The Little Logic Book

Written by four members of the Calvin College philosophy department, The Little Logic Book is a valuable resource for teachers and undergraduate students of philosophy. In addition to providing clear introductions to the modes of reasoning students encounter in their philosophy course readings, it includes a nuanced description of common informal fallacies, a narrative overview of various philosophical accounts of scientific inference, and a concluding chapter on the ethics of argumentation.

The book features engaging dialogues on social, philosophical and religious issues based on the styles of argument taken up in the chapters. In additions to core concepts, distinctions, explanations, rules of inference, methods of assessment, and examples, The Little Logic Book provides philosophical commentary that will stimulate discussion of the assumptions and implications of various kinds of human reasoning. Free downloadable exercises are available from the publisher.

Review

"[There is] an impossible tension between high and low, from which we seem to suffer in academic textbook writing. . . . Textbooks--especially logic textbooks--are expected to "talk down" to students, in the sense of being undemanding, assuming no previous knowledge, explaining all terminology, and, in general, being suitably long-winded and patient. The Little Logic Book is refreshingly different. It succeeds in its demonstration of logical topics, from the most basic (like truth tables) to some of the most advanced (like modal logic and counterfactuals), and provides concise articulations of advanced questions and their no-less advanced answers. . . . This is an admirably pertinent book to supplement introductory philosophy classes by introducing students to the fundamentals of reasoning of all kinds?deductive, inductive, scientific, fallacious, and so on. When used with the exercises that accompany it on the press website, it will clarify these staples of philosophical argumentation in just the right dose at just the right intellectual level."
Anat Biletzki, Albert Schweitzer Professor of Philosophy, Quinnipiac University, review from Teaching Philosophy