Frances Howard-Snyder,
Western Washington University Daniel Howard-Snyder,
Western Washington University Ryan Wasserman,
Western Washington University
ISBN: 0078038197 Copyright year: 2013
Feature Summary
Early chapters focus on relatively informal methods. More technical material is introduced gradually, with symbolic logic receiving thorough treatment in Chapters 7 to 9.
The writing is concise and lively throughout the text. The chapter on truth tables includes a discussion of the material conditional and its relation to the English “if-then ” and emphasizes abbreviated truth tables.
The system of natural deduction for statement logic is entirely standard, consisting of 8 implicational rules, 10 equivalence rules, conditional proof, and reductio ad absurdum.
The chapter on inductive logic includes standard material on statistical syllogisms, induction by enumeration, arguments from authority, Mill’s methods, scientifi c reasoning, and arguments from analogy. It also includes an accessible introduction to the probability calculus.
The exercises on arguments from analogy require students to evaluate a stated criticism of each argument, which makes the exercises relatively easy to grade.
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2013 McGraw-Hill Higher Education