Natural logic

by Neil Tennant

This introduction to mathematical logic contains notes, tables and exercises taking the student from first principles to more advanced theory. The author has based the text and exercises on his teaching experience.

Genres: Logic, Textbooks

Paperback

Published January 1, 1990

About the author

Neil Tennant is an American philosopher. He is Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Ohio State University; and, before taking up his appointment at the Ohio State University he held positions at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Stirling, and the Australian National University.

Along with Michael Dummett, Crispin Wright, Tennant is one of the most notable figures who have attempted to extend the project of providing anti-realist semantics for empirical language. He has also written extensively on intuitionistic logic and other non-classical logics. [wikipedia]

Reviews

[Bernard Iannone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Natural Logic is a particularly concise and extremely qualified explication of symbolic logic and meta logic. I took courses with Tennant and learned from him personally that this book was written, of all things, while he was bedridden: another testament to his genius. However, the genius only goes so far in that Tennant fails to explain in such a way that the implicit is made explicit, in spite of admiration for Robert Brandom. The primary issue is the intellectually interstitial moments when Tennant assumes knowledge in the reader. At the time that this was written, evidently this was a nonissue, and extreme conciseness was valued over elaboration. With the education I was given (which was by no means poor), however, inherent modalities of classical reasoning necessary for introductory philosophical material herein were never drilled in enough to keep up pace with the moves that Tennant makes (which he apparently has no idea he is making, they are so second nature to him). Therefore the book can be a slog, and require rereading in order to process. Ultimately, I think the mild antiquity of the language (which is unfortunate by no fault of Tennant, but of society as far as I’m concerned) and the sequent-based demonstrations without sufficiently overarching maps or analogies make for an unnecessarily challenging, but highly rewarding, endeavor. I would suggest the book to anyone who feels they are up for the challenge of greatly distilled logic, but not to someone who needs to take baby steps before they can run.