Hello JM,
I am not familar with Harry Gensler's book. I am familar with Copi. A fabulous little book on informal fallacies is
With Good Reason by Engel. It is by far my favorite. At the beginning, it has a section on syllogistic argumentation, but it mainly deals with informal stuff. The treatment is terrific.
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Originally Posted by Civbert I started off learning logic with Gordon Clark's "Logic"...I think Clark packs a lot of insight into his text. |
Clark does a great job illustrating how to put informal propositions (say from the Bible) into proper catagorical form. I cannot commend this type of exercise too much. Plus, Clark is thoroughly Christocentric - even if a little eccentric. Along with Civbert, I am a fan of Clark.
As much as I appreciate and respect my friend Civbert, I cannot disagree with him more regarding his criticim of modern logic and modern logicians. First off, all non-Christian logicians (including Aristotle) do not have the proper starting point. Secondly, most of the modern logicians I read are aware of the historical roots and development of logic - much more so than the traditionalists I have personally encountered. Lastly, as a Chrisitian, I can affirm the value of modern logic - not over and against traditional logic, but along with it. In fact, I was listening to Alvin Plantinga argue a point against Naturalism that he got from Liebnitz. As I was listening to one particular argument, it dawned on me that formal systems (a huge area of study in modern logic) are a picture of what Plantinga was arguing. Essentially, he was arguing that mechanical processes cannot account for propositional meaning. In formal systems, meaning is not part of the system. Rather, it is brought to the system. As such, formal systems can be seen as illustrations of Plantinga's and Liebnitz's argument.
Sincerely,
Brian