An Invitation to Formal Reasoning

Description

This work introduces the subject of formal logic by way of a system that is "like syllogistic logic". Its system, like old-fashioned, traditional syllogistic, is a "term logic". The authors' version of logic ("term-function logic", TFL) shares with Aristotle's syllogistic the insight that the logical forms of statements that are involved in inferences as premises or conclusions can be construed as the result of connecting pairs of terms by means of a logical copula (functor). This insight contrasts markedly with that which informs today's standard formal logic ("modern predicate logic", MPL). The book is intended as a tool for the introduction of TFL to the beginning student of logic. It also includes a chapter introducing standard MPL. There are several exercise sections and a summary of the main rules, laws and principles of TFL. For the philosophically oriented there are discussions of important issues at the intersections of semantics, metaphysics, epistemology and logic.