Synopses & Reviews
Text extracted from opening pages of book: SECOND EDIT ON fl 4 A handbook of logi 1C Second Edition Joseph Gerard Brennan Barnard College, Columbia University Harper d> Row, Publishers Neve York, Evanston, and London Contents Preface to the first edition vi Preface to the second edition viii 1. What is logic? I 2. The analysis of propositions 13 3. Inferences from simple propositions 33 4. The syllogism ( I) 49 5. The syllogism ( II) 70 6. Truth functions 95 7. How deductive systems are constructed 126 8. The nature of logical truth 155 9. Induction 173 to. Fallacies in argument 208 Appendix: Logical machines 231 General bibliography 239 Index 243 Preface to the first edition Some say that the purpose of logic books is to teach peo ple how to think. Now logic books are usually written by logicians, and if it were true that logic teaches people how to think, one would suppose that logicians themselves would be expert thinkers and would make no mistakes ( or at least very few). And if this were so, all logicians would be rich men. But, alas, that is not the case. Why not simply say that a first book of logic should serve to acquaint us with some principles and problems of inference, deductive and inductive? That is enough to justify any introduction to logic. Of course, it may well be that logic teaches us to think in the sense that through it we experience a certain useful type of precision. This is the point of Gilbert Ryle's clever analogy between formal logic and military drill: It is not the stereotyped motions of drill, but its standards of per fection of control which are transmitted from the parade ground to the battlefield. . . . To know how to go through completely stereotypedmovements in artificial parade-ground conditions with perfect correctness is to have learned not indeed how to conduct oneself in battle but how rigorously to apply standards of soldierly ef ficiency even to unrehearsed actions and decisions in novel and nasty situations and in irregular and unfamiliar coun try. 1 To Professor Ryle, the unfamiliar country concealing the novel and nasty situations is philosophy. But it could just as well be any area of human learning law, medicine, 1 Ryle, Dilemmas ( 45), pp. 112, 123 ( Numbers in parentheses refer to the General Bibliography, pp 240242, where details of publication are given ) Preface to the First Edition vii business, pure science in which the novice would not be the worse for some preliminary exercise in that tidiness of mind which logic exacts. This handbook introduces the reader both to the tradi tional logic of the syllogism and to modern symbolic logic. After all, they are not two different logics; the older logic is but a part, although an important part, of the wider realm of modern generalized logic. In addition, there is a brief survey of inductive logic, as well as a look at the traditional fallacies of argument. For the mechani cally inclined, there is appended a short section on logical machines, their construction and use in science and in dustry. This small book has been a pleasure to write. I am thinking of all those logic classes at the College of New Rochelle and later at Barnard, and the good times we've had. I would like to thank John Cranford Adams, presi dent of Hofstra College, for providing me a pleasant sum mer space to write in. I am immensely indebted to my colleague on the Barnard faculty, Miss Judith Jarvis, for her careful reading of manuscript and proof, and her in valuable suggestions for revision. My friend Eugene Abrams of Franklin Square, Long Island, made the in genious syllogism machine described in the appendix. J. G. B. June, 1957 Preface to the second edition The second edition of A Handbook of Logic contains, in addition to minor changes and improvements in the text, a large supply of new exercises. Chapters 6 and 7 have been particularly strengthened in this respect. Once again I must express my gratitude to my colleague, Professor Judith Jarvis, for sugg