An Introduction to Logic

This book provides an introduction to one of the most powerful tools you will ever find: a tool used by the Greeks of the fourth century before Christ, described in amazingly modern yet almost poetic terms around 1250 by an eye-doctor who became Pope, resolved into pure mathematics in the 1800s, implemented in electronics in the 1900s… a simple, important, and common-sense tool: the tool known as Logic. It begins with the question of Truth, its relation to fiction, and the importance of definitions. Then follow chapters on the two great branches of Logic: Propositional Logic, which governs the linking of statements with AND, OR, NOT, and IMPLIES.Predicate Logic, which governs statements about ALL, SOME, or NONE, and in particular the combination of three such statements called the Syllogism.There are chapters on Error and on the application of Logic in the search for truth: the Argument, a formal debate in the Scholastic manner. It includes examples and several appendices explaining the 16 Boolean functions of two variables, the Trivium, the Summa, the Magic Words of Pope John XXI, and more.