Logic: A Very Short Introduction New Ed Edition

Logic ReviewThis book changed my life. It was like knowledge medicine. It helped me eliminate a lot of what I don't want and acquire more of what I want. I'll comment on how I discovered the book and what was helpful in reading it.'A review, a positive review, was what helped me get this book. Reviews have been a huge toxic source of accumulating clutter and junk. A good review of something bad. This was not the case. This was a great review of something invaluable.In that review, the person suggested to reread sections and normally I just try to get through material as quickly as possibly for the reward finishing it. However, with this book I realized it was extremely well-written, I liked the author, and most importantly I had saught to have knowledge of and to understand the content for a very long time, many years, but had never had a good resource, the focus and/or the time. I had the time, I had the focus, and this book was the resource to learn logic and it's remarkable in that.Some closing points. The length. This book is almost like a reference it has so much information it it. Yes it is pitted or depicted as merely an introduction, but it's more than that and more useful than a reference. It has all the useless "bloat" writing eliminated from it. I would never have udnerstood logical notation (and am still very much a novice in understanding that notation but rereading parts of this book will assist in increasing understanding of notation and savviness with notation). I'm on chapter 11 currently andit's one of the few books I encountered where I can FOCUS and READ it and think about it and it was rewarding to do so. So many other books are just disgusting fart-bloat-hype, where the author thinks of something catchy and the author puts that on a cover or subtitle and peopel buy it. If you think about that non-logic stuff (non-math, non-computer science stuff), I get angry. An example is the "Four Agreeements". Horrible book and anyone who likes that book is not a friend. "Four Agreements" is generalized "tenets" written for the illogical status quo, pop culture, throng herd masses; it's useless drivel. The anti-thesis to that book is this book, a highly useful book of logic! All the four agreements can be refuted (you have to make assumptions at times for logical reasons).This book helped me move forward in my life. I achieved minimalism goals; it helped me accomplish things more efficiently. I am glad this book wasn't sold/marketed as a "User Manual for the Mind" because that would have been hoakey and would have brought the wrong (non-logical, pop culture, rubbish) audience, but it does help you use your mind more sharply.This book did help me learn somethign I love: logic. I will be rereading parts of it. The length is perfect. It's not some big technical book that's impossible to read. But it's very thorough and comprenensive. I could easily see how each chapter coudl be a book in itself but it's written so well and so clearly that is unnecessary and each chapter has tons of information (and moves comprehensively and doesn't need supplementary books, too).It covers all the notation mainly. I can alwasy refer back to that and I have it in electronic format so I can access it from anywhere, from any device.If this was longer with more explanations and examples and exercises I wouldn't have gotten throuhg it and I wouldn't have learned the logic and logical notation. I am very interested in revisiting parts of the book and because it's so concise, that will be enjoyable; this would not be the case of it were excessively long.I am in the process of writing a book where I provide protection for logical fallacies (which will be released on amazon.com and/or my site(s)) and this is congruent with that learning and writing.The brevity and the thoroughness makes it desireable to read, want to finish it, and possible to finish it.Other books would have been too long annd thus not helfpul. This book was helpful.Not merely a reference - comprehensive and thorough - but concise enough to be used as a reference.Short and great explanations.No other way to learn logic.I will reread sections and refer back to this; it may be the only book on logic I may ever need and def will likey be my main (if only, because it's so complete) on this field that has become so meaningful: logic!

recipient loved it

Excellent book and very clear. The only clarification I have is in relation of the application of chapter 3 ... ‘Is Nothing Something’, to the Cosmological Argument on page 21 of the ebook in that It fails to define ‘Total Nothingness’ as defined by the philosopher Leibniz and the assertion that the ambiguous sentence ‘Everything has a cause’ is the starting point [The sentence ‘Everything has a cause’ is ambiguous because It can mean at the same time that everything that happens has some cause or other, or it can mean that there is something which is the cause of everything. If there is a thing which is the cause of everything, then certainly, everything that happens has some cause or other. But if everything has some cause or other, it does not follow that there is one and the same thing which is the cause of everything. (Compare: Everyone has a father; it does not follow that there is someone who is the father of everyone.)], whereas the Cosmological Argument logically must start from three simple logical assertions: 1. ‘Nothing emerges out of Nothing’, 2. ‘Something cannot emerge out of Nothing’, and 3. ‘Something always emerges out of Something’ evaluating the implication that since ‘Nothing emerges out of Nothing’ and the universe emerged somehow, (according to the latest Cosmological observations), then what is that ‘something’ from which the universe emerged?With a proper definition of Total Nothingness the idea that there must be ‘something’ causing the universe to emerge rather than ‘nothing’ is pure logic whether one calls that ‘something’ God, or just plain ‘something’. The only assertion is that that ‘something’ must be eternal, necessary, infinite and not contingent otherwise you end up in an infinite recursive argument debating who or what created that ‘something’ ending up with the ‘non-entropic’ simplistic argument that it is turtles on top of turtles all the way down.