Logic with trees: an introduction to symbolic logic (Q2785786)

This book is an introductory textbook on modern formal logic suitable for undergraduates or beginning graduate students. It includes enough material for a one-year course, although a subset of the material in the book would be suitable for a one-semester course. While the writing is not overly formal, the book would work best with well-motivated students who have had previous exposure to philosophy, to some of the concepts of logic, and to some of the issues of advanced mathematics.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe text covers all the key methods in both truth-functional and full first-order logic using the truth-tree approach throughout. In addition, the text discusses alternative deductive systems, transfinite numbers, and the Gödel and Church theorems. The text concludes with an analysis of the liar paradox and of the weaknesses of the truth-functional account of conditionals. This book fills a much needed gap in the textbook market. It is more elementary than \textit{R. M. Smullyan}'s book: First-order logic (1968; Zbl 0172.28901), while including more material than \textit{R. C. Jeffrey}'s book: Formal logic: its scope and limits (McGraw Hill, 1994). Exercises are included and answers to some of them are provided along with a brief bibliography.