Logic: A Very Short Introduction

Another good book in a good series.

Good

One of the best VSI's. Comprehensive despite the short length.

The book is certainly interesting and contains a lot of facts briefly put. This is perhaps the one difficulty, a lot of basic knowledge is either assumed or mentioned extremely briefly. I am intending to go through it again and make notes! An example of an assumption is for one's knowledge of the symbols representing logic and truth functions. An appendix of these would be helpful as they are difficult to check being unfamiliar symbols not on a keyboard. However, I do get the reassuring feeling that the book is written (as all of the very short introduction series) by people who really do know what they are writing about and are experts at the forefront of their subject.

Practical use for medical daignosis : I found this book clear and lucid intro to logic .Inductive inference and inverse probability section are revealing and relevant for me to see how I made diagnosis and therapeutic decisions .One of the best in this series. Recommend highly .

I've given this three stars because while it seemed like a very good short book introducing the subject, there were many sections I just skimmed past without taking the time to digest them, because I recognized that there was something beyond my knowledge going on and I didn't have the tools to figure it out. I think those tools were what is commonly referred to as "high school maths". How depressing. This VSI series is kinda funny for "lifelong learners" like me, because they make me feel sophisticated and smart when I am able to take in and understand ideas about sophisticated, intellectual topics such as ideology and phenomenology and whatnot. And then a little innocent book on logic puts me in the position of having to choose between giving the book a scathing, negative review, or setting off on the humbling path to basic high school algebra, in the hope that I might be able to come back and see what it is like to read this book with the required mathematical language under my belt. Stay in school. As for the book itself, it seemed very well put together. Before reading it, I got a good taste of Graham Priest's playful, mischievous style of putting across ideas when listening to him featuring on the "Paradoxes" episode of the podcast called "Rationally Speaking". I don't think at the end of the book I was left with a sense of a stable base of knowledge like I have been with other VSI books - I imagine other authors would have introduced the subject in a completely different way and left the reader with a very different conception of the basics of logic. But as an introduction, it seemed fun and engaging.

It's a handy little book. It gets in, says what it needs to say, and then gets out. As the title of the book suggests, it's a very short introduction. Due to this it wouldn't be an ideal textbook for those who may be looking for one. It's more of a refresher on the topic or a teaser to get you intrigued into reading more elsewhere.

I was fairly pleased after reading this book, with an acquaintance of some basic formal logic, and a fresh outlook on reasoning. The book deals with some fascinating issues such as arguments for and against God's existence (and how they are flawed), and some strange concepts on time. I certainly left the book realising how much logic has to do with real life, and Graham Priest lays out the book well: there is logic notation which is easy to grasp; questions at the end that can check your knowledge; main ideas are summarised at the end of each chapter; and the short chapters present key individual ideas which vary the book to keep you interested. Why then in the light of the above reasons did I give it four stars? I found that after a while Priest's power of explanation declined when you most needed it in the harder topics, and I had to re-read a few sections. This was my first book on logic and I for one can say that it was not an ideal introduction, it was interesting but some bits were hard to grasp. I recommend this book, but if you have not studied logic before or read about it, then you may encounter some problems.

１日でも読破できます。とても分かりやすく初心書でも理解できる論理学入門です。ただ、あまり深い話ではありません。最後の方に、次ぎにどの本を読めば良いかも書いてあるので、入り口を知るためにとても役に立つ本でしょう。

This book is really good, if you are interested in logic. Otherwise you have to read it slowly or some chapters even twice. All chapters are very short, sometime you feel it could have been explained in detail. I enjoyed it. Author provides examples which are easy to understand for beginners.

da hat sich der Autor echt die Mühe gemacht, verständlich zu schreiben und wesentliches herauszuheben,Ich würde es und werde es logisch interessierten wärmstens ans Herz legen.

È un testo denso, solo apparentemente agevole. Richiedi molta ponderazione per seguire il percorso dell'autore, dialeteista e noneista. Consigliato specie per chi ha una certa preparazione in campo logico, e inclina verso le posizioni dell'autore. Consegna puntuale.

This is a very compressed introduction to logic which has a more philosophical scope in its applications. However, it contains valuable information of what constitutes a mathematical proof, the original motivation of symbolic logic or mathematical logic. It is not, perhaps like any other introduction to logic, aimed at the lazy reader.