The Rudiments of Formal Logic: With Trees and Natural Deduction

The Rudiments of Formal Logic: With Trees and Natural Deduction explores the formal structure of arguments in both sentential and first order predicate logic. Formal logic is the science of making valid inferences. As such, this book covers a variety of ways to demonstrate the validity of argument forms with emphasis given to truth trees and natural deduction. The Rudiments of Formal Logic emphasizes and develops key concepts in formal logic such that it strikes a balance between being appropriate for those who are just wading into logic without much background and those who are looking to pursue formal logic beyond an introductory level course. The first part of the publication focuses on developing skills in sentential logic including transcription, truth table analysis, truth trees and natural deduction. The second part of the book re-visits transcription, truth trees and natural deduction in first order predicate logic. Finally, the book concludes by introducing the identity predicate, which provides a point of departure for students looking to pursue formal logic on a deeper level.