Introduction to Philosophy/Logic

Before we are ready to ask any questions, we must first understand how to go about reasoning about them. The branch of philosophy that covers the study of reasoning is called logic. It stands at the foundation of all philosophical and scientific thinking processes. Logic is very important. After all, if we want good answers to our questions, we need some way to verify that we didn't make a mistake in our reasoning. The field of logic has matured to give rise to a very structured way of approaching the art of reasoning, turning it into a science. Even so, of course, interesting questions and problems still remain to be researched. However, for this introductory book, we will cover the basics of correct reasoning, and slowly introduce you to the most structured form of all: formal logic. This book will only provide an introduction. To read more about formal logic specifically, we recommend advanced readers to check out the related wikibook Formal Logic. Table of Contents Introductory Material Older Pages Preface Logic and Reason Truth and Validity Paradoxes Classical Logic Modes Sentential Logic Older Pages The Sentential Language (heavily modified) (moved to Formal Logic) |Truth Tables (completely rewritten) (moved to Formal Logic) Building More Complicated Formulas Tautologies and Contradictions Fault Diagnosis Some Properties of the Logical Connectives Nand and Nor A More Formal Approach to Sentential Logic Soundness, consistency, completeness Syntax and semantics Propositional calculus and probability theory Summary for propositional calculus Tableau proofs Predicate Logic Other Material Older Pages Modal Logic Names - Frege, Sinn and Bedeutung Equality - Leibniz's law Definite descriptions - Russell Intensionality, Belief, Scope Truth, Tarski Vagueness Bibliography Newer Pages Logic/Logic and Reason Logic/Mini TOC