[Buddha-l] The arrow: its removal and examination

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 27 June 2007 09:06, Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote:

> Is Copi's the best intro to logic book? What are some other good logic 
> books?

I love it as a reference book, but I've never taught from Copi. I don't teach 
symbolic logic. I'm not smart enough.

A book on informal reasoning (as opposed to symbolic logic) that is a lot of 
fun is a relatively new one called <cite>Coffee and Philosophy</cite> by 
Bruce N. Waller (pearson Education, 2006). It's actually an introduction to 
philosophical topics and has some readings of philosophical classics, but the 
bulk of the book is an imagined conversation among three undergraduate 
students, who argue with each other about ethics, the existence of God, 
politics and so forth. Their dialogues are filled with fallacies, but 
fortunately one of the characters is a bright young philosophy major; she is 
able to point out the fallacies of her chums in an entertaining way and move 
the conversation forward. Waller has the same sort of gift that Robert M. 
Martin and Ray Smullyan have in turning a sometimes dry subject into a great 
deal of fun without in any way dumbing it down. (Well, I understand what 
these guys write, so maybe they ARE dumbing it down.)

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico