- The Art of Logic in an Illogical World
- by
- Read: Jan 11, 2020
This book gives a thorough introduction into logic and how to apply it. And I really enjoyed the discussion of what kind of things can be applied, how to build a logical structure and argument, and what the limits of a logical argument are.
I especially enjoyed the discussions of axioms as a kind of personal value system. And thus the root of any logical reasoning that you apply to arguments. This was the part for me that really tied the theoretical approach of logic and the emotional and moral foundations of one’s own beliefs together.
Overall however I wanted this book to be better. While I really enjoyed the logic part, there was one thing that made it really hard for me to get into a flow while reading. The author kept jumping between theory and examples way too frequently for my taste. She also rarely used lighter “introductory” examples. But most of the time jumped straight into heavy examples around racism, sexism, and other topics like that. Which made it much harder for me to get an understanding of the logical foundations as I was trying to keep the theoretical ideas in my head while also dealing with the emotional reaction to such heavy examples. I don’t think that those didn’t have a part in the book at all, but rather for me it would have worked better to reserve these heavy examples for the end. At which point I had familiarized myself with the concepts that got introduced, had some simple examples to apply them, and could focus on a more trying example as a completion of the topic.