Language, Proof and Logic

Author(s) : Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy
ISBN : 1=57586-374-X
Paperback : 600 pages
Publication Date : 2003
Publisher: Center of Study of Language and Information Publications

Book excerpts:

Over the past century the study of logic has undergone rapid and important advances. Spurred on by logical problems in that most deductive of disciplines, mathematics, it developed into a discipime in its own right, with its own concepts, methods, techniques. and language. The Encyclopedia Brittannica lists logic as one of the seven main branches of knowledge. More recently the study of logic has played a major role in the development of modern day computers and programming languages. Logic continues to play an important part in computer science; indeed, it has been said that computer science is just logic implemented in electrical engineering.

This book is intended to introduce the reader to some of the most important concepts and tools of logic. The goal is to provide detailed and systematic answers to what the laws of logic are, and even more important, why they are laws of logic. This book want its reader to understand just how the laws of logic follow inevitably from the meanings of the expressions we use to make claims. Convention is crucial in giving meaning to a language, but once the meaning is established, the laws of logic follow inevitably.

This book have two main aims. The first is to help the reader learn a new language, the language of first-order logic. The second is to help the reader learn about the notion of logical consequence, and about how one goes about establishing whether some claim is or is not a logical consequence of other accepted claims. While there is much more to logic than we can even hint at in this book, or than any one person could learn in a lifetime, this book can at least cover these most basic of issues.

Intended Audience:

While this book can be used as the first exposure to the study of reasoning, it also can be used in an introductory graduate level of metatheory, designed for students who have already had some exposure to logic.

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