(1) Mathematical logic, which mainly focuses on propositional calculus and predicate calculus, was widely used in the 1940s and 1970s. For example, Willard Van Orman Quine's Logical Method (1950), Patrick Supes's Introduction to Logic (1957) and Irving M. Coppi's Symbolic Logic (1957).
(2) Introduction to logic. There are three most successful textbooks in this field. The first book is another textbook "Introduction to Logic" written by Professor Kirby from the Philosophy Department of the University of Hawaii. From the publication of 1953 to the publication of 200 1 to1,it has been widely used for half a century and still belongs to the range of public choice. This book was later translated by Professor Zhang Jianjun of Nanjing University, and included in the Translation Series of Foreign Classical Philosophy Textbooks, which was planned by me and published by Renmin University of China Press, and was published in 2007. The second book is Introduction to Concise Logic edited by Patrick J Hurley, a philosophy professor at the University of San Diego. At that time, there were 8 editions, and recently 10 was published. At that time, a logic professor at Miami University gave me a copy, telling me that it was a very popular logic textbook in the United States at that time, and it was likely to replace Kirby's Introduction to Logic. The third book is Logic and Philosophy, edited by Howard Kahane, a philosophy professor at the University of Maryland. Since the first edition of 1969, eight editions have been published so far. In 2004, Taiwan Province Shuang Ye Bookstore published a Chinese translation translated by Professor Zhuang, Department of Philosophy, Soochow University.
(3) Critical thinking, which began to appear in 1970s, has occupied half of foreign logic teaching (30%-40%). In terms of content, it deliberately downplays the over-technical part, pays attention to the analysis of concrete practice of daily thinking, especially the analysis of reasoning and argumentation in daily thinking, and attaches great importance to the usefulness of logic to daily thinking. Its slogan is "Logic should be related to life and people's daily thinking."
It is really "the speaker is unintentional and the listener is interested." In 2006, Mr. Wu Xingyuan, assistant editor-in-chief of World Book Publishing Company, approached me and asked me to take the lead in translating Introduction to Concise Logic edited by Hurley and publishing it in the "University Hall" series of the publishing house. After consulting teachers, friends and students, I agreed to this matter. But from August 2007 to August 2008, I went to the philosophy department of Oxford University in England as a visiting scholar for one year, which undoubtedly affected the progress of this matter. Regarding the specific translation, I would like to make the following brief explanation:
(1) The translation division of this book is as follows:
Chen Bo: Translation of preface, table of contents and appendix of Logic and Postgraduate Entrance Examination. Write a "preface to translators"; Proofread the answers and exercises in Chapter 3, Chapter 6-14, draft all translated versions uniformly, and keep the terms, symbols and formats in the book consistent.
Song Wengan: Translate Chapter 65438 +0, 2, 4, 5 and the answers to the exercises; Translate other "outstanding logicians" except "ockham".
C: Translate the third chapter and practice the answers.
Xu Zhaoqing: Translate Chapter 6-7, answers and key words of exercises.
Zhang Minmin: Translate Chapter 8 and practice the answers.
Xiong: Translate Chapter 9, Chapter11-12 and the answers to the exercises.
Zhang Lingling: Translate chapters 10,13-14 and the answers to the exercises.
(2) Our translation was originally based on the 9th edition of the book. After the translator finished the task, I came back from Oxford University, and the publishing house sent me a new version of 10, asking me to proofread the book according to the new version of 10. From the page number, the 10 version has increased by nearly 30 pages. According to my investigation, some changes are substantial, such as the introduction of "Outstanding Logicians" on page 13, and the "Logic and Postgraduate Entrance Examination" at the end of the book is completely rewritten and expanded; Some changes are irrelevant. In my opinion, they are purely to make the new version "different" from the old one. For substantive changes, we mostly supplement and translate; For immaterial changes, such as changing one person's name to another in practice, the translation has not changed.
(3) Considering that the length of this book is too large, some contents are of little significance to readers in China, we made a small "shrinkage" in the translation of the original, that is, we omitted a small amount of contents from the translation: for example, we omitted the three-page thank-you list listed in the preface; There are a lot of exercises in each section, and many paragraphs are directly selected from articles and books in English newspapers and magazines, which take up a lot of space, but China readers are not easy to understand because of the lack of relevant background knowledge. So we decided to translate only those exercises in the original book that give reference answers, which is less than one-third of all the exercises in the original book, because the original book gives reference answers every three questions, and some exercises don't give answers at all. We hope that readers can accept our omissions and consider them necessary, which will not affect the quality of the translation or the readers' understanding of the original.
Finally, I would like to briefly talk about some features of this book (even most foreign introductory logic textbooks):
(1) This book is an introductory logic textbook. Its primary task is to teach students and readers some overall and general knowledge about logic. In this respect, it pays attention to various contents, both traditional logic and modern logic; There are deductive logic, inductive logic and even some critical thinking. There are not only formal parts with strong technology, but also informal parts closely related to daily language and thinking. Sometimes I will talk about the ideas behind logic technology and its related philosophical problems. Generally speaking, the book almost covers some basic contents of contemporary logic, trying to build an overall image of logic and convey some important concepts about logic.
(2) The second task of this book is to improve students' or readers' ability to deal with reasoning and argumentation in their daily thinking, including teaching students or readers to distinguish good arguments from bad ones, and actually constructing good arguments to identify and refute bad ones, so as to cultivate students' or readers' logical habits of rational and critical thinking and improve their rational and critical thinking ability. The book holds that rational thinking and critical thinking are the keys to success in various fields, and even the key to becoming a good citizen and a responsible citizen in a democratic society.
(3) The author of this book pays special attention to the connection between logical content, historical content and social reality content. This is reflected in two aspects: the 10 version devotes 13 pages to "outstanding logicians" and briefly describes the lives and contributions of 14 important logicians in history. As the author said, this will help to humanize some cold and blunt logic in the eyes of ordinary people, and it will also be more interesting because of its connection with history, thus increasing its affinity for logic. On the other hand, many examples used in this book are not made up by the author sitting at his desk or armchair, and most of them are selected from newspaper and magazine articles, government documents, reports, paragraphs in speeches, paragraphs in related books and so on. The advantage of this is that students or readers can really feel that logic is not something in an ivory tower, but something that happens every day in our daily life. The quality of reasoning has a practical impact on our daily judgment and decision-making, but good reasoning has a positive impact and bad reasoning has a negative impact. Logic is also very important for the success of our daily life and career, because it involves the way and efficiency of our thinking and decision-making.
(4) From other aspects of this book, we can also see the hard work and intentions of the author and publisher. For example, with this book, there is procedural logic of online learning, including listening files and audio-visual files, to help students or readers learn more smoothly and efficiently; Teachers can choose part of the contents of this textbook according to their own teaching syllabus and curriculum schedule, and customize special teaching materials suitable for their own needs; There are detailed definitions of terms and indexes at the end of the book. This book is also updated in time, with new revisions, new contents and new editions. Of course, in all these things, we can see that for commercial reasons, they want this book to sell more and be used more widely. But it is undeniable that their efforts, sweat and hard work, especially their serious attitude of trying to make one thing perfect, have been infiltrated. They try to win the favor of readers by doing things perfectly, so as to gain commercial benefits.
The lesson I draw from this is: there is no casual success in this world, and any success has its reasons; Instead of finding fault with the winners, it is better to reflect: why can others succeed, but what we reap is mediocrity or failure? Life is short, and everyone's ability is limited. Maybe we can't do many things, but at least we should do one or two things well and try our best to be perfect. If so, wouldn't this life be in vain? Isn't life in vain?
Chen bo
February 2009 14
Boya Xiyuan in the suburbs of Beijing