Reviews (19)

Introduction to Logic
I read this book in early 1980.Because of my background in mathematics, I read the language and deduction portion, of my own in just few days.Earlier I had read Morris Cohen & E Nagel's famous book.Treatment of scientific method etc. seemed better in the latter,yet to learn about various aspects of language usage and deductive logic was realy an electrifying experience then .The part on inductive logic is in its own way excellent.I have 2/3 editions of this book and used it when teaching to a class of judicial officers about use of logic in law esp. chapter 15.This is a must for the autodidact.

Elementary, my dear reader...
Logic is not just for Spock; deduction (which, if you read this book, you'll discover is rather different) is not just for Sherlock Holmes.Many if not most students of philosophy over the past 50 years have had their beginning logic training from an edition of this book, 'Introduction to Logic' by Irving M. Copi, now in its eleventh edition, also now with a co-author listed, Carl Cohen.
Ideal Text for Self-Study
I bought this book (along with the study guide) and began self-studying the material to improve my logical ability.The book is relatively easy to understand even for novices with no prior training in logic and uses examples that are entertaining and interesting.The answers to select homework questions (about 1/4) are in the back so I would suggest that for self-study, either the study guide (which includes another 1/4) or the complete answer guide should also be purchased.The text itself is very fun to go through and I think Copi and Cohen do an amazing job as teachers. For those planning on taking the LSAT, this book may prove more beneficial than a test prep course if you want to understand the actual reasoning behind the test and not just regurgitate formulaic test-taking strategies. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Interactive & Multimedia    2. Logic    3. Philosophy    4. Textbooks    5. Philosophy / General   

Subjects:  1. Fallacies (Logic)    2. General    3. Judgment (Logic)    4. Logic    5. Philosophy    6. Reasoning    7. Philosophy / General   

Reviews (34)

A balanced and informative guide
I found Asking the Right Questions (ARQ) to be a very balanced and thorough approach to critical thinking. I am an electrical engineer by profession... I am well-regarded by my peers as an careful thinker; however, I have found myself frustrated at times when discussing controversial issues with friends... some lines of thought don't ring true, but are nonetheless hard to refute. After reading ARQ, I found that these dilemmas are frequently either the result of not agreeing on the definitions of ambiguous terms (e.g. oppression, sexism, racism) or on some logical fallacy that was used. This has made a quite difference in my ability to discern the issues at hand.
Demolishing the Wrong Arguments
This slim volume is a textbook on "critical thinking," which seems to be the art of argumentative analysis.You read an argument, ask a series of questions, and thereby test the worth of the argument.
One of the best books on argumentation
This is the best book I've read about argumentation so far.The book doesn't waste your time describing the history of argumentation or going through ancient Greek terms as so many other books or courses on the subject do.If you want to improve your argumentation skills in a short time, this is the book to read.It also gives fresh ideas and new angles to more advanced readers.The book contains lots of practice exercises where you can test the skills you've just learned.The chapters about good evidence should be required reading for anyone involved in decision making in organizations.However, this book falls short of teaching how to captivate the audience.If that's what you need, you'd better read a good book on giving presentations first. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Composition & Creative Writing - General    2. Critical thinking    3. Criticism    4. Language    5. Language Arts & Disciplines    6. Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy    7. Literary Criticism    8. Rhetoric    9. Language Arts & Disciplines / Composition & Creative Writing    10. Literature: History & Criticism    11. Logic    12. Writing skills   

Reviews (60)

EXTENDER OF LONG TRADITION OF LOGIC FLAW DENOUNCERS
Jamie Whyte follows in a long tradition of writers that focus on flaws of logic that most people seem to fall into.His predecessors include Richard Dawkins (of a more scientific tone) and Gary Becker (of a more economics tone).Dr Whyte, by training a philosopher, focuses on pure reason and the ways people violate it.
Starts with a bang, ends with a yawn
This is a quick read.I read it on a flight to Cleveland.The book begins with wit, humor, and searing critiques of serial logical offenders.I particularly enjoyed how Mr. Whyte exposed the logical flaws in Pascal's wager, and people's right to their opinions.
Well written but a little too opinionated
I wasn't really sure what to expect when I delved into this book. I heard it was witty and sarcastic - it is. I heard Whyte was blunt and highly political - he is. Did I like it? From politics to religion, Whyte attacks the false logic he sees in every argument. He analyzes the lies of politicians and the existence of God. So sure, I liked parts of this book. It is well written and it makes you think, but it was a little too opinionated and blunt for my taste.
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Subjects:  1. Crime And Criminals    2. Criminology    3. Fallacies (Logic)    4. Logic    5. Philosophy    6. Philosophy / Logic   

Reviews (32)

Question your assumptions and challenge what you think you know
This book provides a well-organized survey of issues that limit our reasoning abilities:
Should Have Been Better Than It Was
Gilovich starts this book of with a real bang!After reading the Introduction, I thought this book would be really interesting and change the way I look at the world.He writes in a college-teacher tone that will not be approachable to those he most needs to reach.In other words, I really don't need a book to tell me to avoid holistic cretins, ESP, psychics, mysticism, and all that other garbage.
Required for all psychology students!!!
This book is a contemporary classic that should be required reading in all psychology programs. As a psychologist, I am regularly appalled by how few trained psychologists know of the research discussed in this book, indeed, of decision science in general!! It only goes to show, there's scientific psychology (of which this book qualifies), and then, well, there's the other 99%...the crap, fluff, unsupported, unscientific, claims and practices that arise out of pseudo-scientific approaches, misinterpretations of data, and fallacious assumptions and conclusions. As an exemplar of what's good in a field rife with methodological manure and hocus pocus B.S. (e.g. psychotherapy, psychiatry, etc.), this book really shines. Read it and discover why some of psychology really is a science. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cognitive Psychology    2. Critical thinking    3. Error    4. Evidence    5. Judgment    6. Logic    7. Psychology    8. Reasoning (Psychology)    9. Cognition & cognitive psychology    10. Psychology & Psychiatry / Child Development    11. Social, group or collective psychology   

Reviews (11)

Few Answers to Problems!
It would be nice if the author gave more than a smattering of answers for the problems in the book.If your instructor doesn't give these out to you in class or you didn't purchase the study guide, you are just screwed.

Pretty solid...
..although sometimes wordy, as another reviewer pointed out. Hurley's biggest problem is that he doesn't write very clearly; this is not an issue in the early going, but as one getis into predicates and the symbolism of logic, one must be very clear in how one communicates the intricacies.
I would buy the software that comes with it again, but not the book
I teach introduction to logic at a local community college and I used this text for my class--once. I will not again. It is way overpriced, wordy, and badly structured. However, my biggest problem was that the questions the book would ask my students to answer in the homework would often (1) rely on knowledge not taught in the chapter, (2) had the wrong answer in the answer key, or (3) asked questions with many right answers but listed only one as right in the answer key.
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Subjects:  1. Logic    2. Philosophy    3. Philosophy / General   

Reviews (7)

Poor Instructional Material...If You Are An Instructor, DO NOT UseThis Book In Your Classes
This book is next to useless in helping students to understand fallacies and identify them.It is probably the poorest instructional material I have encountered in all of my years in college. Humor was incorporated into this text in an effort to help students better understand the material, however, that effort is a big failure when it comes to this student, and probably also for many others.
Critically Thinking, Critically Funny,Critically Astute!!
What an awesome textbook!As a critical reasoning, reading, and writing instructor for twelve years, I have used this textbook, off and on, and I always return to it.There is no other textbook like it, but there are a lot of imitators.It infuses humor, pertinent political events, and very clear critical thinking concepts (like claims, fallacies, credibility, etc.)and presents those ideas in ways that make it a pleasure to read and learn from this book.

Rhetorical tricks exposed
This is a college textbook that I purchased because I was searching for a book that would review all the rhetorical tricks being used by politicians and special interest groups.For the past six years I've been simultaneously impressed and distressed with the increased sophistication being used to dodge discussing core issues and deceiving people.I believed I needed to further develop my awareness of when someone was using a rhetorical trick to avoid an issue or deceive the public, including myself.Once again excellent reader reviews helped me navigate to and choose this book and I was not disappointed!This book confronted many of the tricks being used by those in the media and using the media to get their message across while avoiding the truth.
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Subjects:  1. Critical thinking    2. Logic    3. Philosophy   

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business Life - General    4. Business/Economics    5. Critical thinking    6. Management - General    7. Management Science    8. Personal Growth - Success    9. Logic    10. Organizational theory & behaviour    11. Self-Help / General   

Reviews (1)

A Good Introduction
This book combines readability with good content, being one of the most often selected introductions to logic and critical thinking on the university level, it obviously holds a great deal of merit. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Critical thinking    2. Criticism    3. Logic    4. Philosophy    5. Philosophy / Criticism   

Reviews (1)

Relatively Technical
Not everyone is founded in logic.Actually, most everyone is not.The author attempts to immeadiately aquaint the reader with arguments and inductive strength, when most readers are not prepared for such technical language right off the bat.It would have been better for Robert Johnson to have supplied modern textbook highlighting and sectional delineations and conversational language the reader can relate to rather than plain text and examples that read like computer programming.He does give examples that are easy to understand, but when you are not eased into it, the examples don't help. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. Logic    3. Philosophy    4. Psychology    5. Education    6. Philosophy / General   

Reviews (2)

Not a fan, but still very good.
Yeah, so, I'm going to avoid the part where i think that a couple of important things in this book are stated too vaguely for a responsible philosopher, or where i mention that he seems to make one or two blatant errors of omission.I'm going to avoid these things for the dual reasons that a) they aren't really relevant to whether you should read this or not, and b) i allow for the possibility that i'm imagining these gaps because i haven't understood him, in which case i'm the stupid one.Given my presistent commitment to Legends of the Hidden Temple, that's a distinct possibility. A Superb Collection of Articles...
Searle has collected a large and important variety of articles in this text, which spans several years of thinking on issues such as: the nature of consciousness, free will, the mind-body problem, rationality, and collective action.Only one article on Kripke's meaning skepticism has been not previously published.Read more

Subjects:  1. Consciousness    2. Criticism    3. Intentionality (Philosophy)    4. Language and languages    5. Mind & Body    6. Philosophy    7. Biography & Autobiography    8. Epistemology, theory of knowledge    9. Philosophy / General    10. Philosophy of language    11. Western philosophy, from c 1900 -   

Reviews (10)

Very much recommended
I originally hated both the book and the software. Now I find them both incredibly effective tools to learn the basics of first-order logic. The book and the software work together. I imagine it must be difficult to get a good grasp of the concepts introduced in the book without exercising them on the software. The software, particularly Boole, the program designed for proofs, does give you inmediate feedback on proofs - not the case when working with pen and paper. Yes, it takes a while to get used to it, but, in the end, the result is quite rewarding!

Poor Book for Self-Study
The only reason to use this book is if it is required for your class, in which case there's no reason for you to be reading these reviews. If, like me, you are studying logic on your own, don't waste your time with this book. In order to check your work using the authors' website, you need to have the most recent (and therefore most expensive) edition.
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. I bought this book to learn logic. It turned out that this book uses 3 different software, which can be installed through cd or web site. Most of the exercises require software. Quite frankly I prefer the pen and paper method better. You don't really need a set of software to learn basic logic. It just adds unnecessary complexity.Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. Logic    3. Philosophy    4. Science    5. Science/Mathematics    6. Philosophy / Logic    7. Science / General   

Reviews (6)

Terrible Text Book for a Beginner
This is one of the worst text books I have ever had to read and try to understand.Used this text for an online class -- tough subject to figure out on one's own and the text, laden with the author's opinion and stories, made it difficult to weed out what was important and what was crap.I had to use a different, older Philosophy text book as a guide to understand what Wolf was trying to convey in this text.I thouht I was going to enjoy philosophy--I'm counting the days until I don't have to open this book ever again!

gooses review
This book will teach you nothing about philosophy.I would have given this book a negative star review but thats not an option on this grading scale.The most common theme in this book is telling you how philosophers work.they tell you a step by step processes that are oversimplified and can be combined to make less steps or in some cases one step.what is important in philosophy is what the questions are then what the suggested answers are and finally how to understand how to come to the suggested answer.
A Professor's Perspective
Wolff's perennial textbook, now in its eighth edition, has faults. This is a given for any book or other work in the print medium, and, for that matter, for any human artifact. Nevertheless, after teaching philosophy for thirty-six years using everything from classic sources to newspapers to novels as texts, I have settled on Wolff's About Philosophy as the best means for introducting the most diverse of all academic disciplines.Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. History & Surveys - General    3. Introductions    4. Methodology    5. Philosophy    6. Logic    7. Philosophy / General   

Reviews (22)

Unintended consequences...
So, I picked up this book awhile ago thinking that it would be a good survey of one part of linguistics. Yes, it is that. BUT, after reading several chapters, I discovered an unintended consequence, or perhaps an unexpected consequence. Since of the several reviews I read, no one addressed this isse, I thought I would.
Metaphors Can Keep Your Illusions Intact

Culture of Words
There are systems of metaphors repeated through our everyday language, and Lakoff identifies and explains many of them and their relationships to each other and to our culture.Upon reading these insights, they seem so obvious -- but I never would have thought to put those elements together to draw those conclusions.Lakoff explains the concepts quite clearly.Everything makes sense, and the book inspires more thought and questions. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Concepts    2. General    3. Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy    4. Language and languages    5. Linguistics    6. Metaphor    7. Philosophy    8. Truth    9. Grammar, syntax, linguistic structure    10. Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics    11. Literary theory   

Reviews (15)

moderately helpful book
this primer on informal logic is fairly good, and it's worth reading, but there are a few places wherein the logic is a little bit sloppy, but again, overall it is worth the price and it does have generally helpful concepts.

How to develop an argument
The author presents lists and sublists of types of arguments.The book would be more understandable if he had offered more examples of the topics he refers to.It would have helped too if he had used more symbols and diagrams.
A Little Light Reading... Perhaps Too Light
I'm on my way to grad school in the fall, and I picked up D.Q. McInerny's book with the thinking that since I never took an undergrad course in logic, it might be nice to learn the basics.Couldn't hurt to learn how to think in preparation for the most challenging time of your academic life, right?
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Subjects:  1. General    2. Logic    3. Personal & Practical Guides    4. Philosophy    5. Reference    6. Reference / General   

Reviews (6)

Unbelievably Good
Hilarious, creative, and disturbingly useful.A great read for pure entertainment value, though you will secretly consider actually using these equations to simplify difficult daily decisions.

A soon to be classic!
Pick up Geek Logik and you won't put it down.This is a gem!

Tired of the same-ol' self-help books?
All the self-help books are beginning to sound the same.NOT SO with Geek Logik.From a psychology perspective, I think following Garth Sundem's advice may be the best thing since Freud (sorry Garth).His approach is not only intuitively sound but mathematically sound (so he claims).It's a difficult book to put down except when you're laughing so hard you can no longer see the words.Merry Christmas to my whole Christmas list!
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Subjects:  1. Games    2. Games / Gamebooks / Crosswords    3. Games/Puzzles    4. Indoor Games    5. Logic    6. Logic & Brain Teasers    7. Games / Logic & Brain Teasers    8. Humour    9. Popular psychology   

Reviews (4)

Great intro to Real Analysis
Lay's book is my second favorite book on introductory level real analysis--please see my review of Elementary Analysis by Kenneth Ross.Ross somehow covers a lot more material, and quite a bit more clearly than Lay, BUT, the first two chapters of Lay's book covering axiomatic set theory are wonderfully written.I particularly love the clearly written coverage of the paradoxes contained in the Fraenkel-Zermalo Axioms, in Particular the Banach-Tarski paradox which states that a solid sphere of radius A < B can be cut an pasted into a sphere of radius B. Then, from chapter 3 onwards, Lay and Ross pretty much follow each other, Lay being more wordy than Ross, Ross being far more clear than Lay.
good to go
The book arrived in good condition and I have not had any problems with it.

Definitely a good first text
I bought this book because I have been looking for a Introductory analysis text that isn't too advanced, but yet doesn't gloss over the essential stuff, and I found it in Lay's book.For the self-studier, this book is excellent!I have several books on analysis: Shilov, Kolomogorov, Rosenlicht, Ross,etc...For the beginner, this book is superior to all of them.A plethora of examples.Also, a good range of problems:from straight forward problems requiring only the use of a definition to more advanced problems requiring a little thought.If you already have had some Analysis, then this book is probably not for you.But, if you are a student who wants to learn Analysis on your own, then this book would be hard to beat.After this book, one should be able to tackle "Papa Rudin".For according to Rudin, all that is needed to study his "Real and Complex Analysis" tome, is the first seven chapters of his "Principles of Mathematical Analysis".This book covers all that Rudin covers with the exception of Riemann-Stieltjes integration.On the whole, this is a great start!If proof-based math is new to you, then you will appreciate the first chapter on proofs.Would have given five stars, but I would have liked to seen Riemann-Stieltjes integration.That's really only nit picking, though. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Functional Analysis    2. Logic    3. Mathematical And Symbolic Logic    4. Mathematical analysis    5. Mathematics    6. Proof theory    7. Science/Mathematics    8. Set Theory    9. Mathematical logic    10. Mathematics / Advanced    11. Mathematics and Science    12. Real analysis   

Reviews (2)

A classic--in argument, rhetoric, and philosophy
Stephen Toulmin's The Uses of Argument distinguishes itself as a work of importance in three different yet related fields.As philosophy it offers a compelling critique of analytic methods for looking at arguments, showing the limitations of a philosophical system that excludes discussion of ethical and practical issues.As rhetorical theory it was, along with Perelman's New Rhetoric, to reinvigorate Aristotle's topics within philosophical and practical argument.As argumentation theory, it models and maps arguments, providing a basic vocabulary for establishing claims, in terms of"warrants," "grounds," and "backing."
Brillant book, giving new insights on ouruse of reason
It is a book you won't forget. Far from being boring or too technical, it is filled with examples, often funny, that help you to understand betterthe way our reasoning works. The classical categories are here related toour daily use of reason and the 'human face' of logic is brillantlypresented. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. Logic    3. Philosophy    4. Reasoning    5. Philosophy / General   

Reviews (1)

Current issues and enduring questions
The book is just what I needed for class. Also I find it to be very helpful in writing papers ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Composition & Creative Writing - General    2. Language    3. Language Arts & Disciplines    4. Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy    5. Logic    6. Philosophy    7. Public Speaking    8. Rhetoric    9. Language Arts & Disciplines / Composition & Creative Writing   

Reviews (5)

A great little book!
I was reminded of this book last week while watching "Good Night and Good Luck" - wondering if the material may have been inspired by the events of that era.
One of the Best Short Reads on the topic of Logical Fallacies
Want to differentiate between the heavy emotional language you hear, the logic used, and the various errors in logic?Want to know what that false argument is called?Want to find a book that does not look, feel, and read like a textbook, but can easily be read/perused at your convenience?
mistake
If you can't find the download, it's probably because the reviewer who gave the address typed it incorrectly, with an extra letter in institute. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. Logic    3. Philosophy    4. Psychology    5. Reference