Diversity Reading List

Comment: This book is ideal for an intermediate-level course on many-valued and/or fuzzy logic. Although it includes a presentation of propositional and first-order logic, it is intended for students who are familiar with classical logic. However, no previous knowledge of many-valued or fuzzy logic is required. It can also be used as a secondary reading for a general course on non-classical logics. In the words of the author: 'The truth-valued semantic chapters are independent of the algebraic and axiomatic ones, so that either of the latter may be skipped. Except for Section 13.3 of Chapter 13, the axiomatic chapters are also independent of the algebraic ones, and an instructor who chooses to skip the algebraic material can simply ignore the latter part of 13.3. Finally, Lukasiewicz fuzzy logic is presented independently of Gödel and product fuzzy logics, thus allowing an instructor to focus solely on the former. There are exercises throughout the text. Some pose straightforward problems for the student to solve, but many exercises also ask students to continue proofs begun in the text, to prove results analogous to those in the text, and to compare the various logical systems that are presented.' This book is ideal for an intermediate-level course on many-valued and/or fuzzy logic. Although it includes a presentation of propositional and first-order logic, it is intended for students who are familiar with classical logic. However, no previous knowledge of many-valued or fuzzy logic is required. It can also be used as a secondary reading for a general course on non-classical logics. In the words of the author: 'The truth-valued semantic chapters are independent of the algebraic and axiomatic ones, so that either of the latter may be skipped. Except for Section 13.3 of Chapter 13, the axiomatic chapters are also independent of the algebraic ones, and an instructor who chooses to skip the algebraic material can simply ignore the latter part of 13.3. Finally, Lukasiewicz fuzzy logic is presented independently of Gödel and product fuzzy logics, thus allowing an instructor to focus solely on the former. There are exercises throughout the text. Some pose straightforward problems for the student to solve, but many exercises also ask students to continue proofs begun in the text, to prove results analogous to those in the text, and to compare the various logical systems that are presented.'

Comment: This book would be ideal for an introductory course on symbolic logic. It presupposes no previous training in logic, and because it covers sentential logic through the metatheory of first-order predicate logic, it is suitable for both introductory and intermediate courses in symbolic logic. The instructor who does not want to emphasize metatheory can simply omit Chapters 6 and 11. The chapters on truth-trees and the chapters on derivations are independent, so it is possible to cover truth-trees but not derivations and vice versa. However, the chapters on truth-trees do depend on the chapters presenting semantics; that is, Chapter 4 depends on Chapter 3 and Chapter 9 depends on Chapter 8. In contrast, the derivation chapters can be covered without first covering semantics. The Logic Book includes large exercise sets for all chapters. Answers to unstarred exercises appear in the Student Solutions Manual, available at www.mhhe.com/bergmann6e, while answers to starred exercises appear in the Instructor's Manual, which can be obtained by following the instructions on the same web page.

Comment: This book can be used in a variety of advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 8 may be useful in an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate course, where an emphasis is placed on classical logic and on a range of different proof calculi (mainly for classical logic). Chapters 4, 5 and 6 deal almost exclusively with non-classical logics. Chapters 7 and 9 are rich in meta-logical results, including results that have been obtained specifically using sequent calculus formalizations of various logics. These last five chapters might be used in a graduate course that embraces classical and nonclassical logics together with their meta-theory. To facilitate the use of the book as a text in a course, the text is peppered with exercises. In general, the starring indicates an increase in difficulty, however, sometimes an exercise is starred simply because it goes beyond the scope of the book or it is very lengthy. Solutions to selected exercises may be found on the web at the URL www.ualberta.ca/˜bimbo/ProofTheoryBook.

Comment: This book is adequate for a first course on formal logic. Moreover, its table of contents follows that of Quine's "Methods of Logic", thus it can serve as an introduction or as a reference text for the study of the latter.

Comment: This book is ideal for a first introduction course to formal logic. It doesn't presuppose any logical knowledge. It covers propositional and first-order logic (monadic and relational).

Comment: An introduction to sentential and first-order logic with a mixed philosophical and computational focus; rigorous presentation of the formalism interspersed with brief philosophical reflections on concepts, practical exercises, and pointers at technical 'real-world' applications.