic aforehand,...Read more

Published on January 31, 2001 by D. S. Heersink

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