Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Metalogic: An Introduction to the Metatheory of Standard First Order Logic by Geoffrey Hunter ISBN: 0-520-02356-0 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: June, 1973 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: rather sloppy
Comment: Hegel said: "Impatience tries the impossible: to attain the end without the means". Well, this book is Impatience in metalogical affairs: it procureth to explain first order meta-logic without what is required: detailed and rigurous examination.
Let me disagree whith the reader who disagrees with the reviewer who calls Hunter's book cursory. I think the mistakes to which this last reviewer points are precisely the result of Hunter's cursory and rash style. I hadn't noticed the one on page 156.
The book begins nicely: it explains quite well some elementary matters of set theory. But even here sequences (very important things one has to deal with while doing logic) are wrongly taken to be n-tuples. There is trouble when he explains the length of a sequence: the "terms" of a sequence are taken to be the "objects ordered by the sequence"; the reader might then be tempted to think that a sequence ABCA orders 3 objects, and therefore is a sequence of 3 terms (while it is a sequence of 4 terms); the denumerable sequence AAAAA.... might be thought to be a sequence of 1 term, namely A. If Hunter had taken the trouble to define a sequence, and the "nth term of a sequence", in the usual manner (as a function f from an initial segment of natural numbers, and as f(n) respectively), these inconveniences could have been most naturally avoided. It is true that the reader will look at Hunter's own examples and probably figure out how things really work. But he will be entirely justified if he complains about the ambiguous explanations of the author, especially since Hunter KNOWS that sequences should be defined as functions (see p.25).
The rest of the book is clear and legible in some parts, but hasty in others. It is quite clear when it deals with truth functional logic, but hasty when it comes to consistency of first order logic, and over-hasty when it explains undecidability. It would be boring (for me) to point to the details right now.
Given that there are books which explain the whole subject with greater clarity and precision, I would not recommend this book to any serious reader or buyer.
Rating: 2
Summary: many mistakes, little rigour
Comment: I found this book terribly disappointing. Contrary to what the reviews in the backcover say, it is not at all "painless" to read nor does Hunter provide "numerous excercises". Excercises are indeed scarce (less anyway than what many standard texts introducing mathematical logic include); as regards painfulness, the reasoning in the book is at crucial points enthymematic, something highly disturbing for the beginner. The book also contains mistakes. For instance, on page 153, after the definitions of satisfaction and satisfiability, we read: "VvA is satisfiable for an interpretation I iff A is satisfiable for the same interpretation". But no meaning was previously attached to the expression "satisfiable for interpretation I", but only the usual definitions of "satisfaction for interpretation I" and "satisfiable" (simpliciter). Another example: there is a mistake in case 3 of the induction step of the proof of theorem 40.12, p. 156: the phrase that begins in the first line and ends in the third states something true of A but not relevant: what we need to prove is that the same holds for B, in order to apply the inductive hypothesis. Also, while the Basis of the proof of the same theorem should have employed induction on the number of function symbols, it just appeals to an "intuitive" explanation. There are also mistakes and misprints on page 199, in the proof-sketch of theorem 47.2. And at some other places as well.
The very same sketchy (or cursory) character of the whole book makes it unsuitable for the beginner and unhelpful for the specialist.
Rating: 5
Summary: Forget "Godel Escher Bach", read "Metalogic"!
Comment: I feel compelled to write this review because I disagree utterly with the previous reviewer. This is a fantastic book! I have no specialist training in logic, but I found "Metalogic" to be a clear, interesting, well-written and definitely "painless" text. I highly recommend this book as an introduction to metalogic; in fact, I would recommend it in preference to the other popular text on metalogic, the brilliant "Godel Escher Bach". Whereas "Godel Escher Bach" introduces the field of metalogic using allegories, parables, illustrations and copious references to turtles, "Metalogic" introduces it using clear, simple arguments and gentle, step-by-step explanations.
A quote from the preface: "Many elementary logic books stop just where the subject gets interesting. This book starts at that point and goes through the interesting parts...." Many of us who have struggled through the dry and boring foundations of elementary logic have become aware that not all logic is as tedious as the foundations. Beyond elementary logic lies a fascinating world inhabited by the paradoxes of Bertrand Russell, the counterintuitive proofs of Turing, Church and Godel, and the mindboggling infinite sets of Cantor. The problem is, just where logic becomes interesting, it also becomes unattainable to the average Joe. "Metalogic" undertakes to introduces this field to those without the specialist training that is normally required, and it succeeds admirably.
 |
Title: Set Theory and Logic by Robert R. Stoll ISBN: 0486638294 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 October, 1979 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
 |
Title: First-Order Logic by Raymond M. Smullyan ISBN: 0486683702 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 30 January, 1995 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
 |
Title: F. P. Ramsey: Philosophical Papers by F. P. Ramsey, D. H. Mellor ISBN: 0521376211 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 27 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
 |
Title: Formal Logic: Its Scope and Limits by Richard C. Jeffrey ISBN: 0070323577 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 01 November, 1990 List Price(USD): $38.44 |
 |
Title: Schaum's Outline of Logic by John Nolt, Dennis Rohatyn, Achille Varzi ISBN: 0070466491 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 01 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
