Introduction to Logic

Rating:
Summary: Best Logic Book Out There!
Review: Gensler's approach is simple, witty, clear, and user-friedly. He doesn't pack in so much information in each chapter that the students get bogged down with surfeit info. The exerceises are good ones (and I've seen many books that have bad ones); Gensler provides a teacher's manual FREE online, as well as helpful hints on how to organize the course over a semester or year; the Logicola program is free!! and it's the best out there: it gives immediate feedback to the students; it is super easy to grade and track the students' progress. The book is also inexpensive relative to others (hurley's is about $90). Use this book, you will NOT be sorry!!!

Rating:
Summary: Suitable for self-study
Review: I agree with the two previous reviewers that this is an outstanding introduction to logic. I would have given it 5 stars, but the publisher committed the nearly unpardonable sin of omitting an index. In these days of computerized indices, there is no excuse for not including an index.

However, more than overriding this fault is the inclusion of over 30 pages of answers to selected problems. In each section, answers are given to at least every 5th problem. This is enough to check your understanding of the section. This feature, along with the clarity of the presentation, makes this book excellent for self-study.

Rating:
Summary: The best introductory logic book I have seen in 31 years!
Review: I have taught logic for 31 years in colleges and universities. This book, along with its logicola software prgram downloaded for free from the net, has allowed my students to learn more logic in a semester than any of the other standard books that I have ever used. I used an earlier edition of this book in 1989 and was sorry to see it go out of print. When it came back, I quickly ordered it. My students love it and the logicola program. If you want to know logic and cannot take a course, but have the will, get this book, download the logicola program, and get to work. You will not be sorry!!! Just a tremendous value and an excellent text book that covers enough material for two or even three courses in logic!!! Best wishes!

Rating:
Summary: The best introductory logic book I have seen in 31 years!
Review: I have taught logic for 31 years in colleges and universities. This book, along with its logicola software prgram downloaded for free from the net, has allowed my students to learn more logic in a semester than any of the other standard books that I have ever used. I used an earlier edition of this book in 1989 and was sorry to see it go out of print. When it came back, I quickly ordered it. My students love it and the logicola program. If you want to know logic and cannot take a course, but have the will, get this book, download the logicola program, and get to work. You will not be sorry!!! Just a tremendous value and an excellent text book that covers enough material for two or even three courses in logic!!! Best wishes!

Rating:
Summary: An unambiguous and clear introduction to logic
Review: This is it. You want one of the best introductory logic texts? Look no further. Logic is clearly explained (including more abtruse topics like modal logic, deontic logic, and Godel's theorems). There are many exercises and the program is integrated with a website (LogiCola).

Rating:
Summary: Elegant, Concise, Clear as Crystal
Review: This is the best introductory book on symbolic logic I have seen. It covers not only propositional and predicate logic, but also modal, deontic, and inductive (probabilistic) logic, and it does so with remarkable clarity and economy. Professor Gensler's proof method differs slightly from those in most textbooks, but I find it more intuitive and therefore more useful. His examples are drawn from everyday life and from arguments of the great philosophers. His exercises are well designed, too. And at one-third the cost of most other (and much inferior) textbooks, this book is a great bargain.

I am not sure what the previous reviewer was referring to in his complaint about the lack of an index. This edition contains an index to proper names, while the excellent glossary of logic terms also functions as an index by listing the section numbers where each term is defined and discussed.