Abstract

Yet another introductory text of symbolic logic and a very good one, at that. The four principal chapters of this book treat propositional logic and predicate calculus, devoting two chapters to each. Each of these subsections is roughly organized as follows: An initial chapter presents the basic notational devices, translation methods, and intuitive discussion of arguments and validity. The subsequent chapter gives exact formation and transformation rules, proofs and metalinguistic considerations of questions of consistency and completeness. Lemmon's notation is similar to that of Suppes, and his system bears some similarity to the rules of inference in Fitch's 1951 text, although Lemmon's system is a "standard" one. Two appendices, dealing with normal forms and elementary set theory, and an annotated bibliography of relevant works complete this high-quality text. An obviously promising career was cut tragically short by the premature death of the author in 1966.—H. P. K.