Have you ever read a legal opinion and come across an odd term like the fallacy of denying the antecedent, the fallacy of the undistributed middle, or the fallacy of the illicit process and wondered how you missed that in law school? You’re not alone: every day, lawyers make arguments that fatally trespass the rules of formal logic—without realizing it—because traditional legal education often overlooks imparting the practical wisdom of ancient philosophy as it teaches students how to “think like a lawyer.” In his book, The Force of Logic: Using Formal Logic as a Tool in the Craft of Legal Argument, lawyer and law professor Stephen M. Rice guides you to develop your powers of legal reasoning in a new way, through effective tips and tactics that will forever change the way you argue your cases. Rice contends that formal logic provides tools that help lawyers distinguish good arguments from bad ones and, moreover, that they are simple to learn and use. When you know how to recognize logical fallacies, you will not only strengthen your own arguments, but you will also be able to punch holes in your opponent’s—and that can make the difference between winning and losing. In this book, Rice builds on the theoretical foundation of formal logic by demonstrating logical fallacies through the use of anecdotes, examples, graphical illustrations, and exercises for you to try that are derived from common case documents. It is a hands-on primer that presents a practical approach for understanding and mastering the place of formal logic in the art of legal reasoning. Whether you are a lawyer, a judge, a scholar, or a student, The Force of Logic will inspire you to love legal argument, and appreciate its beauty and complexity in a brand new way.

Written in a clear, precise and user-friendly style, Logic as a Tool: A Guide to Formal Logical Reasoning is intended for undergraduates in both mathematics and computer science, and will guide them to learn, understand and master the use of classical logic as a tool for doing correct reasoning. It offers a systematic and precise exposition of classical logic with many examples and exercises, and only the necessary minimum of theory. The book explains the grammar, semantics and use of classical logical languages and teaches the reader how grasp the meaning and translate them to and from natural language. It illustrates with extensive examples the use of the most popular deductive systems -- axiomatic systems, semantic tableaux, natural deduction, and resolution -- for formalising and automating logical reasoning both on propositional and on first-order level, and provides the reader with technical skills needed for practical derivations in them. Systematic guidelines are offered on how to perform logically correct and well-structured reasoning using these deductive systems and the reasoning techniques that they employ. •Concise and systematic exposition, with semi-formal but rigorous treatment of the minimum necessary theory, amply illustrated with examples •Emphasis both on conceptual understanding and on developing practical skills •Solid and balanced coverage of syntactic, semantic, and deductive aspects of logic •Includes extensive sets of exercises, many of them provided with solutions or answers •Supplemented by a website including detailed slides, additional exercises and solutions For more information browse the book's website at: https://logicasatool.wordpress.com

Terrorist groups attain notoriety through acts of violence, but threats of future violence are just as important in attaining their political goals. Force of Words is a groundbreaking examination of the role of threats in terrorist strategies. Joseph M. Brown shows how terrorists use threats, true and false, to achieve key outcomes such as social control, economic attrition, and policy concessions. Brown demonstrates that threats are integral to terrorism on a tactical level as well, distracting security forces, drawing police into traps, and warning civilians out of harm’s way when terrorists seek to limit casualties. Force of Words reorients the field of terrorism studies, prioritizing the symbolic, psychological dimension that makes this form of conflict distinctive. It expands the study of terrorist propaganda by detailing how militants tailor their threats to send the desired political message. Drawing on rich interview data, quantitative evidence, and case studies of the IRA, ETA, the Tamil Tigers, Shining Path, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, Boko Haram, the Afghan Taliban, and ISIL, the book offers practical guidance for interpreting terrorists’ threats and assessing their credibility. Force of Words is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the logic of terrorism.

"Beautifully written."—Publishers Weekly, starred review The martial Sainnites have occupied Shaftal for fifteen years. Every year the cost of resistance rises. Emil, an officer and scholar; Zanja, a diplomat and last survivor of her people; and Karis, a metalsmith, half-blood giant, and an addict, can only watch as their country falls into lawlessness and famine. Together, perhaps they can change the course of history. Laurie J. Marks' first two Elemental Logic novels (Fire Logic and Earth Logic) both won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award and received multiple starred reviews. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and teaches at the University of Massachusetts.

For four years, James LaFond conducted a study of violence in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. Following up on The Logic of Steel, his highly regarded look into the reality of edged-weapon attacks, LaFond now presents The Logic of Force, a study of assaults featuring blunt weapons and unarmed attacks. The Logic of Force tells stories of people who were caught in these blunt-force attacks-victims, attackers, eyewitnesses, and Good Samaritans who bravely stepped in to break up the fights. Chronicled in the vernacular of the street, these stories are gritty, entertaining, and-most important for those interested in self-defense-educational. Violent men are painfully predictable, if we bother to pay attention. This study underscores the importance of tactical awareness-and the high cost exacted for not staying alert. Just in case you do end up in a dangerous situation, these accounts show you what will and will not work in a short, feral, winner-take-all brawl, as well as the disturbing range of blunt-force objects that can be used as improvised weapons to hurt you. One of the most violent cities in the world, Baltimore can teach all of us valuable lessons about avoiding or surviving violence. The Logic of Force teaches you how to live peacefully among the predators on your street.

The Shakespearean image of a tempest and its aftermath forms the beginning as well as a major guiding thread of Logic of Imagination. Moving beyond the horizons of his earlier work, Force of Imagination, John Sallis sets out to unsettle the traditional conception of logic, to mark its limits, and, beyond these limits, to launch another, exorbitant logic—a logic of imagination. Drawing on a vast range of sources, including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud, as well as developments in modern logic and modern mathematics, Sallis shows how a logic of imagination can disclose the most elemental dimensions of nature and of human existence and how, through dialogue with contemporary astrophysics, it can reopen the project of a philosophical cosmology.

Examines the relations between logic and philosophy over the last 150 years. Logic underwent a major renaissance beginning in the nineteenth century. Cantor almost tamed the infinite, and Frege aimed to undercut Kant by reducing mathematics to logic. These achievements were threatened by the paradoxes, like Russell's. This ferment generated excellent philosophy (and mathematics) by excellent philosophers (and mathematicians) up to World War II. This book provides a selective, critical history of the collaboration between logic and philosophy during this period. After World War II, mathematical logic became a recognized subdiscipline in mathematics departments, and consequently but unfortunately philosophers have lost touch with its monuments. This book aims to make four of them (consistency and independence of the continuum hypothesis, Post's problem, and Morley's theorem) more accessible to philosophers, making available the tools necessary for modern scholars of philosophy to renew a productive dialogue between logic and philosophy.

The final novel in the acclaimed Elemental Logic series finds Karis G’deon and her sprawling family once more imperiled, this time by the legacy of violence that threatens to unravel the fragile peace they have woven across their land. Laurie Marks’ Elemental Logic series introduced readers in Fire Logic to the realm of Shaftal, an intricately imagined land whose people operate within the boundaries of their basic natures—here defined as logics—which sometimes bequeath them with access to magical, elemental powers and sometimes embroil them in unsolvable internal conflicts. In Air Logic, Karis and those who love her must figure out, in the aftermath of war and an assassination attempt, how to bring together Sainnites and Shaftali in a country where old wounds and enmities fester and Air magic conceals the treason hidden in the heart of the G’deon’s household. When Medric is taken hostage to force Karis’s hand, a strange boy will guide Zanja to the place where she may yet save him. A mother must remember the son she has been made to forget, and Air children will find what their place in the world may yet be.

How both logical and emotional reasoning can help us live better in our post-truth world In a world where fake news stories change election outcomes, has rationality become futile? In The Art of Logic in an Illogical World, Eugenia Cheng throws a lifeline to readers drowning in the illogic of contemporary life. Cheng is a mathematician, so she knows how to make an airtight argument. But even for her, logic sometimes falls prey to emotion, which is why she still fears flying and eats more cookies than she should. If a mathematician can't be logical, what are we to do? In this book, Cheng reveals the inner workings and limitations of logic, and explains why alogic -- for example, emotion -- is vital to how we think and communicate. Cheng shows us how to use logic and alogic together to navigate a world awash in bigotry, mansplaining, and manipulative memes. Insightful, useful, and funny, this essential book is for anyone who wants to think more clearly.