Very short introductions #29

First edition published in 2000

"Logic is often perceived as having little to do with the rest of philosophy, and even less to do with real life. In this lively and accessible introduction, Graham Priest shows how wrong this conception is. He explores the philosophical roots of the subject, explaining how modern formal logic deals with issues ranging from the existence of God and the reality of time to paradoxes of probability and decision theory. Along the way, the basics of formal logic are explained in simple, non-technical terms, showing that logic is a powerful and exciting part of modern philosophy." --Publisher description

960L

Validity : what follows from what? -- Truth functions : or not? -- Names and quantifiers : is nothing something? -- Descriptions and existence : did the Greeks worship Zeus? -- Self-reference : what is this chapter about? -- Necessity and possibility : what will be must be? -- Conditionals : what's in an if? -- Future and the past : is time real? -- Identity and change : is anything ever the same? -- Vagueness : how do you stop sliding down a slippery slope? -- Probability : the strange case of the missing reference class -- Inverse probability : you can't be indifferent about it -- Decision theory : great expectations -- Halt! What goes there? -- Maybe it is true--but you can't prove it! -- A little history and some further reading