Bøger udgivet af Hackett Publishing Co, Inc

This book explores problems of knowledge that arise in everyday life. If you are not an expert, how can you know that another person is an expert? If experts are politically biased should you still trust them? More generally, how should you approach the testimony of other people: treat it all as "innocent until proven guilty," or is that too simple? Does the internet make us better knowers, or is it just a minefield of misinformation? Is it always irrational to believe a conspiracy theory? Suppose someone just as intelligent and well-informed as you are disagrees with you about something, how should that affect your belief? Can we have knowledge of what is right and wrong? HOW DO YOU KNOW? approaches these issues through the lens of social epistemology and via the pre-eminently social genre of philosophical dialogue. Its characters think and speak like real people in the world today, discussing and debating issues that are current, practically relevant, and even controversial -- while equipping readers with tools and concepts to see more clearly for themselves.

A comprehensive introduction to formal logic, Logic and Philosophy: A Modern Introduction is a rigorous yet accessible text, appropriate for students encountering the subject for the first time. Abundant, carefully crafted exercise sets accompanied by a clear, engaging exposition build to an exploration of sentential logic, first-order predicate logic, the theory of descriptions, identity, relations, set theory, modal logic, and Aristotelian logic. And as its title suggests, Logic and Philosophy is devoted not only to logic but also to the philosophical debates that led to the development of the field. Much new material has been added for the 13th edition . An introduction to set theory and its relationship to logic and mathematics, including philosophical issues, is now part of Chapter 13. Chapter 15 is an introduction to modal logic and Kripke semantics, concluding with a discussion of philosophical problems with any logical accommodation of modalities. Instructors who do not wish to present proof methods will find chapters on truth trees for both sentential and first-order logic, and a presentation of trees for modal logic. Special features of this text include presentations of the history of logic, alternatives to traditional methods of conditional and indirect proof, and a discussion of semantic problems with universal and existential instantiations. Throughout, the authors are sensitive to philosophical issues that arise from the relationship between ordinary language, symbolic logic, and justifications for the syntax and semantics of the various symbolic languages. Discussions range from the justification of the truth table for the sentential rendering of if . . . then statements to semantic and syntactic paradoxes, including some troubling paradoxes that arise in ordinary language (e.g., the so-called hangman or surprise quiz paradox). Logic and Philosophy includes ample material for a one-semester or two-semester course and provides a thorough preparation for more advanced logic courses.