TheHeadRoach

If anyone could post the names of a few good, easy to read, beginners books on philosphy, peticularly in the area of logic I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

-Roach

P.S. for those of you who are wondering who I am, I have been visiting your forum frequently for the last couple of weeks after being directed here by a friend. I am very pleased to have found some intelligent discussion. I probably won't post much but I'll be around. =D

[ March 30, 2002: Message edited by: TheHeadRoach ]</p>

Bill Snedden

Two I can recommend:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130102024/qid=thesecularweb/" target="_blank">Introduction to Logic</a> by Irving Copi.

This is arguably the best introductory logic text around. It's frequently used in collegiate curricula and is currently in its 9th edition.

<a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=414" target="_blank">The Problems of Philosophy</a> by Bertrand Russell.

An excellent introduction to philosophy via an examination of some of the classic "problems" debated in the history of philosophy.

If I happen to think of any others, I'll post them as well.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

[Edited to add book links.]

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Bill ]</p>

Brian63

This is the one I'm currently into, and it is very helpful and a good intro to logic. The edition I am reading though, is the 10th edition, and I recently saw an 11th edition somewhere online (I think on the Barnes&Noble website). The 10th edition explains the material well, but there are several problems with the answer key in the back of the book. There are a number of mistakes and typos and such, but aside from that I am enjoying it. Hopefully the 11th edition has fixed a lot of these mistakes.

TheHeadRoach, I recently started a thread similar to yours that you may wish to check out.

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000087" target="_blank">Books on logic</a>

Brian

TheHeadRoach

Thanks guys. =D

The Admiral

Since this thread is labeled, books, let me toss this in.

If I am to wordy, well, nobody said you had to read it.

Recently in our local paper an article was printed on the editorial by a man who goes by the name of Jameel Ghuari. His real name is Chuck Chambliss. I have never met him. However, he was once a teacher at the high school which my youngest son attended. I do not know what his religion, if any, was. But he is now a convert to Islam. The paper quite regularly gives him the premere spot on the page, the commentary section.

Is it politically incorrect for me to state that he is black? Well, so? He has a chip on his shoulder plain for all to see.

In his most recent commentary he criticized the way history was being taught in the schools. Black culture is being given insufficient attention. I have no problem with that.

He cited a book, They Came Before Columbus, by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima. I had not read the book but I thought that I rememberd reading a review of it. I couldn't find the review, but I bought and read the book. It was not totally incredible. Not like Hal Lindsay, Velikovsky, or Van Daniken.

Now here is my problem, I would like to write a reply to this piece because I suspect that it is black revisionist history. But I need some input from someone better educated than I am. Have any of you read this book? Do you have some thoughts that you would share with me? Have you seen the review and can you tell me where to find it?

The Admiral

Bill

Copi's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130102024/qid=thesecularweb/" target="_blank">Introduction to Logic</a> is listed as the 10th edition (from 1998) at the Amazon.Com web site. If the 11th edition is out, then Amazon doesn't have it.

Copi's book is a bit expensive (at $77.00 new; $24.50 used). For a low-cost ($10.36) version, try <a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=544" target="_blank">Introduction to Logic</a> by Patrick Suppes. This is a Secular Web "best buy."

== Bill

Brian63

This is mostly a rant, but I'm getting more and more displeased with Copi's book, but specifically the answer key.

This morning and afternoon I was working on a pretty tough (for me, anyways) problem that involved combining several syllogisms to make a "sorites," and I thought I finally had figured it out, when I checked in the back in the answer key and found out that my answer was wrong. I was going over it again for a while and could find nothing wrong with it, so I checked out the solution that was written in the book, and THERE I found the error. I won't bother explaining what that was, but it was a careless one that invalidated the entire answer.

There are so many problems with the answer key that it is making it difficult and frustrating to learn the material and determine if I'm doing the problems correctly.

AVOID THE 10TH EDITION IF YOU CAN!!!

Brian