Keith Douglas' Web Page

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Reviews, theses, articles, presentations A collection of papers from my work, categorized and annotated.
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Intellectual/professional influences Influences on my work, including an organization chart. Here you can also buy many good books on philosophy and other subjects via amazon.com. I have included brief reviews of hundreds of books.
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What is the philosophy of computing? A brief introduction to my primary professional interest.
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Book Influences - Logic: General

Title
Author
Purchase / Enjoy Cover
Comment
An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic Priest High on formalism, low (though not zero) on motivation.
An Introduction to Non-classical Logic: From Ifs to Is (2e) Priest This giant book is a massive expansion of the previous one. The primary difference is an inclusion of first order logic with identity for most of the logics he discusses. This in itself is quite valuable. He also discusses with a bit more fairness motivation and use of each system, though he also makes it clear that this is not the goal and to use the good lists of readings and historical material for that purpose.
An Introductory Course in Formal Logic Barber   Essentially a course pack from the first logic course I did.
Elementary Logic Mates One of my many introductory to intermediate level logic textbooks.
Elements of Logic Barker One of my many introductory level logic textbooks.
Everything that Linguists have Always Wanted to Know about Logic but were ashamed to ask (2e) McCawley If the goal (as seems to have been the case) of this book is to have a brief introduction on everything logic-related a linguist might want to know and care about, this book is a good first approximation. However, it is ideosyncratic (to say the least) in some of its presentation and ought to be complemented with a more orthodox text. (Ideally they would encounter orthodoxy first, as this would be one trial by fire for a lot of students otherwise.) Includes exercises and (then) open problems (from time to time) as well as a very welcome list of symbols. Logicians who read the book are advised (by the author and I) to have some knowledge of approaches to natural language syntax and are also warned (by me) that the author is not above "natural language critiques" of logic and his theory of propositions is certainally in the unique category. Disclosure: I have entertained the idea that propositions are not individuated (completely) by truth conditions myself, so perhaps I am more open to the unusualness of the view. Also note that Tarski gets one mention in the entire book, which might shock some. A good book over all, but a very dense and challenging one.
Formal Logic: Its Scope and Limits Jeffrey Another little (and I do mean little) logic book. This book apparently introduced the "tree method" to the world, which is of some use both didactically and computationally.
Foundations of Mathematical Logic Curry This is a very oddly arranged (dozens of pages pass before we get anything like a usual logical system discussed) discussion of first order constructive logic, though along the way are allusions to other foundations and logics. Although some of the other topics are useful to have references on (Markov algorithms, lattices to name two) the organization and inconsistent level of difficult of prerequisites make it very challenging to follow. I have taken elementary courses in recursion theory but it is still strange to see those as somewhat understood prior to what is supposed to be a first (albeit graduate level) course in logic is very strange. Also, for those who obtain the volume looking for Curry's famous "currying" will barely find it.
Introduction to Logic Copi Another (this time hardcover!) introductory logic book.
Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking Salmon Yet another introductory logic book.
Introduction to Symbol Logic and its Applications Carnap (translated by Meyer and Wilkinson) Another roughly 200 level-ish text. Only noteworthy because of the sections which amount to foundations research in various fields. These are the "applications of the title" and include various basic postulates for geometry, set theory, physics and "biology" (the latter is pretty basic and would not likely attract many biologists).
Logic Salmon YAILB
Logic Nolt YAILB, though Schaum's does a good job with their solved problems.
Logic and Structure Van Dalen A detailed discussion of logic and its metatheory up to the completeness and compactness theorems for classical first order logic, then a brief introduction to second order and intuitionistic logics, including some model theory. (Note: review of 3th, link to 4th edition.)
Mathematical Logic for Computer Science (2e) Ben-Ari Overview of propositional logic, first order predicate logic (from both syntactic and "semantic" points of view) and a tense logic. Additionally there are applications to computer science and software development. The latter includes specification languages, correctness proofs and resolution as well as sample code in Prolog. A few typos mar an otherwise reasonably satisfactory (if very brief in places) treatment.
Natural Deduction Anderson A book devoted to the "natural deduction" method. Includes a strange but sometimes useful notation that is also a real pain to typeset. (Not as bad as, but somehow reminds me of, Frege's.)
Philosophical Logic Burgess This is a tiny book (~150 pages), introducing in a gentle fashion, some topics in philosophical logic: tense, modalities, theories of "the" conditional, relevant implication and intuitionistic logic. Similiar in character to the Priest volumes (see above on this page), but with less technical detail (and topics selected) but with more philosophical motivation.
The Connectives Humberstone Parts as much linguistics as logic, this massive (~1400 pages, large paper size) tome is a study of exactly what the title suggests: if, and, or, not and similar words are analyzed according to various logical systems (classical logics, intuitionistic, relevance, modal, etc.) and the systems themselves are studied and interrelated. Data from natural language is used to provoke discussion. All of these factors combine to result in an immense amount of material - to the point that even the author labels some of it as "digressions" or assigns parts to exercises. Amazingly, there is still plenty of material one could include, as one can see from the references and further reading suggestions. An astonishing and in places very difficult book, but one that provides a very comprehensive reference to this important topic. I only wonder if it will spawn a sequel, presumably called The Quantifiers.
The Essential Turing Copeland, ed. A combination of a collection of papers of Turing's and extensive historical and editorial information by Copeland. Some stuff is pretty easy to obtain elsewhere (e.g. "On Computable Numbers ..." and "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" but others (like his co-authored letter to Churchill) are harder to find. A good collection for all Turing afficiados or those interested in the history of logic, AI, cryptography or computing generally.
The Laws of Thought Boole This is a classic from the history of logic. Readers looking for "boolean algebra" here will, however, not find it. Like many things, it is not named for its creator. However, what will be found are an extended discussion of what we would call something like "the elementary theory of classes" and propositional calculus. Also present is some probability theory (Boole is a somewhat sometimes confused frequentist) with a lot of worked out examples. The work ends with a more epistemological and metaphysical chapter, arguably a statement of Boole's philosophy of science. This Prometheus Books edition is clearly reproduced and has a good introduction.
Understanding Symbolic Logic Klenk This introductory text is recommended by my colleague (then at UBC) Dave Thomas. It has many exercises for the reader to study from. It should not, however, be a hardcover. I imagine that campus bookstores charge an outrageous sum for this book. (I got mine used for less than a dollar net.)

 

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