The new April version of the Teach Yourself Logic Guide is now available for downloading. This is re-organized and half as long again as the previous version. After the Introduction there is a short new Chapter 1 on Logical Geography saying more about how the field of logic (and hence the Guide) can be carved up. Chapter 2 on The Basics is much as it was. But Chapter 3, Exploring Further, is much expanded and (at least to a first approximation) a complete draft: there are over a dozen new pages here. The chapter of a rather different character reviewing some of the Big Books now comes at the end, as an Appendix, but is otherwise unchanged in this version.
Most of the new sections of Chapter 3 are not only new to the Guide but haven’t appeared in draft form here on the blog either. So comments, corrections and suggestions will be particularly welcome, either below or by email.
Have you considered including the following items in your guide:
(1) http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/mkracht/html/tools/book.pdf
A fairly advanced treatment of modal logic.
(2) Mathematical Methods in Linguistics by Partee, Meulen and Wall
Useful for linguists, especially for its treatment of type theory and the lambda calculus.
What do you think of them?
I don’t know either of these so thanks for the pointers — I’ll take a look in due course!
Thank you very much for this very useful guide.
Should Immerman’s book, Descriptive Complexity, be in the guide somewhere? It covers such things as Fagin’s theorem (existential second-order logic is equivalent to NP).
Also, how about Maria Manzano’s Extensions of First-Order Logic?
Minor error: In “Heinz-Dieter Ebbinghaus and J ̈org Flum, Finite Model Theory”, on page 27 of the guide, the title isn’t in italics (but should be).
I just noticed that Gregory H Moore’s Zermelo’s Axiom of Choice: Its Origins, Development, and Influence, due from Dover, has now appeared.
Now if Dover would just do Drake’s Large Cardinals.
Re ‘Serious Set Theory’, how about Kanomori’s The Higher Infinite: Large Cardinals in Set Theory from Their Beginnings?
Dear Prof. Smith,
Thank you for this guide, it’s priceless. I would like to ask you about “Logic: Techniques of formal reasoning”, by Kalish, Montague, and Mar (2nd edition). I was wondering if I should give it a try, bearing in mind that I have no prior knowledge of serious logic.
Thank you,
Christos
That’s odd: I thought I had an old copy of Kalish and Montague, but looking along my shelves I must have at some point mislaid it/lent it/given it to Oxfam … As far as I can recall this is a pretty good book even if (as you might expect, fifty years on since it first appeared) now rather old-school in tone. It is certainly a very respectable, reliable book. If you have a copy to hand, then give it a try to see if it has the right pace, the right level, the right style for you.
Thanks. Yes, I do have a copy of the book. I’ve flicked through it, and I must admit it is quite intimidating for a formal linguist with a philological (hence, non-mathematical) background, like me. Terence Parsons has an online logic text, which is modelled on KM&M’s system, and seems easier to follow. I may start from there, and see how it goes. Anyhow, thanks again for your Logic Matters blog…had I known about it earlier….
I was surprised there wasn’t a mention of Restall’s Introduction to Substructural Logics. It seems like a natural fit in either the proof theory section or the non-classical logic section.
Yes, thanks! In fact, I did the Proof Theory section at the last moment, and I quickly realised I’d forgotten Greg Restall’s nice book. And it could appear in the non-classical section too, now you point that out. It will be in the May update, along with more expansive stuff about other proof theory books.
BTW, I’ve noticed that Jech’s Set Theory and Marker’s model theory book are part of the current Spinger ‘yellow sale’ as are Sacks’ Higher Recursion Theory, Wagner’s Simple Theories, MacLane and Moerdijk’s Sheaves in Geometry and Logic, and a Mathematical Logic and Model Theory by A. Prestel and C. N. Delzell.