Well, I missed my self-imposed deadline, to get the revised Study Guide done and dusted by the end of the year. What a surprise.
Occasionally distracted by the mubble fubbles (see the last post!) and repeatedly caught up in actually re-reading at least bits of the books I am recommending, it’s been a rather slow job to do decently well. But the end is in sight. A few pages in Chapter 11 remain to be polished up and inserted, but otherwise here is a late draft of the whole thing (all viii + 174 pages of it).
Apart from finishing §11.3 and §11.5, I need to do another read-through for typos and thinkos, and then there is also the boring typographical stuff (regularizing spacing conventions and so forth). While I’m doing that, all suggestions, comments and corrections for the current draft will be hugely welcome.
Then, at last, there can be the new Big Red Logic Book. It’s been instructive to get it done — embarrassingly so sometimes, as I learn things I should have twigged decades ago! — but I’ll be glad when it is finally off my desk.
I’ve always enjoyed the ‘further reading’ sections in books, so the Guide is very much the sort of thing I like; and the ‘overviews’ make it a useful ‘view from above’ in its own right. I’m pleased to see it will become one of the Big Reds.
I hope to find time to read it properly. For now, though, a few quick thoughts.
1. Have you looked at the recent Fast Track to Forcing by Mirna Džamonja? It’s in the blue London Mathematical Society Student Texts series.
2. I think Ralf Schindler’s Set Theory: Exploring Independence and Truth is considerably harder going than your description makes it seem.
3. The two descriptions of Button’s Set Theory: An Open Introduction (p 11, p 81) give different impressions of the book, and are each written as if the other did not exist, though they agree that the earlier chapters are very good.
4. Despite(?) its title, The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic, Lou Goble (ed) looks like it contains quite a few relevant articles.
Thanks for this!
1. I thought that Mirna D.’s book was extremely disappointing when I got it, back when it came out. I confess I’d forgotten about it again (partly because my bookshelves are getting radically in a mess as I run out of space, so her book wasn’t with the other set-theory books! — I MUST do a major sort-out/reorganization sooner rather than later). I suppose, because her aim is to write a book that, if it worked, would be very appropriate for the Guide, I should take another look …
2. That’s probably right: I’ll adjust.
3. Ah OK: I’ll check this, when I start doing an end-to-end read-through for consistency.
4. I’ll take a look.
Thanks again!
Two questions re treatments of forcing:
What do you think of Cohen’s own book on forcing, Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis?
Is there an explanation that could be given in the Guide of what the treatments of forcing you recommend get right that the more numerous others get wrong?
The Cohen book is of course the classic ….perhaps I should indeed mention it, though not I think as a place to start.
I don’t think it is a question of the books I’m inclined to recommend getting something *right* that others get wrong, so much as being (relatively speaking) *reader-friendly* in their treatment of forcing.
Hi Peter, thanks for your great service to the community!
Again just something very minor: the last name of the author of Real Analysis through Modern Infinitesimals should be ‘Vakil’ instead of ‘Vakin’ (p. 166 and p. 173).
Oops. And the book was on my desk as I wrote!
First of all, thanks a lot for the Guide! I think it would be useful to add some advice on books on the philosophy of logic – not philosophical logic nor logic for philosophers, of course, but books like Haack’s Philosophy of Logics, or Stephen Read’s Thinking about Logic, or the recent An Introduction to the Philosophy of Logic by Cohnitz and Estrada-González. Even in the event that you think all the books on that subject are bad or useless or dated, IMO it would be helpful for your readers to know.
Beginning Mathematical Logic is already ridiculously long, and so I’m reluctant to stray too far beyond its basic aim of recommending technical treatments of the various topic areas. I don’t think Haack or Read (decent though they are for their intended audiences) have much to add on the technicalities. As I recall, Cohnitz and Estrada-González say more, though I didn’t like the book much when I first saw it. I’ll take another look.