An Introduction to Logic - Second Edition by Richard Tw Arthur

An Introduction to Logic - Second Edition by Richard Tw Arthur

The second edition will be available in late Fall 2016.

Richard Arthur's An Introduction to Logic provides a wide-ranging introduction to logic. In lively and readable prose, Arthur presents a new approach to the study of logic, one that seeks to integrate methods of argument analysis developed in modern informal logic with natural deduction techniques. The dry bones of logic are given flesh by unusual attention to the history of the subject, from Pythagoras, the Stoics, and Indian Buddhist logic, through Lewis Carroll, Venn, and Boole, to Russell, Frege, and Monty Python. A previous edition of this book appeared under the title Natural Deduction. This new edition adds clarifications of the notions of explanation, validity and formal validity, a more detailed discussion of derivation strategies, and another rule of inference, Reiteration. More exercises have also been added, and others have been updated and replaced.

“Richard Arthur’s book offers a fresh new perspective on the pedagogy of introductory logic instruction and its underlying philosophyIts approach makes informal logic and critical thinking mesh smoothly and intuitively with formal logic, thus clarifying the relevance of formal logic to the assessment of natural argument. My experience of teaching from the first edition was very positive; the book genuinely makes a majority of students build an appetite for logic. With its many conceptual, technical, and pedagogical improvements, the second edition should prove to be a sound choice as an introductory logic text.” — Nicolas Fillion, Simon Fraser University

Praise for the first edition:

“This excellent text covers all the standard topics and more. Its real strength lies in the clarity and humour of exposition and in the richness of examples and exercises. The illustrations are invariably interesting, since often they are related to current events or the history of philosophy and science or are drawn from Monty Python. The last of these provides several memorable fallacies. Arthur’s … is one of the finest introductions to logic available today.” — James Robert Brown, University of Toronto

Richard T. W. Arthur received a BA in physics from Oxford University and an MA in philosophy from McGill, before gaining a PhD at the University of Western Ontario in 1981, writing his thesis on Time and Temporal Becoming in the Foundations of Physics. Since 2002 he has been Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University, where he also taught in the Origins Institute, and is now Professor Emeritus. Richard Arthur is past President of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, Vice President of the Leibniz Society of North America, and a member of several other professional organisations. He has published widely in the history of philosophy, science and mathematics, as well as in the epistemology of science, and on contemporary issues in the philosophy of physics, especially concerning space and time.