An Introduction to Symbolic Logic.

LANGER, Suzanne.

Verlag: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1937

1 blank leaf + half title + TP + [7] = Dedication Page + [9] = Preface + [11]-15 = Contents + [17]-363 + 2 blank leaves. Octavo. First US Edition.The UK and the US editions were issued simultaneously from British printed sheets. No priority has been established.In the mid-1930s, Susanne Langer was one of the founders, along with the philosophers C. I. Lewis, Alonzo Church, W. V. Quine, and other pioneers in the development of formal logic in the United States, of the Association for Symbolic Logic. She served as a consulting editor for the association's Journal of Symbolic Logic from its first issue in 1936 until the end of 1939, contributing regular reviews of the German, French, and Italian literature in the field. Langer is best known for her contributions to the philosophy of culture, and in particular to the philosophy of art, so readers are often puzzled by her early preoccupation with symbolic logic and her frequent use of logical concepts in her theory of artistic meaning. However, Langer's conception of logic was the wide one she inherited from the logician, Henry M. Sheffer, and then modified in the light of her concern with the epistemological significance of the arts. In her view logic is not just limited to the principles of inference but also includes a study of the structures, forms, or patterns exhibited by objects, events, and processes of all kinds. The articulation of logical patterns in this wider sense can be applied in any medium that can be manipulated to exhibit complex combinations of distinguishable elements - including the tonal materials found in a musical composition or the pigments used in a painting as well as the words or mathematical symbols in a piece of discursive reasoning. Like her first book, An Introduction to Symbolic Logic was written as a primer for philosophy students. It was not just one of the best of the early texts in this field, it continued to be required reading in colleges courses for years to come and - as a testament to its importance and longevity - was reissued in a third edition in 1953.The book is still in print today and the current Amazon listing amply attests to the works ongoing appeal:This is probably the clearest book ever written on symbolic logic for the philosopher, the general scientist, and the layman. For years it has received the appreciation of those who have been rebuffed by other introductory works because of insufficient mathematical training. No special knowledge of mathematics is required here; even if you have forgotten most of your high school algebra, you can learn to use mathematical logic by following the directions in this book. Now revised and corrected, the book allows you to start with the simplest symbols and conventions and end up with a remarkable grasp of the Boole-Schroeder and Russell-Whitehead systems. It covers the study of forms, essentials of logical structure, generalization, classes, and the principal relations among them, universe of classes, the deductive system of classes, the algebra of logic, abstraction and interpretation, calculus of propositions, the assumptions of Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica, and logistics. Appendices cover symbolic logic and the logic of the syllogism, the construction and use of truth-tables, and proofs of two theorems. Without the publisher's original dust jacket but 29 Otis St. Watertown, Mass.) and the last one running tightly up the gutter of the title page (Harvard Coop, Sept. 29, 1938, $4.50). Otherwise the book is tight, clean and bright. A nice copy. ADDITIONAL PHOTOS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 1431

Bibliografische Details

Titel: An Introduction to Symbolic Logic.
Verlag: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York
Erscheinungsdatum: 1937
Einband: Hardcover
Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Schutzumschlag
Auflage: FIRST AMERICAN EDITION.