Methods of Logic: Fourth Edition

by Willard Van Orman Quine

Overview

This widely used textbook of modern formal logic now offers a number of new features. Incorporating updated notations, selective answers to exercises, expanded treatment of natural deduction, and new discussions of predicate-functor logic and the affinities between higher set theory and the elementary logic of terms, W. V. Quine’s new edition will serve admirably for both classroom and independent use.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674571761
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	11/16/1982
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

W. V. Quine was Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. He wrote twenty-one books, thirteen of them published by Harvard University Press.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART I: Truth Functions

1. Negation, Conjunction, and Alternation

2. Truth Functions

3. The Conditional

4. Grouping

5. Truth-Value Analysis

6. Consistency and Validity

7. Implication

8. Words into Symbols

9. Equivalence

10. Alternational Normal Schemata

11. Simplification

12. Duality

13. Axioms

PART II: General Terms and Quantifiers

14. Categorical Statements

15. Venn's Diagrams

16. Syllogisms

17. Limits of These Methods

18. Boolean Schemata

19. Tests of Validity

20. Some Boolean Incidentals

21. The Bound Variable

22. Quantification

23. Rules of Passage. Monadic Schemata

24. Prenexity and Purity

25. Validity Again

26. Substitution

PART III: General Theory of Quantification

27. Schemata Extended

28. Substitution Extended

29. Pure Existentials

30. The Main Method

31. Application

32. Completeness

33. Löwenheim's Theorem

34. Decisions and the Undecidable

35. Functional Normal Forms

36. Herbrand's Method

37. Other Methods for Validity

38. Deduction

39. Soundness

40. Deductive Strategy

PART IV: Glimpses Beyond

41. Singular Terms

42. Identity

43. Descriptions

44. Elimination of Singular Terms

45. Elimination of Variables

46. Classes

47. Number

48. Axiomatic Set Theory

Partial Answers to Exercises

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

For a treatment of such modest size, it abounds in exciting ideas, freshness of perspective on old logical and philosophical problems, and in lucid and exact analysis.

Joseph S. Ullian

It is admirably precise and it is written with a deliciously light touch.

Ernest Nagel

Quine's book is of first-rate quality, and presents the materials of modern formal logic in a masterly fashion...A superb text: authoritative, mature, and brilliant and original in its exposition.

R. J. Trayhern

For a treatment of such modest size, it abounds in exciting ideas, freshness of perspective on old logical and philosophical problems, and in lucid and exact analysis.

Editorial Reviews

Quine’s book is of first-rate quality, and presents the materials of modern formal logic in a masterly fashion… A superb text: authoritative, mature, and brilliant and original in its exposition.

Ernest Nagel

It is admirably precise and it is written with a deliciously light touch.

Joseph S. Ullian

For a treatment of such modest size, it abounds in exciting ideas, freshness of perspective on old logical and philosophical problems, and in lucid and exact analysis.

R. J. Trayhern