Michael F. Goodman – författare

First Logic is an introduction to the study of logic. Understanding the concepts of validity, invalidity, and acceptability, unacceptability of arguments is the primary focus of this book. The first chapter introduces the reader to some of the basic concepts, such as validity, soundness, and acceptability. Chapters two and three are devoted to Aristotelian logic, including the traditional square of opposition and Venn diagrams for sentences and arguments. Chapter four is a treatment of a number of important informal fallacies of reasoning (appeals to authority, ignorance, force; petitio arguments, equivocation, and the deontic fallacy). Chapters five through eight are on various aspects of formal/symbolic logic: translating from natural language to the artificial language of logic; truth tables and truth trees; the method of natural deduction; predicate logic, including the logic of relations; and the concept and use of identity and its symbolization.

First Logic is an introductory text covering numerous topics in logic. This third edition includes expanded exercise sets for all chapters, updated examples, and extended discussion of concepts such as inductive reasoning, truth trees, and natural deduction. Chapter one presents some of the core concepts of logic, including validity, soundness, argument recognition, and the distinctions between deduction and induction. Chapter two outlines some of the most common informal fallacies of reasoning, such as appeal to authority, begging the question, and ad Hominem. Chapters three through seven cover such topics in symbolic logic as truth tables, truth trees, and proofs in natural deduction. Chapter eight covers the area of predicate logic, including proofs, trees, the logic of relations, and identity. This text will be helpful to all those who are interested in learning about the discipline of logic, including core concepts, methods of proving validity and invalidity, and the informal fallacies of reasoning.

The idea for an anthology on personhood grew out of two things, viz. , the work I did with Martin Benjamin during the Summer of 1982 at Michigan State University on the question, What is a person?, and the amount of time, effort, and expense required for serious research on the topic itself. The former experience taught me the importance of, among other things, attempting to get clear about what we are to mean by 'person,' while the latter experience suggested a possible course of action whereby getting clear might be made more manage­ able simply by having relatively convenient access to some of the most insightful and stimulating writings on the topic. The problems of personhood addressed in this book are central to issues in ethics ranging from the treatment or termination of infants with birth defects to the question whether there can be rational suicide. But before questions on such issues as the morality of abortion, genetic engineering, infanticide, and so on, can be settled, the prob­ lems of personhood must be clarified and analyzed. Hence What Is a Person? has as its primary theme the examination of various proposed conditions of personhood.