Intro to Formal Logic 2nd ed. — readers wanted!

It’s not so very often in life that you get a shot at putting right something major, that first time around occupied a lot of time and energy, but didn’t turn out as well as you intended. So I’m grabbing at the chance of preparing a second edition of my Introduction to Formal Logic, trying to make a very significantly better fist of it this time around. A contract hasn’t been nailed down yet, but I live in hope …

So where have things got to with the re-write? Well, you can now see the current table of contents of the reworked chapters 1 to 14. However, I am not going to simply post these chapters in an unrestricted way here (there are issues of intellectual property rights).

Still, if you would like to see these chapters, then by all means drop an email to ps218 at cam dot ac dot uk. Put “IFL” in the subject line, and add a few words about yourself (undergraduate student? graduate? professor? just interested in logic?). Then I will happily send you an e-copy of these pages on the understanding that (i) you will not recirculate them, (ii) you will certainly let me know any typos you spot, and (iii) you will give me any comments, large or small, that you have. Student comments of the “that chapter was very helpful” vs “I found that section hard going” are particularly welcome. (Though I guess that it’s too late in the day for comments, however well-meant, of the “I really wouldn’t be starting from here!” or “I wish you’d written a different kind of book!” variety.)

Anyone who produces helpful comments will get further instalments of the book over the next six months, and a mention in the Thanks at the beginning of book! Fame at last: how can you resist?

Meanwhile, I am making the opening chapters freely available — these form the informal pre-amble before we get down to propositional logic, explaining a few logical ideas like validity, forms of argument, counterexamples, proofs, etc. Beginning students who want a logical helping hand might find them useful.