{"data":[{"id":590,"title":"An Introduction to Ontology Engineering","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2018,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":null,"license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"","description":"This first general textbook An introduction to ontology engineering has as main aim to provide the reader with a comprehensive introductory overview of ontology engineering. A secondary aim is to provide hands-on experience in ontology development that illustrate the theory. The book is divided into three blocks: Block I: logic foundations for ontologies both regarding the languages (mainly First Order predicate Logic, Description Logics, and OWL) and automated reasoning. Block II: developing good ontologies with methods and methodologies, the top-down approach with foundational ontologies, and the bottom-up approach to extract as much useful content as possible from legacy material. Block III: advanced topics with a selection of areas of specialisation, including Ontology-Based Data Access, the interaction between ontologies and natural languages (multilingual ontologies, controlled natural language), and advanced modelling with additional language features (fuzzy and temporal ontologies).","contributors":[{"id":4640,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":"Dr. C.","first_name":"Maria","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Keet","location":"University of Cape Town","background_text":"Dr. C. Maria Keet, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, University of Cape Town, South Africa"}],"subjects":[{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":570,"url":"http://www.meteck.org/teaching/OEbook/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:41.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-01-06T17:34:36.000-06:00","name":"Maria Keet"}],"formats":[{"id":978,"type":"PDF","url":"https://people.cs.uct.ac.za/~mkeet/files/OEbook.pdf","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2022,"type":"LaTeX","url":"https://people.cs.uct.ac.za/~mkeet/OEbook/#content:~:text=Ontop-,Slides,You%20can%20freely%20reuse%20and%20remix%20them%2C%20under%20a%20CC%2DBY%20licence.,-Administrivia%20and%20general%20information%3B","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2023,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Ontology-Engineering-Maria-Keet/dp/1848902956/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":null,"textbook_reviews_count":0,"reviews":[],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/an-introduction-to-ontology-engineering?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T12:03:52.000-05:00"},{"id":54,"title":"An Introduction to Formal Logic","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2012,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":null,"license":"Attribution-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"forall x is an introduction to sentential logic and first-order predicate logic with identity, logical systems that significantly influenced twentieth-century analytic philosophy. After working through the material in this book, a student should be able to understand most quantified expressions that arise in their philosophical reading. This books treats symbolization, formal semantics, and proof theory for each language. The discussion of formal semantics is more direct than in many introductory texts. Although forall x does not contain proofs of soundness and completeness, it lays the groundwork for understanding why these are things that need to be proven. Throughout the book, I have tried to highlight the choices involved in developing sentential and predicate logic. Students should realize that these two are not the only possible formal languages. In translating to a formal language, we simplify and profit in clarity. The simplification comes at a cost, and different formal languages are suited to translating different parts of natural language. The book is designed to provide a semester's worth of material for an introductory college course. It would be possible to use the book only for sentential logic, by skipping chapters 4-5 and parts of chapter 6.","contributors":[{"id":2167,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"P.D.","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Magnus","location":"University of Albany, State University of New York","background_text":"P.D. Magnus - In addition to loving wisdom, I am a philosopher by vocation. I am an associate professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. I previously taught at UC San Diego (where I received my PhD) and at Bowdoin College. My primary research is in the philosophy of science, motivated broadly by a falliblist but non-sceptical conception of scientific knowledge. I have written a lot on the underdetermination of theory by data, and my recent work is on natural kinds."}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":49,"url":"http://www.fecundity.com/logic/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:36.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:36.000-05:00","name":"Fecundity"}],"formats":[{"id":57,"type":"PDF","url":"https://www.fecundity.com/codex/forallx.pdf","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":58,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"http://www.lulu.com/shop/pd-magnus/forall-x-an-introduction-to-formal-logic/paperback/product-23469365.html","price":{"cents":850,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1956,"type":"LaTeX","url":"https://github.com/OpenLogicProject/forallx","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":9,"reviews":[{"id":445,"first_name":"Matthew","last_name":"Knachel","position":"Senior Lecturer","institution_name":"University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Though concise, the book is comprehensive: it covers all the topics one would normally discuss in an introductory logic course, with both sentential and quantificational logic--syntax and semantics, truth tables, natural deduction.\n\nThe book has no index, but the table of contents should suffice. Key terms are defined at the end of each chapter.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"No errors. The proof system is, in fact, both sound and complete, for example.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This is elementary logic; the basics will not change. Obsolescence is not an issue.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is very clearly written, and admirable for its concision. Technical terms tend to be introduced less formally at first, with rigorous necessary-and-sufficient conditions provided later; this is a nice way to ease the student in.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book maintains the same notational conventions consistently throughout (and those conventions are helpfully summarized in an appendix).","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The content could easily be shuffled around to suit individual instructors' preferences. For instance, the book covers semantics (informally) for sentential and quantificational logics before covering those languages' syntax; but the syntactic sections are clearly separated, and so could be presented first, if that were the instructors' preference. In addition, natural deduction is covered last, in Chapter 6, after a full chapter on formal semantics. Instructors could easily reverse the order.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is well-organized. Different people may prefer to introduce topics in a different order, but that can be accommodated.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No issues.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No errors that I saw.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"No issues here. References to Batman and Lemmy (RIP), e.g., don't seem problematic to me.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"The book's main attractions are its lucidity and brevity. Almost all logic books, in my experience, are too long; they encourage the illusion that anyone can pick up the relevant understanding and skills autodidactically. But only a very small group of high-aptitude people can do that; the rest need the help of an instructor. That this book is brief, then, is an advantage: students who (ill-advisedly) re-read many times at least won't waste too much time doing so. (Also,  what they're reading is admirably clear, so that helps.)\n\nBut the brevity does place a burden on the instructor--to supplement, sometimes heavily, succinct explanations in the text. For example, a discussion of \"Proof Strategy\" in section 6.6 takes up less than one and a half pages--and that's meant to cover natural deduction for both sentential and quantificational logic. Any experienced instructor knows that much more discussion of strategy will be required in the classroom. in general, there are few fully worked-out (and walked-through) examples of, e.g., truth-tables and proofs in the body of the text. Instructors will have to supply their own. No examples of translations of sentences with multiple connectives are given in the body of the text.\n\nOccasionally the text is arguably too brief. The description of Aristotelian logic in Chapter 1 strikes me as too condensed to be informative. I would like to have seen more discussion of the inevitability (given the constraints of bivalence and the definitions of other operators) of considering material conditionals with false antecedents to be true. The presentation, in section 3.4, of the \"partial\" truth-table method lacks consideration of its ability to discover facts (about validity, equivalence, etc.); instead, it's presented as a way merely of confirming what is already known (that an argument is invalid, e.g.). And in Chapter 4, difficult cases in quantificational logic are often passed over very rapidly: it is simply asserted that 'If anyone can play guitar, then Lemmy can' should be paraphrased such that the antecedent is existential (why not universal?); later, it is simply asserted, with no explanation, that \"?xGx ? Gl means the same thing as ?x(Gx ? Gl), and ?x(Gx ? Gl) means the same thing as ?xGx ? Gl.\" Those are not intuitive equivalences.\n\nThe book also moves very quickly. No practice on computing the truth-values of compound sentences under a single truth-value assignment is given before moving to full truth-tables. Multiply quantified sentences get really hairy, very fast--culminating with 'There is someone who likes everyone who likes everyone that he likes.' This could be a virtue or a vice, depending on the aptitude of one's students.\n\nThe fifth chapter, on formal semantics, is in my view only suitable for high-aptitude students. It presents full model-theoretic semantics, with all the Tarkian bells and whistles. I do not present this material in my introductory logic course.\n\nOther difficult material--sections on ambiguous predicates, empty terms, Russell's theory of descriptions--is also unusual for an introductory course. But its inclusion meets the author's stated aim for the text, viz. to give students the ability to \"be able to understand most quantified expressions that arise in their philosophical reading.\" This is a very good book if one's students are philosophy majors. The sections mentioned, and the structure and speed of the book, are appropriate for that audience. Some sections are exemplary: 6.8 beautifully shows how proof theory and formal semantics complement one another, and nicely sets the stage for proofs of soundness and completeness.\n\nHowever, if one's introductory logic class is populated mainly with non-majors (as ours is; it fulfills a university-wide formal reasoning requirement), then this book is not perfectly suitable.\n\nThat said: the price is right! Properly supplemented, this book could be used for any introductory logic course.","created_at":"2016-08-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2016-08-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":529,"first_name":"Diane","last_name":"Steinberg","position":"Associate Professor Emerita and Part-Time Instructor","institution_name":"Cleveland State University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text covers propositional logic (symbolization, truth tables and proofs) and predicate logic (symbolization, semantics, and proofs).  There is a short appendix on alternate symbolizations (including Polish notation), and another which gives answers to selected exercises.  There is also a \"Quick Reference\" section giving definitions of the basic sentence operators, symbolic expressions for standard natural language forms, and all the rules of inference.\nIt doesn't contain any \"extras\" (material on definition, fallacies, etc.)but all the basics of formal logic are there.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book contains few errors.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content of elementary formal logic does not change.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The text is as clear as many others.  In my experience students generally need the course instructor to \"interpret\" text material in logic.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is internally consistent.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is divided into 6 chapters:  basic logical concepts; symbolization in propositional logic; truth table; symbolization in predicate logic; semantic theory for predicate logic; proofs.  Chapter 6 on proofs first presents proofs in propositional logic, so it would be possible to proceed from truth tables (chapter 3) directly to proofs in propositional logic (secs. 1-3 of chapter 6).","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization of the text is fine.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I found no interface issues.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text contains no grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I did not find any racist or sexist examples, or any others offensive to me.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"Overall, this is a very satisfactory text--especially considering the cost of commercially published texts.  One thing to be aware of, however, is that the instructor generally will need to supplement the homework exercises.  There are not enough exercises, and they tend not to be presented in graduated levels of difficulty.  This is especially true in the chapter on proofs.  This chapter (on proofs) is also a very terse presentation and could use more development with examples and discussion.  \n\nOn the other hand, there are some very good thought exercises, particularly in the earlier chapters.","created_at":"2016-08-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2016-08-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":547,"first_name":"Corey","last_name":"Maley","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"University of Kansas","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book is a comprehensive introduction to formal logic. Although it does not have an index, the table of contents is sufficient to provide the reader with an idea of where to find various topics. This book would be useful for a one-semester course in introductory logic, and should allow students to become comfortable with metatheory in later classes.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I found no errors in the textbook, although there were some points where some might disagree--or at least have questions--about the author's descriptions and exercises. For example, when asked to translate \"Of course the Duchess is lying!\" using D to stand for \"The Duchess is lying\", one might wonder whether the original expression is translatable. Is \"Of course\" truth-functional? Perhaps, but there is room for discussion. That may be the author's intent, but it is not clear. Overall, however, the content is free of errors.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Logic is, almost by definition, timeless, so this book will be useful for some time. Any updates should be easy to incorporate.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"There are some places where I found the books clarity somewhat lacking, particularly for the novice student.\n\nOne example is when the author discusses metatheory. I found the discussion potentially confusing for some students. The notions of an object language and a metalanguage are familiar enough to philosophers, but not necessarily to beginning logic students. On pages 29 and 30, the discussion is quite compressed, and the wording might be confusing to some. For example, the author states that the metalanguage will be \"mathematical English,\" but what that refers to is not made clear. The author then uses bold, stylized A and B for metavariables, which I will write in this review as @ and %, given that I cannot reproduce the font here. So the author states the following:\n\n\"It is important here that @ is not the sentence letter A. Rather, it is a variable that stands in for any wff at all. Notice that this variable @ is not a symbol of SL, so ¬@ is not an expression of SL.\"\n\nThen later:\n\n\"For instance, if @ and % are wffs of SL, then (@ \u0026amp; %) is a wff of SL.\"\n\nThis is a subtle discussion in general, and difficult to explain well in any textbook. I fear that this discussion would be confusing to some students.\n\nThere are other small, but potentially problematic, areas where the book could be more clear. For example, the author switches from using T and F to stand for \"true\" and \"false\" in the second chapter, to 1 and 0 afterwards. The explanation given is that these are just arbitrary symbols, so it doesn't matter what one uses. That indicates to me that 1 and 0 should have been used from the beginning.\n\nAnother example is where the author discusses truth-functional connectives on p. 38. Rather than list some clear examples of truth-functional connectives, the author immediately discusses examples of connectives that are not truth functional, and then mentions the diamond operator in modal logic (a topic that is not discussed in any detail within the book). This is an unnecessary tangent.\n\nA third example is on p. 49. The first example of quantified predicate logic the author discusses is one that ends up being translatable and valid in sentential logic, so predicate logic ends up being unnecessary. That seems like a bad choice for the very first example, since this is not usually the case when one is using predicate logic. Furthermore, the author does not clearly discuss why this particular example is translatable using only sentential logic.\n\nThe final example I will mention is found on p. 51. The discussion of definite descriptions is interesting, but seems a bit out of place. The author notes that there is much philosophical discussion of issues regarding singular terms, proper names, and definite descriptions. But it seems to me that this is presenting a lot of information that is potentially confusing before we have yet encountered some simple examples.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The book is largely consistent, except for the change from using T and F to 1 and 0.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is as modular as a text in introductory logic can be. I would imagine that students who have some familiarity with sentential logic, for example, would have no trouble going straight into the later sections. However, the very nature of this kind of material makes complete modularity nearly impossible.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The books overall structure is quite good. I have only two comments. First, some people might prefer proofs to come in a slightly different order. For example, some might prefer that, after introducing sentential logic, proofs in sentential logic are covered. Then, after predicate logic, proofs in predicate logic are covered. The author chooses to present proofs in one chapter. There is nothing wrong with this choice, but it may be easier for some students to have proofs broken up into more than one chapter.\n\nSecond, as mentioned above, there are some points where the \"flow\" of the book is interrupted by what I take to be unnecessary tangents, or at the very least, discussions that should come later in the text.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The interface of this book has no problems whatsoever.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I found no grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The book is culturally sensitive. My only comment here is that some students may not be familiar with what \"a standard deck of cards\" refers to (which occurs in one of the translation problems). However, knowledge of that is not necessary to complete the problem (it might just seem very odd).","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"The problems and exercises in this book are very good, and go beyond what is normally found in introductory logic books. I think that some of these problems would be especially useful for students who are interested in going on to more advanced logic courses. For example, rather than just translations and proofs, the author includes questions that ask students to think about logic (implicitly, at least) at a metatheoretic level.","created_at":"2016-08-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2016-08-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":931,"first_name":"Ashley","last_name":"Shew","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Virginia Tech","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This textbook is very good at covering the basics one would expect to find an an introductory logic course that focuses on deductive logic. It lays things out very clearly and offers concise explanations that I think students would appreciate. It is a traditional formal logic text and would serve as well as any of the well-known logic texts that are similarly aimed. This book does what it does in a way that students would find straightforward. \n\nAs it stands, I usually end up pulling from several texts and sources (both open source and traditional) for teaching a logic course. This volume would not get rid of the need for multiple resources for how I teach intro logic. There are topics that are not covered here that I end up teaching in a course on logic, particularly about inductive logic, scientific reasoning, and Mill's Methods, that are not present in this volume. There are also approaches to logic that students find engaging - like courtroom examples and logical fallacies - that are not covered. The author is pretty frank on this point: \"We will not be interested in inductive arguments in this book\" (page 10). \n\nI'm rating the book at 5 on comprehensiveness because it fulfills its goals, but it's important to note that teachers who include inductive reasoning as part of their logic courses might only use this volume as one resource and not the only class text.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I did not observe any errors, but I did not work every problem as I looked through this book.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Introductory formal logic shouldn't change rapidly, and this book covers many of the basic topics in deductive logic. It should have a very long life. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is clear and introduces many concepts in a succinct manner. Students will appreciate the author's approach.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Terms are consistent, and the structure really works.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"One of the best things about this book is that someone could \"remix\" the order of the book and not confuse students. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization of this volume is easy to follow. One of the other reviewers lamented that there wasn't an index, but an index isn't needed for a PDF where one can use the \"find\" feature to find whatever keyword you hope to search for. This is actually one feature that makes the PDF version stronger than a printed version for students hoping to find what they want easily.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I was surprised at how convenient the PDF was to manage. I think it's great that the textbook is concise, which lends itself to easier flipping and searching. I thought I would hate it, but actually found it more convenient than a traditional text. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not find any errors in grammar.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I did not find any culturally insensitive text in this textbook. ","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I would highly recommend inclusion of this text as a replacement for many formal logic books. Its brevity would be appreciated by students.","created_at":"2017-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2017-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1544,"first_name":"Ioan","last_name":"Muntean","position":"Research Professor","institution_name":"UNC Asheville","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book covers most of the topics needed for an introduction to logic class. In sections 6.9 a glimpse into metalogic is offered. The book does not suggest nevertheless any connection to informal logic (other textbooks in logic abound in this area). It would be useful to relate logic to critical thinking","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is accurate. Some typos exist, but it is clear that the author is willing to correct them.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The book reflects the state of the art in sentential and predicate logic with natural deduction. A chapter or a section could mention other methods such as tableaux and offer an alternative. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The writing of the author is exceptionally clear. Sometimes it may look dry and formal, but the book is clear and the language is not ambiguous. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"As a textbook in logic this textbook excels in consistency. Notation is consistent, language is consistent. The author makes some attempts to show alternative notations.","modularity_rating":3,"modularity_review":"The text is modular but the reader finds fewer references to other textbooks or to the very rich history of logic.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Overall it is good. But some students may find problems in transitioning from sentential to predicate logic. The book does not attempt to show the extreme importance of predicate (QL) logic for science, philosophy etc. The book should explain why logic is important outside ordinary language. \nAnd examples for other areas than everyday language would be beneficial","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"The text flows fine, but there are no hyperlinks from chapter to chapters. Navigation is sometimes awkward.\n","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Nothing to add: excellent grammar and structure of sentences.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Logic and critical thinking are both national deficits, to paraphrase a bumper sticker. This text should be present in any college -- or i am wrong-- probably in every high school in USA.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Overall it is good. But some students may find problems in transitioning from sentential to predicate logic. The book does not attempt to show the extreme importance of predicate (QL) logic for science, philosophy etc. The book should explain why logic is important outside ordinary language. \nAnd examples for other areas than everyday language would be beneficial","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":2005,"first_name":"David","last_name":"Shikiar","position":"Adjunct Intructor","institution_name":"Rhode Island College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This concise text accomplishes what it sets out to achieve. It manages to cover the material of sentential logic up through quantificational logic right up to the point of setting up the problem of completeness. It does not include independent treatments of categorical logic, informal fallacies, or inductive logic, let alone other topics, but it is not designed to treat those topics. As it stands, it is suitable for a one-semester course on sentential and quantificational logic.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is highly accurate and precise, particularly in the author’s discussions of translating from English into quantificational logic. Whereas many textbooks more or less confine themselves to providing specimens of translations and then counsel the student to “get the feel” for it, this textbook goes into detailed discussions justifying the standard choices. As such, ‘Chapter 4’ alone would serve admirably as a supplement to another textbook or as a replacement for the topic of translations. Be warned, however, that the author elects to the use the term “sentence” to designate what many textbooks designate with the term “statement.” This choice also affects the value that the book might otherwise have as part of a general educational program that would complement a course in logic with another in general grammar and rhetoric.\n\nSome other details might be mentioned. For example, on page 6, the author offers exceedingly brief lists of premise and conclusion indicators. The instructor might feel the need to amplify these lists one way or the other. Further, on page 6, the author states that the conclusion comes at the end of the series of sentences that compose it. While this is obviously true for any argument that has been reworked so as to conform to the standard form, it is obviously not true of many arguments that appear in ordinary language contexts.\n\nOn page 9, the author introduces the concept of a “good” argument without mentioning that of sound or cogent arguments. Minimally, one would expect some mention of soundness at least in this connection, as the book is a text on deductive logic.\n","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The book contains material highly relevant to the study of sentential and quantificational logic. The brief treatments of models and natural deduction are very helpful in how the author interrelates the two topics. His approach of introducing n-tuple predicate relations prior to quantifiers is refreshing and, I think, potentially helpful to the student. One cannot envision the text becoming quickly outmoded or obsolete.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The author’s prose is as clear as it could be. Indeed, his writing is so clear and concise at points that one can anticipate undergraduates new to the subject to struggle with learning directly from the text, as no, or very few, concessions are made to the kind of muddy thinking that often characterizes a person’s first study of this subject. As is true of many logic textbooks, one must already be a rather clear thinker in order to learn from it. However, it falls on the teacher to make the material more accessible during class discussion, albeit accessible to that degree that inherently difficult material permits.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The books is wholly internally consistent in terms of terminology and its framework.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is broken down into six chapters and thirty-four sections. It is highly adaptable to a variety of pedagogical plans. Each chapter, however, does build on the preceding.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics of this text follow an excellent and, in my experience, a partially original design. The author moves back and forth between sentential and quantificational logic when this suits his presentation and the overall movement of the book is towards a comprehensiveness that does not leave any threads hanging.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There are no problems with images, charts, symbolism, etc. All is in fact remarkably clear.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There seems to be an error on the top of page 116, where the word 'define' seems out of place. There is one typo on page 80, where 'specific' presumably should be 'specify' and another of page 72 where 'if' should be 'is.' Other than these instances, the grammar is impeccable.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is of universal relevance as it treats of some of the basic forms of reasoning. As such, it is relevant in any cultural context.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"The book will be particularly useful for philosophy majors who need a textbook geared towards equipping them with a knowledge of some of the formal machinery of quantificational logic. \n\nIt is worth noting that 'Chapter 6' presents natural deduction in systemic fashion, laying out introduction and elimination rules relative to each of the basic operators before presenting derivative rules (modus ponens, hyp. syll., etc.). The text does not bother with some oft used forms, such as constructive dilemma and exportation. ","created_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2021,"first_name":"Kenneth","last_name":"Boyce","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"University of Missouri","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This textbook is a comprehensive overview of sentential logic and first order quantified logic.  It begins by introducing basic notions such as the nature of arguments and deductive validity.  It continues by introducing the language of sentential logic and then truth tables.  It proceeds with a discussion of the language of quantified logic, and then follows this with a discussion of formal semantics.  The book concludes by introducing a system for natural deduction.  Along the way it provides a number of practice problems with solutions to selected problems found in the back of the book.  It also contains a helpful appendix giving an overview of logical symbols.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I found the book to be accurate and the explanations to be clear and helpful. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"As this is a more or less standard sort of textbook on propositional logic and predicate logic, there is not much danger that its content will become outdated.  Where textbooks like this sometimes seem dated is in the kinds of English sentences they use for translation exercises.  But this textbook avoids using such potentially datable examples and updates to it could be made easily.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is remarkably clear and accessible to individuals with no previous background in logic.  In fact, I would rate it as giving the most lucid explanations of the concepts it covers that I have found to date.  I was especially impressed with how clearly it managed to explain basic formal semantics. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"I have no concerns about the book’s consistency.  Basic terminology and notation is introduced and then consistently adhered to throughout.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"For the most part, the book is about as modular as a logic textbook can be (the nature of the subject matter does constrain the order of presentation to some extent).  It is clearly divided into chapters and sections with a helpful table of contents.  One could use the textbook even if one wanted to present things in a different order than did the author.  For example, though the author introduces formal semantics before discussing natural deduction, it would not be too difficult to use this textbook while reversing that order.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The book is organized well and the concepts it introduces build on one another.  In some places, the author makes different choices about the order of presentation than I would make (e.g. the author introduces formal semantics before natural deduction).  But such choices have to be made and other instructors may prefer how the author made them.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I found no difficulties with the book’s interface.  The chapters and section headings are well laid out and the typeset is clear.\n","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I find no issues with the book’s grammar.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"As far as I am able to discern, the textbook is not culturally biased.  The examples it contains are generic enough to be accessible to people of a variety of backgrounds and the book is free of racist, sexist, and classist language.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"Frankly, I think this is an excellent logic textbook.  I highly recommend it.","created_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2156,"first_name":"Philip","last_name":"Robbins","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"University of Missouri","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book is a fairly standard treatment of first-order logic (sentential and predicate calculus). It covers all the usual bases. A number of more peripheral topics (e.g., metatheory) are touched on but not discussed in depth, but those topics are rarely covered in introductory courses on elementary symbolic logic. There is no index, but there is an appendix on alternate notation, which is a handy addition.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The presentation of the material is careful and accurate.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content of the book is more or less perennial: first-order classical logic has been with us for a long time, and it will remain with us for a long time to come. The linguistic examples used in the book are fairly generic and will not require significant updating.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is written in a very clear, concise, and readable style. Technical terms (of which there are many) are well explained.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"There are no significant consistency issues, either conceptually or notationally. The author systematically lays out the semantics and syntax of sentential and quantificational logic (SL and QL) and develops a system of proof using natural deduction. There are no alarms and no surprises, which is as it should be.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is chunked into six chapters, none of which is inordinately long. Each chapter is divided into multiple sections, affording instructors the possibility of assigning part of a chapter rather than the whole chapter at one go. Given the nature of the topic, the material is cumulative, so there is a limit to which the chapters could be presented in a different order than the one established by the text. But this should in no way be considered a fault of the book — it's a feature, not a bug.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization of the book is clear and coherent, and the text as a whole flows well, both within and across chapters.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"This issue of interfacing does not really apply here, since the book contains no graphics apart from the occasional chart. However, the book would benefit from the addition of more visual elements.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The writing in the book is relatively free of grammatical or other mechanical writing errors. The prose is highly polished.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"There is nothing in the text to offend readers. There are examples of sentences with culturally diverse content, but there could be more. Given that this is a text on formal logic, the main currency of which is expressions in formal (rather than natural) languages, this can't be considered a significant drawback.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"This is a crisp, clear, and concise introduction to first-order classical logic, suitable for undergraduate students in philosophy, linguistics, and allied fields. It contains a minimum of jargon, and what jargon there is, is explained in an accessible way. The author's minimalist approach to the topic makes the book an appealing choice as an introductory text.","created_at":"2018-06-19T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-06-19T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":4661,"first_name":"Matt","last_name":"Carlson","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Wabash College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book covers the standard material for a first course in formal logic: central logical concepts (validity, consistency, etc.), symbolization in sentential logic and FOL with identity, truth tables, formal semantics (employing set-theoretic models), and a Fitch-style natural deduction system. It also contains several useful appendices and reference pages, as well as many good exercises (some of which also have solutions in the back of the book, which is welcome).","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is accurate. I especially appreciate the clear definitions of logical notions in terms of the formal semantics, e.g. a tautology is defined as a sentence (of the formal language) which is true in every model. Definitions like this make possible rigorous, informal reasoning from definitions; e.g. one can informally prove that a sentence is a tautology by employing the given model-theoretic definitions. I think this is good practice for students, and I appreciate the clear and accurate definitions given in the book that make this possible.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"It doesn't contain any high tech new material in logic, but it covers the basics admirably. Since those basics are unlikely to change anytime soon, the book will continue to be relevant long into the future.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is very clear. Numerous good examples are given to explicate concepts along the way. As I remarked above, the definitions given are excellent, and this really enhances the overall clarity of the book.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book uses consistent terminology and notation. The notation is the standard \"West Coast\" notation with one exception:  corner, wedge, arrow, and double arrow are used, as well as \u0026 for conjunction (why not caret?). Quantifier symbols are upside-down A and backwards E, and atomic sentences of predicate logic are in the format Rab. Script capital letters are employed for metatheoretic schemata. 1 and 0 are used as truth-values in truth tables. The book helpfully includes an appendix on alternate notational conventions.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"I wish I could rate this a 6 or higher. This is *the* major strength of this book, which is already excellent in many other ways. In addition to PDF format, the LaTeX source is available, which makes it relatively easy to \"remix\" the book to one's liking. Many remixes of this book already exist (in particular, I really like the Calgary Remix), and of course it is possible to make your own. This makes it possible to really tailor the book to the precise way in which you want to teach your course, removing extraneous material, and adding and rearranging material as needed (on this point, see my next comment).","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is well-organized, though it is not organized in the way that I would do it. Proof theory is saved for the last chapter, after formal semantics for FOL have already been introduced, and long after sentential logic is introduced. Personally, I prefer to introduce proof theory much sooner, and to split it into a module on sentential logic, and a module on FOL. I don't think either is necessarily better or worse; it's just a difference in approach. But, because the book is so modular (see previous), it is easy for me to simply rearrange the material to my liking.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The typesetting is nothing fancy, but it is clear and readable.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The book is well-written.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I found nothing objectionable in the book. A variety of examples are given, and when names are used, there seems to be a variety.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"This book is part of the Open Logic Project, which I cannot recommend highly enough. For the reasons I explain above, books in this project are, frankly, just better than commercially available logic textbooks. I would not even consider asking my students to pay for a logic textbook when freely available, modular logic textbooks of this quality exist.","created_at":"2021-02-28T08:56:17.000-06:00","updated_at":"2021-02-28T08:56:17.000-06:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/an-introduction-to-formal-logic?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:10:16.000-05:00"},{"id":266,"title":"The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2016,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":null,"license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"The Republic of Plato is one of the classic gateway texts into the study and practice of philosophy, and it is just the sort of book that has been able to arrest and redirect lives. How it has been able to do this, and whether or not it will be able to do this in your own case, is something you can only discover for yourself. The present guidebook aims to help a person get fairly deep, fairly quickly, into the project. It divides the dialogue into 96 sections and provides commentary on each section as well as questions for reflection and exploration. It is organized with a table of contents and is stitched together with a system of navigating bookmarks. Links to external sites such as the Perseus Classical Library are used throughout. This book is suitable for college courses or independent study.","contributors":[{"id":3044,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Douglas","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Drabkin","location":"Fort Hays State University","background_text":"Douglas Drabkin graduated from the University of Virginia in 1993 with degrees in literature, education, and philosophy, and has been a member of the department since 1994. He teaches a wide range of courses including Introduction to Philosophy, Bioethics, Aims of Education, Classical Greek Philosophy, Foundations of Modern Philosophy, and Aesthetics, and is currently involved in the Living and Learning Community Heart and Mind: Philosophizing About the Arts. He has published articles in the philosophy of religion, and has recently written an unusually good little book on Plato’s Republic. A fairly accomplished amateur violinist, he shamelessly scrapes away."}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":320,"url":"http://scholars.fhsu.edu/philosophy_oer/1/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:38.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-12-28T20:37:46.000-06:00","name":"A.T. Still University"}],"formats":[{"id":228,"type":"PDF","url":"https://scholars.fhsu.edu/philosophy_oer/1/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":7,"reviews":[{"id":977,"first_name":"Laurie","last_name":"Cosgriff","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Portland State University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text provides a book-by-book commentary on the Republic, and  is organized by topic in a manner that makes it easy to look up any subject within the text. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate in its analysis of philosophical arguments in the dialogue. The author's interpretation of some arguments is open to debate, but that is true of all interpretations of Platonic dialogues.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"This book is a useful guide to students who are reading Plato's Republic for the first time. The analysis of arguments will not need updating; some of the particular questions the author poses to students to consider may need to be updated eventually because of the use of topical examples.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is written in a clear and plain style which should be easily understood by any intelligent undergraduate.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is organized as a commentary and is consistent in that framework.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is admirably suited to an undergraduate course: by its division into books and subject matters, any instructor can easily assign parts of the text that correspond to particular books of the Republic.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is suited to a side-by-side reading with Plato's Republic, and closely match the organization of the dialogue.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There are no interface problems; the text directs the reader to relevant online sites, and the links all work.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There are no grammatical or stylistic errors in the text.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This book provides a commentary and a series of philosophical questions raised by the text of one of the most important philosophical works in western civilization. The issues that the dialogue raises about the nature of justice and the best political organization of a city are timeless and valid subjects of inquiry that are not limited to any one culture or time.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2017-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2017-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":990,"first_name":"Andrew","last_name":"Alwood","position":"Assistant Professor of Philosophy","institution_name":"Virginia Commonwealth University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text covers all of Plato's Republic, breaking its ten books down into 96 sections (so, about ten sections per book).  In each section, the author distills points of interest from Plato’s text and offers historical context while articulating thoughtful questions to spur the reader to think philosophically about the topics Plato suggests to us.  Each section is only a paragraph long, and so the author effectively divides the feast that is Plato's Republic into 96 bite-sized pieces.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Very accurate.  The author does not enter controversies about how exactly to understand the text.  ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"I don't think this text will need to be updated. However, there are some links that will need to be updated, e.g. one link to a youtube video that has already been taken down by youtube.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is written quite clearly.  The goal seems to be to make Plato as accessible as possible to non-expert readers, and this is achieved successfully  This Guide to Plato's Republic makes for an enjoyable read. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Yes, the text is consistent.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Teachers often ask students to read some but not all of Plato's Republic, or to read parts of it out of order.  Drabkin's text is most useful in providing readers of Republic a bird's eye perspective on the entire text.  It allows us to swoop in to consider details here or there with ease.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The table of contents is usefully hyperlinked to the relevant sections in the book.  There are also many links in the text to helpful internet sources of information including the reputable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (accessible and substantive overviews by professional philosophers), the Perseus Project hosted by Tufts (both English and Greek texts of Republic), and other free sources of information like Wikipedia.  ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No problems","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The grammar is good.  I only found a couple typo's.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is not culturally insensitive.  In fact, as it discusses some of the foreign or strange claims of Plato (e.g. anti-democratic claims), it is rather sensitive in asking readers to question things we take for granted.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"The Intelligent Troglodyte's Guide to Plato's Republic takes the reader on an enjoyable tour of this classic work of Ancient Greek philosophy.  Although reading Plato's text can be quite difficult, this Guide is very helpful both in summarizing the important ideas Plato expressed and also in helping a reader to navigate the order in which they are presented and remember the overall narrative arc of the story.\nThis Guide is not intended as a replacement of Plato's text, nor as a “Cliff’s Notes” summary, nor again as a detailed commentary, but rather as a simple and accessible guide.  The reader is advised to first get through sections of Plato’s text and only afterwards attend to the relevant sections of Drabkin’s text, which fills the role of a humble interpreter who turns complex foreign pronouncements into understandable statements.","created_at":"2017-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2017-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1331,"first_name":"Rose","last_name":"Cherubin","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"George Mason University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book is intended as a reading guide to Plato's Republic, and it covers the whole text in sections of a few Stephanus numbers at a time. It also provides some historical background, as well as links to the online English and Greek versions of the text on Perseus. (The quotations discussed use another translation, as noted.)\n    In addition, the book provides interesting and valuable study questions; some of these are aimed at soliciting close reading of the text, while others bring out philosophical issues raised implicitly or explicitly in the text.\n    There is some glossing of Greek terms, but no glossary. The text from which Dr. Drabkin draws his quotation, Reeve's translation of the Republic, does include a glossary and notes; so instructors using that edition will have the needed glossary available.\n    There is no index; under the heading 'Index,' the author provides instructions for searching the PDF. This will be helpful for some kinds of searches (for example searches for names of characters, or terms such as 'tyrant' that are only used in a few sections of the text) but not others (for example, searches for terms that are not used in the text but that may be relevant, e.g. \"justice: types\" or searches for something like \"animals\" which will turn up mentions of 'animal' but not of 'bird' or 'horse').","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate and clear, with no evident errors of translation or interpretation. The study questions appear to be careful to avoid prejudice. \n    It may be relevant to note that the notes and study questions assume familiarity with the US system of government, and use comparisons and contrasts with US democratic institutions and their functioning to elucidate and interrogate the political proposals made in the dialogue. This may make some aspects of the text more useful in a US setting and less so in other countries (though the text will still be quite valuable outside the US).\n    There are also references to US popular culture (e.g. the Star Wars films). This will be more useful in some contexts than others; but those unfamiliar with these cultural references will not miss any major points.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Plato's Republic will, it is to be hoped, continue to be studied for many years; and this will be a good study guide for a long time. The references to popular culture that may help students today may be obscure to students in a few years; but as noted above, nothing crucial hangs on the references to films or to US sports. Should the author wish to update those illustrative references, the task should, I would gather,  be pretty straightforward and simple.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is very clearly written. I admire its clear analyses of arguments and its presentation of the sequence of discussions in the dialogue.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is very consistent in its use of terminology, and elucidates ambiguities and double-meanings of Greek terms as needed.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text breaks the dialogue into Books, as is customary; and then takes the additional step of dividing each book into multiple short subsections representing stages of arguments or discussions. This is done in a very clear way.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"As noted above, the division of the work into small subsections is well-done. The author clearly notes how each connects to the others and represents a stage of the arguments of the dialogue.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The internal navigation works well, and the hyperlinks to external sources works well too.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There are no grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"I am not aware of any elements that could be insensitive or offensive. As noted, there is a US focus with respect to the references and analogies, which may make the book less useful outside the US than it is in the US. At the same time, it does not propose that the US political system or US popular culture are or should be norms for others.\n    There is not deliberate engagement with matters of xenophobia or race or ethnicity as these may pertain to Plato's text.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1372,"first_name":"Marta","last_name":"Kunecka","position":"Adjunct Professor","institution_name":"Linn-Benton Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book thoroughly and comprehensively presents the ideas of Plato’s \"Republic\". The text is easily approachable and understandable as the introduction / summary of the source chapters. The author provides references throughout the text as well as the index that allows the reader to further refer herself to the source and expand on the topics included in the guide.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content of the book is accurate. Interpretations provided are unbiased and correct but also open for further questions which is quite essential in every reading of Plato.  The commentaries exhaust the content of the books in brief but accurate overviews.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content is relevant and long lived. The structure of the book provides the readers with a relevant and up to date introduction to the \"Republic\"; is written in a captivating manner that encourages the exploration of the original text. The questions posed after each book are inviting and correspondent but also open for further commentaries and critical evaluation.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is written in a clear and approachable manner. The author uses terms that are easily understandable but also explained if necessary. The clarity of the book invites the reader to expand the vocabulary and ideas presented.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is internally consistent in its content and is easily searchable which allows the reader to refer herself to the original source without disrupting the reading of the text. The terminology used is consistent and relevant.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Very helpful, resourceful and approachable text. The students may be able to easily find the assigned, relevant material. The text is divided into smaller sections that explain each section of the original work. The content can be aligned with different topics presented in the course without disturbing the flow of major ideas of the original text.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization and structure of the text allows for a steady flow.  The references / internal links to the original source do not disturb the flow of the book but enhance its content.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text’s interface allows flawless and smooth navigation and is free of any technical problems.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is grammatically and stylistically correct in most parts.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Although the \"Republic\" is the text rooted in Ancient Greece, it is nonetheless culturally universal and timeless. The guide provides the reader with questions that are relevant to the diverse world we live in now and encourages a critical search for answers that make the ancient text even more significant and relevant to the modern times. The historical overview allows the reader to place the content in the context of Ancient  culture but the questions provided invite students to find its relevance in the modern times.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"“The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic” is a comprehensive and accurate, easily approachable text that may serve either as a valuable guide to the original text, or as a commentary.  Yet, it may also serve as an invitation to further exploration and critical reading and analysis of the ideas presented in Plato’s work. The questions included after each section are helpful and encourage further evaluation and interpretation of the universally applicable content of the “Republic”. Overall, I find the text very useful as a teaching material and highly recommend it’s use to facilitate students with the further understanding of, sometimes, complex ideas.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":3614,"first_name":"Matthew","last_name":"Maher","position":"Senior Lecturer","institution_name":"Metropolitan State University of Denver","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic is designed as a supplementary reader’s guide to understanding and interpreting Plato’s Republic.  It accomplishes this goal quite admirably.  For every section of the Republic (96 in all), the author, Douglas Drabkin, provides a lucid summary and interpretation, followed by a serious of questions designed to encourage the reader (student) to think critically about the matters at hand.  It is an apropos and effective nod to the Socratic Method.   While no topic is covered in polemical philosophical splendor, the entirety of Republic is well represented. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate, error free, and unbiased – at least as accurate as any philosophical commentary on an ancient (and translated) text can be.  Using the traditional Stephanus numbers to identify the sections of the Republic that are being discussed in this book makes it easy for the reader to compare Drabkin’s summary and interpretation with the reader’s own understanding.  While interpretation is always open for debate, the book errs on the side of simplicity:  What does Plato say?  What might he mean by it?  Drabkin is not demanding agreement, but rather providing a tool for understanding.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This book is extremely relevant, and I expect it to be so for years to come.  I regularly teach a Reacting to the Past game in my Ancient Greece history courses and in the first half of my World History survey.  A key component of the game is to encourage students to read, understand, interpret, and utilize Plato’s Republic in order to craft arguments to compete, convince others, and (hopefully) win.  I envision this guide as being indispensable for my students.  As well, I think any first time reader of the Republic would find this resource to be a perfect way to find one’s bearings while diving into the mind of the philosopher.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Drabkin’s writing style is clear, articulate, and occasionally refulgent.  Any odd or difficult concepts, phrases, or terminology that appear in the Republic are elucidated in the summaries of each section.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent from start to finish.  Every section is ordered in the same way, and is of similar length and writing style.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is structured – thankfully – from the beginning of the Republic to its end.  That said, if a professor or student was only interested in particular sections (e.g. Books I, IV, and VII), those sections could easily be parsed out with little or no detrimental effect on the content (the summary, interpretation, and Socratic questioning).","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is organized exceptionally well.  The Index (with its links) makes it remarkably easy to find exactly the section in question. As mentioned above, the use of the traditional Stephanus numbers makes it simple to find the corresponding sections in any good translation of the Republic.  In general, the organization works well for both a reading guide and as a reference manual.  Superb.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I found no issues with the interface (broken HTML links, etc.)  I would use this book as a model if I were to write an OER text of my own.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I will not claim with exactitude that there are no grammatical errors in this book, as my proofreading skills are middling.  I will say, nothing stood out to me as being incorrect.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"As this is a reader’s guide to the Republic of Plato, its inclusion of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds is not at issue when it comes to the summaries.  It is possible that some of the interpretations could be construed as leaning towards a Western bias.  The discussion questions are for the most part neutral, in that they stay close to the text, even when including more contemporary examples.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"Thank you for writing this book.  It is useful!","created_at":"2020-03-04T18:19:57.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-03-04T18:19:57.000-06:00"},{"id":4164,"first_name":"Dana","last_name":"Rognlie","position":"Visiting Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Worcester State University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book provides accessible yet comprehensive overviews and discussion questions of Republic as organized by book and thematic sub-sections. The table of contents and the index is very navigable. The text provides relevant introduction to important historical background of characters and events while providing his introduction to key ideas and questions raised by the dialogue, though Drabkin often fails to raise important questions about these figures. For example, the discussion of Cephalus ignores him performing sacrifices in relation to the man’s position as an *arms dealer* in the war. Also, Drabkin neglects the manner in which Plato is responding to Aristophanes' comedies, especially Clouds (see section 25 \"Laughter and Lying\"). Importantly, the text also lacks discussion of the 'unity of virtue' theory. Unity is instead discussed in terms of the 'integrity' of the city, thus obscuring Plato's important contribution and potentially misleading students on how the virtues of justice, courage, temperance, and wisdom relate to one another. Drabkin asks whether justice is the entirety of human virtue or only a part, which is a bit too simply stated and does not assist students to understand its relation to the other virtues at hand. Finally, the text could do more to engage contemporary feminist and anti-racist ancient scholarship and activism.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The text does a great job of providing important historical information for students to get a better sense of the Platonic 'cosmos' of the Republic dialogue, though it often fails to raise important and relevant questions about these figures, their motivations, and their philosophical role in the dialogue. While it is difficult to provide a completely unbiased interpretation of Plato given the centuries of masculine bias in translation, Drabkin accurately introduces key historical events and figures as well as very basic philosophical themes.","relevance_rating":1,"relevance_review":"While some discussion questions begin to place Republic in the context of contemporary debates, there are missed and sometimes botched opportunities in the treatment and discussion of gender and slavery to thinking about the contemporary feminist movement, the anti-war movement, police brutality, Fox News, as well as Plato's important influence on key civil rights figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr. As one example, the discussion of slavery in section 7 seems unconnected to the summary and is posed in such a way that many students of color—especially Black students—in the classroom will feel alienated. Drabkin asks “Has there ever been a time when it was just to own people as slaves?,” which no student of color should be forced to entertain as debateable. Questions of gender and sexuality are also treated with a bit of flippancy throughout the book. For example, the treatment of Glaucon’s homosexuality and Greek pederasty in section 16 \"Glaucon's Lover\" requires much more care or it risks homophobia. Book V is especially lacking in its engagement with contemporary feminist scholarship on gender and 'manliness' in Plato, missing important opportunities for thinking of his relevance today. For example, the 'cloak' of virtue of naked bodies exercising is relevant not only to contemporary sport but also questions of sexual violence in the ancient and contemporary academies. Finally, the text misses a number of important points related to the plague of 429 BC that is now more relevant than ever in our COVID world.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Drabkin does an excellent job of writing in clear, accessible prose. Use of jargon is generally avoided, perhaps to a fault as he does not adequately introduce or discuss the unity of virtue theory.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The book maintains internal consistency in its approach to Plato.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Modularity and organization are great strengths of the text. Drabkin has organized the text according to books of Republic and thematized sub-sections. Instructors and students alike can easily choose a sub-section to read and engage in fruitful discussion.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Modularity and organization are great strengths of the text. Drabkin has organized the text according to books of Republic and thematized sub-sections. Instructors and students alike can easily choose a sub-section to read and engage in fruitful discussion.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The interface is very easily navigable with useful quick-links in the table of contents. There are no display issues.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The prose is grammatically correct and easy to read.","cultural_rating":1,"cultural_review":"As stated above in the 'Relevance' section: While some discussion questions begin to place Republic in the context of contemporary debates, there are missed and sometimes botched opportunities in the treatment and discussion of gender and slavery to thinking about the contemporary feminist movement, the anti-war movement, police brutality, Fox News, as well as Plato's important influence on key civil rights figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr. As one example, the discussion of slavery in section 7 seems unconnected to the summary and is posed in such a way that many students of color—especially Black students—in the classroom will feel alienated. Drabkin asks “Has there ever been a time when it was just to own people as slaves?,” which no student of color should be forced to entertain as debateable. Questions of gender and sexuality are also treated with a bit of flippancy throughout the book. For example, the treatment of Glaucon’s homosexuality and Greek pederasty in section 16 \"Glaucon's Lover\" requires much more care or it risks homophobia. Book V is especially lacking in its engagement with contemporary feminist scholarship on gender and 'manliness' in Plato, missing important opportunities for thinking of his relevance today. For example, the 'cloak' of virtue of naked bodies exercising is relevant not only to contemporary sport but also questions of sexual violence in the ancient and contemporary academies. Finally, the text misses a number of important points related to the plague of 429 BC that is now more relevant than ever in our COVID world.","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":"This is a useful book for students as well as instructors who do not specialize in Plato to gain some familiarity with the historical figures and events referenced in Republic. It does a decent job providing an overview of important themes and generally useful discussion questions. However, the book does some disservice on the issue of Plato's relevance to contemporary social issues and may risk alienating Black readers, women, and members of the LGBTQIA community. Feminist and anti-racist instructors will want to offer additional supplements in lecture or recommended secondary reading.","created_at":"2020-06-30T09:44:41.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-06-30T09:44:41.000-05:00"},{"id":34536,"first_name":"Jonathan","last_name":"Buttaci","position":"Assistant Professor of Philosophy","institution_name":"The Catholic University of America","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book is comprehensive in its treatment of the text, especially in its attention to specific arguments and memorable passages. It lacks, however, a comprehensive or summary treatment of the argument of the whole Republic. Although it has a few cross-references to help students to see a unity (e.g. from Glaucon's challenge in Book II to the final arguments of Book IX), it would profit from \"checkpoint\" sections for each book (or couple of books) to help students tie together otherwise disparate arguments. This book is a targeted tool for class discussion that, in the hands of a skilled instructor, could be successful. There is a helpful index of key terms and concepts.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The book gives mostly accurate summaries of the most important passages of the Republic, which will be helpful to first-time readers. The author consistently picks up on a key point from the primary text and organizes a section around it. \n\nThe author sometimes glosses over important interpretive questions, however. For example, with the introduction of luxuries into the \"city in speech\" in Book II, the author simply says that \"Socrates and Glaucon decide their imaginary city is to be a luxurious one\" (II.19). This obscures the fact that the first city was constructed by Socrates and *Adeimantus* and, as Socrates explicitly says, \"the true city is in my opinion...a healthy city, as it were.\" That text explicitly raises important questions about Adeimantus's and Glaucon's cities and their relationship, but the author chooses to smooth them over. Although this is not quite an inaccuracy, it can give the reader an impression that things are simpler than they are.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"This is a difficult metric to measure when considering commentaries on classic works of philosophy, history, literature, etc.; in general, they are not liable to going obsolete in the same way that science or business textbooks might. This book's summaries are and will likely remain relevant. The discussion questions tend to draw more contemporary comparisons, and so are more apt to wear with age, but the author does a good job of choosing accessible examples that will have a long life. \n\nSometimes, however, the discussion questions are not clearly relevant to the passage of primary text in focus. There is a benign example of this in section II.11, where courage becomes the example of virtue to be \"sorted\" into Glaucon's three types of goods. Given the first discussion question of this section, about Glaucon's courage in re-starting the debate about justice, it is clear how such a question might have arisen in class. After all, the author reports that these discussion \"questions have been devised through years of discussion with students who have gone before.\" For the most part this is a key advantage of this book, but occasionally (as with courage in II.11) the question doesn't quite fit the topic under discussion, and might lead to a reader's confusion, asking, for example: \"isn't Glaucon's challenge principally about *justice*?\" There are a few other examples of similarly puzzling questions that don't seem to fit the passage that has been summarized. In those cases, one can imagine how such questions might have come up in particular class discussions, either tangentially (e.g. the somewhat unexpected mention of slavery in Book I section 7) or with earlier bits of text in mind (e.g. the question about \"a rigorous civil service exam\" for Book VIII, section 72, which might be better suited for the \"trials\" of Book VII).","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The book is clear and accessible and might border on oversimplification in some cases (see above).","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent throughout. The structure of the book, however, is such that each section is treated mostly in isolation from the rest (see below), so that in most cases there are few connections from one part of the book to another. There are some exceptions to this (e.g. at the beginning of Book X the author helpfully draws the reader back to poetic concerns from Book III; the challenges of II are explicitly said to look forward to IX).","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book's greatest advantage is its modularity; it is divided into 96 sections of 1-2 pages each. These sections include a brief summary of a bit of the argument from the Republic, with a cross-reference to the exact lines of the text (linked to Perseus). The sections also include some bullet-point questions for discussion. This structure is not without its costs (see organization section below); even so, it gives instructors the freedom to make use of specific summaries and discussion questions in connection with targeted passages from the primary text.","organization_rating":3,"organization_review":"This book risks missing the forest for the trees. Although there may be instructional advantages to carving up each book of the Republic into smaller units (along with paired questions for discussion), an important part of teaching the Republic is for students to see the thematic and argumentative unity in each stage of the dialogue and of the dialogue as a whole. One particularly problematic example of this separation is at the beginning of Book II: the first section (11) talks about Glaucon's three classes of goods, while the second section (12) introduces the social contract theory of justice. The book leaves it to the reader to understand that thinking justice is good only for its consequences (as explained in 11) immediately motivates Glaucon's argument about justice as a social compromise (as explained in 12). In the absence of explicit guidance from a teacher, students are liable to miss some important connections across sections. Another example is the myth of the metals at the end of Book III; the possibility that the \"noble lie\" should be used even to persuade the rulers to eschew private property goes unmentioned. Since the mythical falsehood is only considered in the section on the city's class structure (III.34) and not in the restrictions on guardians themselves (III.35), key thematic connections are hidden from view, even between passages in immediate succession. I give these examples not to nitpick, but to show how relatively isolated the sections are; this is not without its advantages, of course, but it also comes at a cost.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The interface is very helpful. There are links to navigate within the pdf from the table of contents to a specific section and back again (I would find it helpful if the section numbers in the index were linked, as well). There are also links to external resources (e.g. to the relevant Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article for a given technical term). Finally, the citations of the Republic link to the version hosted online by the Perseus Project of Tufts University. This book is almost certainly meant to be read electronically in order to take exploit these helpful navigation aids, which explains why it lacks standard page numbers. That said, the book does include a lot of empty space so that each section begins at the top of a fresh page. This gives it an odd feel when reading on a computer.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Mostly free from errors. As a minor point, the book does not include the long marks that are standard when transliterating Greek words like aretē or psychē.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The book is evidently directed at a predominantly American audience, yet in an inclusive way.\n\nThe discussion of Glaucon's male lover comes a bit too early in this book to be helpful (II.16); it is based on one off-hand remark (nigh invisible in the Shorey translation, in fact) and would likely strike the first-time reader as a puzzling diversion from the main argument. Such a section, to my mind, would have fit better in the slightly more extended discussions of eros later on (cited by the author in this early section). As it is, the discussion of Greek pederasty seems a bit out of place. Moreover, it might be that too little is said here to be helpful for students, especially about the nature of the sexual relationship, the supposed age range of the eromenos, and what Socrates might have meant by \"moderation,\" given Plato's other works (e.g. Symposium, Phaedrus, and Laws).","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"In sum, I would recommend this book to students and instructors with the following qualification: it does not give the kind of thematic overview that most companion texts to the Republic do. Even the reader who is relatively unfamiliar with Plato might want to understand the overall thrust of this 300-page classic; perhaps they will especially need such a thematic overview, keeping track of argumentative threads as the book unfolds. Gratefully, however, companion texts that attend to thematic unity and overarching questions in the Republic can be easily found (some are even open access). The strength of this book, by contrast, is in its modular focus on specific passages with paired discussion questions. As a result, its success will be entirely in how it is used in the classroom. I see it as a tool with a very specific pedagogical purpose: it equips instructors, students, and even whole seminars to focus on a particular argument in the primary text in isolation from the rest of the dialogue. This means the book is a limited tool, but in the hands of a talented instructor it might be a profitable one.","created_at":"2023-05-01T19:53:41.000-05:00","updated_at":"2023-05-01T19:53:41.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/the-intelligent-troglodyte-s-guide-to-plato-s-republic?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:03:27.000-05:00"},{"id":291,"title":"Open Logic Project","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2016,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":null,"license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"The Open Logic Text is an open-source, collaborative textbook of formal meta-logic and formal methods, starting at an intermediate level (i.e., after an introductory formal logic course). Though aimed at a non-mathematical audience (in particular, students of philosophy and computer science), it is rigorous. The Open Logic Text is a collaborative project and is under active development. Coverage of some topics currently included may not yet be complete, and many sections still require substantial revision. We plan to expand the text to cover more topics in the future. We also plan to add features to the text, such as a glossary, a list of further reading, historical notes, pictures, better explanations, sections explaining the relevance of results to philosophy, computer science, and mathematics, and more problems and examples. If you find an error, or have a suggestion, please let the project team know. The project operates in the spirit of open source. Not only is the text freely available, we provide the LaTeX source under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which gives anyone the right to download, use, modify, re-arrange, convert, and re-distribute our work, as long as they give appropriate credit.","contributors":[{"id":3646,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Richard","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Zach","location":"University of Calgary","background_text":"Richard Zach is a logician working at the University of Calgary (Canada) where he is Professor of Philosophy. He works on the history of logic, the philosophy of logic and mathematics, and mathematical logic. He has recently used the Open Logic Text in a course on Intermediate Logic at McGill University."},{"id":3647,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Andrew","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Arana","location":"University of Paris","background_text":"Andrew Arana is a logician working at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France) where he is maître de conférences (associate professor) of philosophy. He works on the history and philosophy of mathematics and logic. At Paris 1 his logic teaching includes model theory, philosophy of logic, and elementary logic. In his previous appointment as Associate Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at other institutions he has taught logic at many different levels as well. He looks forward to using this text in logic courses this academic year."},{"id":3648,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Jeremy","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Avigad","location":"Carnegie Mellon University","background_text":"Jeremy Avigad is a logician at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is Professor of Philosophy and Mathematical Sciences. He works in mathematical logic, history and philosophy of mathematics, and formal verification. At Carnegie Mellon, he teaches logic to students in mathematics, computer science, and philosophy, from undergraduate freshmen to advanced graduate students. Sections on computability and incompleteness are based on his notes."},{"id":3649,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Walter","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Dean","location":"University of Warwick","background_text":"Walter Dean is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick (UK). He works in philosophy of mathematics, mathematical and philosophical logic, theoretical computer science, and the philosophy and history of computation. He regularly teaches intermediate and advanced undergraduate logic."},{"id":3650,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Gillian","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Russell","location":"University of North Carolina","background_text":"Gillian Russell is Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She writes on the philosophy of language and the philosophy of logic, and often teaches advanced logic courses to philosophers."},{"id":3651,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Nicole","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Wyatt","location":"University of Calgary","background_text":"Nicole Wyatt is a philosopher working at the University of Calgary, where she is also Head of the Department of Philosophy. She works on the philosophy of logic and language, as well as the history of computational theory. She regularly teaches Logic II, as well as Philosophy of Logic, at Calgary. She has used the Open Logic Text twice in Logic II, and contributed material to the sections on first-order logic and Turing computability."},{"id":3652,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Audrey","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Yap","location":"University of Victoria","background_text":"Audrey Yap is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Victoria (Canada). She works in epistemic logic, history and philosophy of mathematics, and more recently in feminist epistemology. She teaches logic from the intro level onward."}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"},{"id":36,"name":"Pure","parent_subject_id":7,"call_number":"QA37.3","visible_textbooks_count":83,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/pure?locale=es"},{"id":7,"name":"Mathematics","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA1","visible_textbooks_count":177,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/mathematics?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":200,"url":"http://openlogicproject.org","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:37.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-12-29T16:03:12.000-06:00","name":"Open Logic Text"}],"formats":[{"id":789,"type":"PDF","url":"http://builds.openlogicproject.org/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2085,"type":"LaTeX","url":"https://github.com/OpenLogicProject/OpenLogic","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"5","textbook_reviews_count":1,"reviews":[{"id":1959,"first_name":"Tracy","last_name":"Lupher","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"James Madison University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text covers formal meta-logic and formal methods at an intermediate level. Given that starting point, this text covers just about any topic you want to cover including model theory, computability, Turing machines, incompleteness results, second-order logic, modal logic, intuitionistic logic, naive set theory, and many other topics. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I haven't found any bias in the text.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The text is up-to-date and should be easy to update.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"While the text is quite technical in places, the concepts are explained quite well. Students might benefit from some more examples in places, though the authors have already highlighted sections that can benefit from additional examples. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text does a good job of using consistent notation throughout.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The project lists different logic courses and the book that was compiled from chapters of the main text.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"As befitting a book on logic, the topics are presented in a clear, logical manner.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I have not encountered any interface issues. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I have not found any grammar errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I did not find any examples that were culturally insensitive.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I hope this text continues to expand and cover other topics such as many-valued logics, relevance logics, and perhaps Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory.","created_at":"2018-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/open-logic-project?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:08:39.000-05:00"},{"id":397,"title":"Modern Philosophy","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2013,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":null,"license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"This is a textbook in modern philosophy. It combines readings from primary sources with two pedagogical tools. Paragraphs in italics introduce figures and texts. Numbered study questions (also in italics) ask students to reconstruct an argument or position from the text, or draw connections among the readings. And I have added an introductory chapter (Chapter 0 – Minilogic and Glossary), designed to present the basic tools of philosophy and sketch some principles and positions. The immediate goal is to encourage students to grapple with the ideas rather than passing their eyes over the texts. This makes for a better classroom experience and permits higher-level discussions. Another goal is to encourage collaboration among instructors, as they revise and post their own versions of the book.","contributors":[{"id":3960,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Walter","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Ott","location":"University of Virginia","background_text":"Walter Ott is an associate professor in Corcoran Department of Philosophy at the University of Virginia."}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":302,"url":"https://opentextbc.ca/modernphilosophy/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:38.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:38.000-05:00","name":"BCcampus"}],"formats":[{"id":623,"type":"Online","url":"https://opentextbc.ca/modernphilosophy/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":624,"type":"PDF","url":"https://opentextbc.ca/modernphilosophy/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1701,"type":"eBook","url":"https://opentextbc.ca/modernphilosophy/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":5,"reviews":[{"id":1587,"first_name":"Jim","last_name":"Sharp","position":"Adjunct Professor","institution_name":"Colorado State University - Pueblo","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book serves primarily as a reader in western philosophy during the modern period, covering major thinkers from Descartes to Kant.  In addition, excerpts from Aristotle and Aquinas are supplied in a background chapter.  The book does an excellent job of providing substantial primary material from the philosophers mentioned above, as well as Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.\n\nAlthough this selection of philosophers is not exhaustive, clearly the selections presented here represent the major themes and trends in western philosophical thought during this time period.  The selections chosen provide good entry points into study of significant areas of philosophy: metaphysics, methodology, epistemology, and the nature of the mind/body connection.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The authors have supplied brief, helpful introductory notes to each figure and specific text which accurately place the excerpts in relationship to one another and identify the major themes being dealt with in each one.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Since the focus of the work is on primary source readings, it is likely to maintain its relevance for many years.  The introductory notes are mostly focused on the identification of topics addressed in the selections, and therefore avoid the problems and distractions that might be raised by bringing in scholarly questions and controversies of the moment.  Such issues could easily be addressed within course discussions by a knowledgeable instructor where they are relevant to the selected excerpts.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is clear and succinct.  The introductory chapter provides clear definitions and explanations of a variety of relevant philosophical terms, making the work as a whole accessible for general education and introductory courses aimed at students who may not have already had exposure to the subject.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"Since the book presents selections from eight different philosophers, whose work was written over a span of more than a dozen centuries, there are significant variations in terminology, style and constructions of arguments to be found.  The introductory notes within the selections, as well as the questions supplied in each section, are designed to help students see the connections between each philosopher and bridge the differences between each thinker's work.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The modular nature of the text is one of its most useful strengths.  Selections from each philosopher are divided into manageable chunks, with helpful discussion and constructive questions at the end of each section.  These questions are designed to make students think through the material they have just read, and allow them to check their own understanding of the material at frequent intervals.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The selections are presented in chronological order, which is appropriate to a work like this one which explores the history and development of particular ideas.  The notes and commentary supplied, along with the questions for understanding, provide background for the connections between the selections.  The background chapter presenting selections from Aristotle and Aquinas supplies the necessary historical details to relate their thoughts to the later modern period which is the focus of the text.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The interface is clear, self-explanatory, and includes useful links between sections which allow the reader to move from one excerpt to another when connections are being made between multiple selections.  There seem to be a small number of older links which should have been edited out, but nothing which hinders the usefulness of the text and its links.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The grammar of the text was fine and free of errors or confusion.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"Since this is a text that is focused on western philosophy, it has a clear cultural location.  The selections given reflect the cultural and historical contexts of the various authors, and must be read with that in mind.  The focus of the work is on the history and development of philosophical ideas, and the supplemental text and introductory materials reflect that focus.  Arguably, the authors could have supplied some discussion of the historical and cultural context of western philosophy, but such discussion is not demanded by a text of this nature.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Overall, this text is an excellent reader in modern western philosophy.  It could be a valuable resource for an introductory course, or a good supplemental text in a readings or seminar course for more advanced students of philosophy.","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":2001,"first_name":"Aaron","last_name":"Boyden","position":"Adjunct Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Rhode Island College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book is focused on the early modern period, and generally presents the usual suspects. It does seem to devote more attention to the empiricists than to the rationalists; maybe a little Leibniz would have been a good addition to improve the balance? I did like the inclusion of Aristotle and Aquinas as background to help understand the beginnings of the period. I also liked that the entirety of Descartes’ Meditations was included, as I think that work is one of those that particularly suffers from the loss of context when heavily excerpted.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"It is primarily a collection of classic texts. There do not seem to be any particular problems with the translations, and the additional material used to introduce the classic texts seems accurate enough.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The classic texts are not going to change, and the book is mostly a collection of those. The discussions of the issues raised by the classic texts is mostly focused on long-standing, well-established interpretations, rather than the latest scholarly fashions. It seems likely to be useful for a long time.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"A lot of the supplemental material was quite brief. This was perhaps out of a desire to let the classic texts speak for themselves, but of course the classic texts are in many cases quite difficult, and I thought some of the supplemental material was perhaps too brief to be entirely helpful.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Since it is a compilation of classic texts, of course the various original authors are quite diverse in their concerns and styles. The organization varied somewhat in that some texts were excerpted and how much cutting and reorganization was done with the excerpted texts varied, but the choices of when and how to do that seemed reasonably well motivated. The supplemental material was consistent.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"While there is (as there should be) an attempt to highlight some of the connections between the various items included, there does not seem to be any attempt to force things into an overall narrative; it seems well designed for use by instructors who wish to pick and choose which parts to employ.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"I’m not sure how useful the glossary of philosophical positions at the start was; I felt like that material could have been better distributed later in the text as the particular issues arose. Otherwise, the order seems to be primarily chronological, which is reasonable enough for a compilation of classic texts.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No notable problems with the interface.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No notable problems with grammar.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"That it is focused on early modern Western philosophy has some inevitable consequences. There are ways it could have tried to be more inclusive (maybe discussing the objections of Elisabeth of Bohemia in the Descartes section) or connected the discussion to a broader world context (e.g. look at theories of possible Buddhist influence on Hume). But presumably the interest in the early modern texts is primarily motivated by their subsequent influence, and this text covers the most influential texts and discusses the issues that turned out to be influential.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":3709,"first_name":"Alyssa","last_name":"Adamson","position":"Adjunct Instructor","institution_name":"Northeastern Illinois University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"The beginning glossary and mini introduction to logic is useful, especially given that even in a focused class on the history of modern philosophy, this course may be student’s first philosophy class and text. It is great to warm the students up with some of these specialized terms even before reading since they will become central to so many of the thinkers included in the text. Getting the analytic versus synthetic distinction will pay off loads by the time you get to Kant’s Prolegomena. Having students get strong on argument structures before jumping into Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, etc. will be really helpful. I haven’t always done this focused work in the beginning of teaching Modern Philosophy (as I would if I was teaching Critical Thinking or Logic) so this aspect of this text is helpful. \r\n\r\nOne of my favorite aspects of this texts is that is offers links to free full texts of all the books explicitly covered, as well and books it does not cover (e.g. main texts from Aristotle and Aquinas). This is easy since there are decent translations of those are already in the public domain, but students so not always know this fact. This will be useful for students doing extra reading or research for papers and/or exams.\r\n\r\nThere is a handy background chapter that gives an overview of Aristotle and Aquinas to set up Descartes. When I’ve taught this in the past I have done a similar version of this on my own, but it is nice that it is already baked into the book. There are short introductory notes and small but well-selected excerpts from Aristotle’s Categories, Physics, and Posterior Analytics. Then from Aquinas, there are short introductions and excerpts from On the Eternity of the World, Summa Contra Gentiles, and Summa Theologicae. \r\n\r\nThis text offers the “hits” of primary texts from Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Most of the texts are helpfully abridged but a few are left unabridged e.g. Descartes’ Meditations, Hume’s Enquiry, and Kant’s Prolegomena. It is strange that Leibniz, Hobbes, and Rousseau are missing, but instructors can add other figures that they fit depending on their course’s focus on political philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, etc. Unfortunately, there are no early modern European women philosophers nor interlocutors of the male philosophers included here (e.g. Anne Conway, Elizabeth of Bohemia, Damaris Masham, Mary Wollstonecraft). While “new” in a sense to many philosophers as new material is just now coming out on his work and life, the text also leaves out Anton Wilhelm Amo the Ghanian philosopher who got a PhD in philosophy in Germany writing a critique of Descartes in 1734. \r\n\r\nMy only other complaint with what the text provides are its short introductions to each of the philosophers. They are very short introductions and do not go into the social and political milieu of the philosophers which would greatly help students to understand the context of these texts. Hopefully teachers using this book will have the background knowledge to offer the social and political backdrop of each of the texts as well as be able to situate the debates and questions in a global context. Even if the focus is on modern European philosophy, it did not happen in a vacuum, but rather within in the context of European colonization of the Americas and Africa, conquest, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and intra-European wars which did set the conditions and questions for scientific and philosophical knowledge production. This is an issue with most (maybe all) modern philosophy textbooks—not something special to this one—but it is worth mentioning nonetheless.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"This text appears to present as accurately as possible the concepts and figures it introduces, even if these introductions are sometimes too short in my opinion and miss setting up the boarder social and political contexts of the philosophers and debates. The translations it uses are fine and up-to-date.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This text would be relevant to any lower or upper level undergraduate modern philosophy course or even in an introduction to philosophy course. Because of the nature of classic philosophy texts, there shouldn’t be anything “out-of-date” besides the omissions of thinkers as mentioned in the comprehensiveness section.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"There are no major issues with clarity in the text. While the introductions and summaries of the materials included are short, they are clearly written and should be understood by undergraduate students. But again, longer background summaries and introductions will head off confusions students will have with the potential lack of historical background knowledge.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book provides a survey of many different thinkers, so each section will in some sense be a self-contained whole on that particular thinker’s writings, but the presentation and supplemental material are consistent.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"One of my favorite things about this text is the way it breaks down all the chapters into manageable sections and includes reading comprehension questions and exercises after each main section. Not many modern philosophy compilation textbooks are “modular” in this way so this is a really helpful aspect of this text. Because there is no attempt to flesh out a long background narrative, you can pick and choose easily which sections of the book you want to cover without missing any links in some narrative chain. This is both a strength and a weakness, good because it leaves you space to organize your course as you wish, a weakness if you do want to try to situate the thinkers in some kind of historical analysis. \r\n\r\nThere is a small set of questions asking for students to identify analytic versus synthetic statements after the glossary which is fine but could be expanded to cover more of the terms presented in the glossary. Teachers can make their own quizzes to expand assessment of the mini-logic part of the introduction to also include working on coming up with valid and invalid arguments and identifying normative versus descriptive claims.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The Glossary of Philosophical Positions and the Glossary of Principles I am certain will have students flipping back to them as the course moves through this text. I really appreciate that these elements are in the front and not the back of the book so that they can be addressed upfront in outlining the issues and debates in modern philosophy. Otherwise the book is organized historically from Descartes to Kant, which makes sense. Teachers that want to move thematically can easily remix the order.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"Easy to use interface, I especially liked the hyperlinks to free versions of the full-texts of the included and not wholly included philosophy books.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No notable grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":1,"cultural_review":"As mentioned in the comprehensiveness section, while this is a book focusing on European modern philosophy it is missing any women European philosophers who were important interlocutors with the male philosophers included. It does not include any non-European (or even Spanish or Portuguese) philosophers of the same historical moment. The other missing aspect is grounding the main philosophical debates in a social, political, and global context. There are collections that include thinkers listed here like Locke, Hume, and Kant on race and gender specifically that can be used as supplements to this text. It should be problematized that many (if not all) of the philosophers included in this book did not think women or non-European peoples could be fully rational, philosophy, or even human—and that many of them had philosophical arguments (even if they were bad ones) about these points and not merely accidentally contingent outdated views. Looking at the difference between the sexism and/or racism of rationalists versus empiricists can be an interesting discussion after studying the texts included in this book supplemented with some of their other texts that more directly address issues of gender and race.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Something that could be added to future versions of this text could be one or two concluding chapters that would touch on how ideas, concepts, and debates in modern philosophy have persisted in the present and/or informed contemporary philosophers. This could easily be done by the instructor, but it also wouldn’t be bad to add some contemporary resources for students at the end of the book.","created_at":"2020-04-08T16:10:47.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-04-08T16:10:47.000-05:00"},{"id":4036,"first_name":"Robert","last_name":"Morton-Ranney","position":"Adjunct Faculty","institution_name":"Massachusetts Maritime Academy","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book covers the area promised (also see Cultural comments below).  Its best use could be as a companion text to other more explanatory material, especially if it is included in introductory classes.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"No difficulties were noted.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Texts as important as these will always be relevant.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The readings are laid out in a way that makes the book as a  whole very easy to navigate.  There are points at which a little more introductory explanation would be helpful.  Aristotle’s prose, for instance, will seem quite dense to students coming at it for the first time.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"As the Preface indicates, questions appear after some of the readings and these are very helpful.  A question or more after each reading would be more helpful still.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is excellent at offering bite-sized chunks.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Is good.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No apparent issues.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No difficulties.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"It will be obvious, painfully so to many, that this is another text exclusively featuring white males.  The relevant issues are formidable, but they must be recognized.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"There are points in the learning process when there is no substitute for the real thing, and having significant works carefully culled does a great service.","created_at":"2020-06-22T19:19:52.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-06-22T19:19:52.000-05:00"},{"id":4986,"first_name":"Jeff","last_name":"Lavoie","position":"Adjunct Professor","institution_name":"Middlesex Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book deals with the major texts from the \"modern\" time period; however, it is more of an anthology than it is a textbook.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"While the majority of this book are well accepted translations,  the introductions privided were accurate in my opinion.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This is one of the selling points of this work as the author provides questions at the end of each section that engages the reader to grasp the key ideas presented.  My only concern was that these were not applied to more recent topics.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"This book is primarily an anthology of accesible texts; however, the author did not attempt to clarify them for introductory students.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The terms used are consistent with philosophical discourse.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"Yes, this book is divided into clear sections of primary source material.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"This book is arranged chronologically which ensures a logical structure.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There is nothing that distracts the reader though, personally, I am not a fan of multiple  italicized sections.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There were no major grammatical issues in this work.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"This is an obvious issue in this text; however, to be fair this is not the author's \"fault\" as there is not much diversity in \"modern philosophy\" (acknowkedged anyways). It has only been over the past century where more diverse voices have entered the conversation.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Overall it is what it is-  an anthology of modern philosophy.","created_at":"2021-05-26T09:45:53.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-05-26T09:45:53.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/modern-philosophy?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:10:13.000-05:00"},{"id":405,"title":"Animals \u0026 Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2016,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9780692471289","license":"Attribution-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"This book provides an overview of the current debates about the nature and extent of our moral obligations to animals. Which, if any, uses of animals are morally wrong, which are morally permissible (i.e., not wrong) and why? What, if any, moral obligations do we, individually and as a society (and a global community), have towards animals and why? How should animals be treated? Why? We will explore the most influential and most developed answers to these questions – given by philosophers, scientists, and animal advocates and their critics – to try to determine which positions are supported by the best moral reasons.","contributors":[{"id":4012,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Nathan","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Nobis","location":"Morehouse College","background_text":"Nathan Nobis, PhD is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA. He has taught courses, given lectures and published articles and chapters on a wide variety of topics concerning ethics and animals, bioethics, ethical theory and other topics in philosophy."}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":309,"url":"http://animalethics101.blogspot.com/","year":2018,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:38.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-01-12T11:55:04.000-06:00","name":"Open Philosophy Press"}],"formats":[{"id":494,"type":"Online","url":"http://animalethics101.blogspot.com/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":495,"type":"PDF","url":"https://animalethics101.blogspot.com/p/complete-book.html","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":496,"type":"eBook","url":"https://animalethics101.blogspot.com/p/complete-book.html","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":497,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"https://animalethics101.blogspot.com/p/complete-book.html","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2113,"type":"MS Word","url":"https://animalethics101.blogspot.com/p/complete-book.html","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":13,"reviews":[{"id":1114,"first_name":"Victor","last_name":"Matoush","position":"Faculty Instructor","institution_name":"Rogue Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Comprehensive would be an understatement as this text goes extremely in depth to explore and discover all aspects of how we as a society approach our rights, responsibilities and dangers of our interactions with animals. At times, this becomes very heavy reading as the author takes the reader into deep philosophical thought processes of each and every approach to a particular situation. I might have preferred to not get so bogged down with so much preparatory reading prior to getting to discussing the actual issue. It did give the reader a better idea of ALL points of view,but it often became burdensome to read all of this.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The book tends to make a lot of assumptions when discussing theories. The author seemed to lean slightly towards more protection for animals. Often there would be multiple approaches to a moral dilemma and the assumption made was for a protectionist viewpoint. I did not see over population control brought up during the discussion on the moral right/obligation to kill animals.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The judgements of the public on a particular issue can be changed almost overnight now. Harambe became a household name after being killed to protect a young boy who had fallen in the enclosure. This book wouldn't necessarily change a mind as much as confirm what you already thought. The moral issues aren't going away anytime soon so the longevity of discussion should maintain over time.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Text was heavy, with lengthy meandering discussions on different approaches to a topic that were too in depth before even discussing the actual topic. By the time I got to the topic, I hadn't digested the preamble yet. Many sentences could have been phrased in a way that would be much easier to understand what the author was trying to say.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Format was similar throughout the book. There was a preparation to discuss the topic,then the actual discussion followed by some moral questions followed by a written assignment of the expository type.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The first chapter was much more difficult than the rest of the chapters.  The author proposes some theories like Regan's for example, be prepared to be referred back in the book so you must read the book sequentially to grasp the intended intent. Each chapter is it's own discussion in and of itself but requires understanding of previous chapters content.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book was so comprehensive, it covered all contingencies. I don't think there was any particular flow to organizing the chapters that would be better than any other.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No problems","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not notice any and I usually catch grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"There is a movement right now to move to protect animals, be it a crackdown on sales of ivory, or the removal of elephants from a zoo, there are more people talking about animals rights right now than at any time in history.This book is very relevant to what is happening and will encourage more discussions hopefully.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"Be ready to think, hard, while you are digesting the text of the book. Get through chapter 1 and the rest of the book becomes much easier to read.","created_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1124,"first_name":"Lutz","last_name":"Kramer","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Rogue Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text provides an extensive set of links to both print and online material related to our interaction with animals. There are sections dealing with animal minds, our various uses of animals (including eating and wearing, experimentation, hunting, pets and zoos) and activism for animals. There is no specific index or glossary, but the entire text functions as a companion to primary readings from Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Mark Rowlands.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The primary readings come from reputable philosophers, and the author includes links to critiques of their theories. Each section contains a brief overview of the topic which is an accurate representation of these philosophers’ views. The links to support material are accurate as well.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The issue of human to human ethics goes back to Plato, and our logic goes back to Aristotle, so the topic has a long history of relevance. By drawing on an analogy of our ethical and logical relationships with animals, the author establishes the relevance for a contemporary reader. Because of the layout, necessary updates will be easily implemented.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The author provides numerous examples to illustrate any of the technical terminology, and the text is jargon free. He also clearly states that instead of using the ambiguous term “morally right” it is of more value to use the terms “morally permissible,” “morally obligatory,” and “morally impermissible.”","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Since it is a companion text, it is internally consistent in relation to the terminology encountered in the primary readings.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"After Chapter One, each of the chapters could be included in a course independently. I could picture the chapter on activism for animals, for example, being used in an English composition class dealing with persuasion.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Again, since it is a companion text, there is a necessity to list the readings required for each chapter. Placing them at the end of the chapter would have given a better sense of flow. Being consistent with the discussion and paper topics was very helpful in terms of structure.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"Since the text was entirely print in format, there were no issues with the interface.  The font was fine.","grammatical_rating":3,"grammatical_review":"It was discouraging to find a grammar error in the opening sentence of the Preface. There were similar errors on pages 23,46, and 57, to name a few. The text would benefit from a much closer proofreading.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The book deals with a controversial topic, but it does so in a respectful manner. There will obviously be cultural differences in how we feel animals should be treated, and these differences are taken in to consideration. The final chapter, a comparison of animal rights and abortion, shows the similarities between these two controversial topics.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Since the text is only 125 pages long, it is well worth a look if the topic is a part of your curriculum.","created_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1126,"first_name":"Priscilla","last_name":"Connors","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"University of North Texas","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The author does a good job of outline the subject and defining the central focus of the chapters. Given these parameters the book is comprehensive. In the downloaded version I found a Table of Contents, however, there was no section distinctly labeled as the glossary. A unique section with definitions of terms would be useful to those new to the subject.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Readings are reasonably balanced and supported with reference and links to major works. Overall the readings made sense and were current as the time of publication.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The book includes a number of links to websites which requires vigilance to avoid broken links, failed addresses, and deleted sites. A unique section at the end of each chapter that lists sites might help with updating by putting these connections all in one place rather than dispersed throughout the text. The flow of discussion in each chapter felt natural and logical. Overall structure allows for updating as the conversation on animal use evolves.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Overall, the book is quite readable. There were a few times where definitions of terms would have been helpful. In chapter 1, I expected a description of the term \"premise\" but was unable to find it. Since the book appears to be a publication based on a series of lectures the author may have assumed that readers were informed about basic terms. If wider use is expected, more definitions would be a good idea.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent and flows easily from chapter to chapter. The discussion builds well. It does have a lecture feel and references to what \"we\" will be doing which can be distracting.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The modularity is with distinct sections and transitions between sections. The author's argument builds from chapter to chapter so reading in the order presented is the most likely approach.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The books organization is logical and easy to understand. More description and explanation of referenced works might be helpful.","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"The download was a pdf file with wide margins, spacing between short paragraphs, and use of indentation to offset subtopics. Sometimes references to works outside the book were confusing and left me wondering if I'd see more about that topic within the book or would need to jump out and read it elsewhere. This is where the book conveyed a \"wrote down the lecture\" feel that made it seem less like a book and more like a compendium.  Overall formatting could be improved with clear distinctions between text and footnotes. Perhaps a small thing, but blank pages between chapters seem unnecessary.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The book's grammar was appropriate and consistent.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Animals \u0026amp; Ethics is relevant, strikes a cord, and provides a strategy for reasoning that is culturally flexible. I plan to use it as a reading book for my class which, interestingly, is not a philosophy course. It establishes common ground for an animal use conversation that is pertinent to eating behaviors and food choice, which is my field of work.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I enjoyed reviewing this book. I pondered, reflected, and learned. I will be using this book with my students in a nutrition course where meat consumption is of growing concern among students and a path for a reasoned conversation is needed. Thank you!","created_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1359,"first_name":"Christian","last_name":"Golden","position":"Lecturer","institution_name":"University of Tennessee, Knoxville","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"There is a militant but minority school within the modern animal movement that calls itself the “Abolitionist” approach to animal rights.  Championed by legal scholar Gary Francione, the approach strictly opposes incremental animal welfare reform and takes a hard line against all forms of animal use, treating veganism as the only defensible moral baseline.  It has proven to be a divisive force within the animal rights movement, challenging some key assumptions behind mainstream animal advocacy, and as such deserves consideration in any discussion of the ethics and politics of animal use.  Yet it is a minority view often ignored by philosophers and activists.  I was pleasantly surprised that this text names Francione and “Abolitionism,” but discussion of its dispute with “welfarist” approaches was limited to about a page and a footnote.  A more extensive textual treatment may do more justice to the many deep ethical and tactical issues raised by this controversy within the animal movement. \n\nThe text focuses on three main normative theories and explores their application to the human use of animals: one based on the demand for equal consideration of interests; another based on the right to respectful treatment; and another based on making moral choices via an impartial procedure.  These approaches are surely different, but they do share an impartial/egalitarian thrust and an emphasis on rational procedures, rules, duties, rights, obligations, and so on.  But not all moral theory (certainly not all ethical reflection) is like this, so this focus is somewhat restrictive.  \n\nOne ethical framework that departs from many of the assumptions underlying these three theories is virtue ethics, whose emphasis is on what character traits make one the best sort of person, whose conduct is characteristically good and conducive to a worthwhile life.  The text totally ignores this theory (besides mentioning that an author mentions it elsewhere), but discussing it could help bring out important features of the main views the text considers and illuminate questions about human-animal relations from a different direction, namely by examining character traits relevant to human-animal relations and ethics generally, such as cruelty, apathy, empathy, rationality, and so on.  \n\nFinally, the text ignores an extensive philosophical literature on feminist approaches to animal ethics, such as the “ecofeminist” critique of meat consumption offered by Lori Gruen, Greta Gaard, Carol J. Adams, and others.  This is a significant oversight because feminist philosophy offers helpful and illuminating critiques of the commitment to liberalism (methodological individualism, ostensibly impartial, gender-neutral decision-procedures, and so on) underlying the three main normative theories the text considers.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The text does a good job of accurately describing and contrasting three normative theories as they apply to the moral relations between humans and between humans and other animals.  I did not notice any mischaracterizations of the positions or arguments under discussion.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"I worry that the text is apolitical in a way not helpful to students due to its tendency to avoid the intersection of animal ethics with questions about race, gender, sexuality, disability, and other embodied differences that invite comparison to supposed moral differences between species.  The text offers a relatively abstract discussion of some conceptual tools commonly used by Anglo-American philosophers to analyze modern animal use (factory farming, zoos, hunting, etc.) without any systematic discussion of the history of these practices or their connection to other forms of oppression (racial, gendered, etc.).  This is at least partly a question of style.  But more abstract discussions of moral principle tend to involve lost opportunities to help students reflect critically and philosophically about their concrete circumstances and the social and political dimensions of the moral issues they face.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text itself is largely clear and easy to follow.  I found the “Learning Outcomes” section at the beginning of the book to be especially helpful, and think students will, too, in establishing expectations about the book’s central content and ambitions.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The “About This Book” section does a fairly nice job of laying out the project and the way there.  It gives a good sense of the wide-ranging scope of the discussion, and flags some of the areas of investigation to be explored.  The book's subsequent layout conforms to the expectations created by the introductory remarks (subject to a caveat I mention below under \"organization/structure/flow”).","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The text’s core chapters cohere fairly well but seem suitable for use separately or in other combinations.  I would expect students to benefit from each of the chapters in isolation from the rest if my syllabus required doing it that way.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"It was not as immediately clear as I would have liked what the primary business of the text was.  The “About This Book” section mentions three main moral theories, but also a discussion of animal minds (clearly a metaphysical issue, not an ethical one), activism, some specific animal issues (wearing animals, owning pets, etc.), and other assorted topics.  Looking at the table of contents, it was unclear to me where or how the three moral theories identified in the opening remarks fit into the broad structure of the text.  I would have liked the introductory remarks to provide a roadmap for navigating the book that is more clearly reflected in the table of contents.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text’s layout seems well-organized and fairly easy to navigate.  Section headings are perspicuous and there are helpful “Overview,” “Discussion Questions,” and “Readings” headings to structure one’s attempt to navigate the text and find what one needs.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text contains only a few minor grammatical and typographical errors (see e.g. p. v, vii, etc.).","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"Due to the text’s avoidance of feminist moral and political thought around human-animal relations (discussed above under “Comprehensiveness”), it fails to help prepare students to engage gender as an analytical category and a resource for thinking critically about, and keeping pace with, other political issues like race and sexuality with which debates about the status of nonhuman animals are interwoven.  Generally speaking, the text takes seriously moral frameworks that fit comfortably within the liberal-democratic moral and political tradition to the exclusion of critical alternatives that, when contrasted with them, help illuminate their strengths and weaknesses.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I would suggest either eliminating or expanding the section entitled “Religion and Ethics: A Brief Comment,” found on p. 31.  The section consists of two brief paragraphs explaining why the text adopts a secular approach, largely by quoting another philosopher’s argument that religious ethics rests on a rationally indefensible appeal to authority, as opposed to reasons and evidence.  Such an offhand treatment cannot help being unfairly dismissive of theistic ethics and should be replaced with either a more extensive and balanced discussion that takes seriously the moral resources of actual religious traditions or a sentence in the Preface stating that the text will only consider secular frameworks.\n\nFinally, I worry that the book may be too ambitious for its relatively short length.  I do like that it strives to gather in lots of disparate philosophically important questions surrounding human-animal relations by contrasting and applying a few rival normative theories, exploring the nature of the creatures under discussion (the brief section on “animal minds”), handling specific practical issues of animal treatment as well as questions about activism itself, and so on.  These are all important and related matters that raise serious questions.  But in a book with roughly 100 pages of substantial discussion, it’s not surprising that (to me) much of the discussion seemed very cursory and elliptical.  This is another question of style, but I find that a deeper dive into fewer topics produces better and more enduring learning outcomes for students (especially novices) than a longer series of more fleeting encounters.  Teachers often have to fight for students’ attention, and students are less likely to remain engaged in any case when skimming over the surface.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1378,"first_name":"Jeffrey","last_name":"Pannekoek","position":"Graduate Student/Ph.D. Candidate","institution_name":"University of Tennessee","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book does not offer much in the way of an index or glossary, but it is relatively short and searchable.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The content of the book is accurate overall, and has no egregious errors. It comes across as unbiased. The approach seems to favor the thesis that harming animals is wrong, but this thesis itself, the extent to which it is true, and its possible implications are all carefully considered and up for question.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"The book is meant to accompany three classic texts in the animal ethics literature. The most recent of these is from 2004 (although this is an updated version of a much earlier text, and the most recent original work is from 2002). This means that the relevant texts are not very recent, although their status as classics in the field is uncontroversial.\n\nIn terms of its discussion of these classical texts, the book will not easily be made obsolete. But in terms of where the debate is moving, insofar as it no longer limits itself to classically deontological and utilitarian theories and is becoming increasingly intersectional, the book remains much more traditional.\n\nThe primary issue with longevity is that there are a lot of online sources referenced that do not have a stable URL. This means that an increasingly large number of the link will cease to refer to the source listed. Although this is acknowledged in the text, it does date the work.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The book is exceedingly clear and suitable for an introductory audience in terms of its original content. The references to the other texts quickly become cumbersome to follow up on. Another potential problem is that the difficulty of some of the recommended texts far exceed the standards of the text, for instance the recommended readings on animal minds (page 50).","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Overall, the text is consistent in terms of terminology and framework.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The text is relatively easily divisible into smaller sections. There is some cross-referencing that might make this process a little bit more difficult. The topics are clearly distinct, which lends itself well to a course division.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The topics are presented in a logical fashion. As noted above, some of the cross-referencing unnecessarily divides the same topic over distinct sections.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The interface is generally clear. However, it has a standard MS Word layout which means that the page-numbering is continuous and visible, even on empty pages. While this is not a big problem, it does make the book overall look less professional.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The texts contain no major grammatical errors. It has clearly been carefully edited.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The text is not necessarily culturally insensitive nor does it use offensive examples. However, the focus on traditional animal ethics theories means that the text lacks intersectionality.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"(The following is my all-things-considered review of the book. Some of the comments will be repetitive given the notes above.)\n\nNathan Nobis’ Animals \u0026amp; Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights is not a standalone book that can be used as the primary text in an animal ethics course. It is best considered as an accompaniment to three of the major texts in the animal ethical literature.\n\nIt does well as a guided reading exercise for some of the animal ethics fundamentals, but it won’t meet the needs of anyone looking for a comprehensive introduction to the field. It might have been helpful for the title of the text to be more clear about the nature of the text. That being said, the rest of my commentary will judge the book as a guided reading text.\n\nThe texts the book focuses on are standard in the animal ethics tradition. On the one hand, this is understandable given the introductory nature of the text. On the other hand, it presents the debate in a very one dimensional way and this trend is continued in most of the recommended reading. That is to say, the vast majority of the voices represented are white and male.\n\nThe general approach of the text is to talk together a variety of other texts. This gets somewhat cumbersome. The reader is supposed to start a chapter, and then read a section from one book, another section from another, and so on, before getting back to this book from some unifying comments and further resources. These additional resources are offered in large numbers, but they are not contextualized. This means that sources that detract from the project of the book are not interpreted in the framework of the debate.\n\nThe section on activism is informative and does good work at covering a generally underrepresented topic. The final discussion considers the relation between animal ethics and abortion. The differences and similarities between these two topics is mutually elucidating, although the discussion is relatively long and feels somewhat detached from the rest of the project.\n\nFinally, the text is a bit open ended. It comes across as unbiased, but being unbiased is not in every case a virtue. I think that the text could have taken a stronger position on the wrongs perpetuated against animals. The detached nature of the discussion reflects the emphasis on rationality of the classic utilitarian and deontological approaches to animal ethics. This underscores the lack of intersectionality.\n\nIn short, its a decent accompaniment to some of the classical texts in the animal ethics literature, but in my view it is not sufficient as an introduction to contemporary animal ethics more broadly.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1841,"first_name":"Sarah","last_name":"Beighton","position":"Research \u0026 Digital Resources Librarian","institution_name":"Staffordshire University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"There isn’t an index as such, which is a shame, as this would be extremely useful. However, it is broken down into chapters which is good, and these are further broken down into sections which are well described, and the book is easily searchable which helps.\n The author does point out in the preface that the book is designed as a brief guide and  companion to other in print books, which are listed in the  ‘About this book’ section. This section is very comprehensive, going as far to describe the learning outcomes ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The information in the  book seems accurate and well balanced, it is based on readings by respected philosophers and gives links to these texts. The chapters seem well thought out and give an overview of the topics with information about further reading. \n","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"The main issue I foresee is ensuring  links stay relevant. Aside from that the arguments covered seem current and the structure gives the impression it can be updated easily without loosing relevance to current issues in animal ethics.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Overall the text is written in an accessible,  readable manner. The explanations are easy to understand. I especially liked the ‘About this book section’ as it gives a clear overview of the purpose of the book along with the earning outcomes the reader is expected to achieve.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The terminology and framework used are extremely consistent ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"I love the way the author has included an ‘About this book’ section as it gives meaning to the book, the structure of the chapters is accurate and clear, and helps break the book down into manageable sections.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The chapters are consistently organised with a clear overview, additional readings leading then on to the main chapter sections. I found this a refreshing way of organising a book and felt that this enhanced the learning experience.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"There are no images or tables in the text, so there are no problems with the interface in the formats available.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I couldn’t find any obvious grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The book is not insensitive or offensive from a cultural perspective, but neither does it specifically discuss in detail animal rights in the context of race, culture, ethnicity or background. ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"An enjoyable read which gives a broad overview of the issues surrounding animal rights in the context of the learning outcomes the book describes.","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":2063,"first_name":"Bruce","last_name":"Mandeville","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Otterbein Univeristy","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book covers some common important animal use discussions.  I do not believe it is meant to be definitive, but it does provide many commonly used resources for further investigation.  This book is a great place to start the debate but future resources would be necessary for an in-depth approach. ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The book is accurate.  Sometimes in its lack of depth, some content is not fully developed (and perhaps some would view this a not accurate).  It does seem to be slanted towards animal rights but it would not hinder me from using the text (as most students could be nudged further in that direction).  ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The links do not necessarily work so perhaps just using google searches for the appropriate materials might be more useful.  It seems that the book could easily be updated.  I found it to be relevant and helpful.  ","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"He assumes you know what Cohen, Regan etc say.  He doesn't really go into their theories so to use this book I would need to expose students to these writers’ views.  Would have been helpful to clearly summarize their theories.  However, the book is very detailed in the common arguments later.   ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Extremely consistent.  The book does an excellent job with terminology and approaches to animal ethics.  The arguments for animal use are well separated and can be used individually or one argument building on the next.  Very consistent approach.  ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"It is easily divided into sections.  I will be using chapters 3-7; that seems to speak to animal ethics and equine ethics most closely.  It is helpful to have chapters on the specific areas of animal rights, so each area is accessible separately, such as medical research.  It might be more helpful if the resources that remain in the chapters (not as footnotes) were attached directly to the arguments discussed.\n\n","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Perhaps the resources could be elsewhere in the book so it wouldn’t disrupt the flow. .  Perhaps as footnotes or reference section.   Some of the links do not work so perhaps just suggesting google search terms would be more helpful?    \nThe topics and text flowed very well.  \n\n","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The interface worked well, especially if you have PDF reader where you can annotate and highlight.  ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"There were a few grammatical errors but not many.  ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"n/a in my opinion","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"This is a great resource to use and I will be using this text.  The offers of questions and essay topics at the end of chapters is also very helpful.  \n\n","created_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-05-21T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2602,"first_name":"Joey","last_name":"Tuminello","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Linn-Benton Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The content of the text is appropriately comprehensive for an introductory volume on animal ethics. The theoretical emphasis is on Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Mark Rowlands' ethical frameworks, as well as discussion of issues such as the use of animals in research and for food/fur. No index or glossary is included, but the author does clearly organize assigned and suggested reading throughout the text.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Nobis accurately frames arguments without dogmatism, promoting the reader's ability to think for themselves and to evaluate the strength of different lines of reasoning. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The author drives home the perennial nature of debates regarding the moral status of, and moral obligations towards animals, and does so in a way that ensures the long-term efficacy of the book. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is very clearly written, and this clarity is reflected in the content of the book itself, which focuses on ways to clearly understand, articulate, and evaluate arguments regarding animal ethics. Technical terms are kept to a minimum and always clearly explained. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is completely consistent in its employment of terminology and philosophical/argumentative concepts. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This text would work wonderfully when covered in its entirety or when broken up into smaller readings. The text frames discussion within and between other readings in animal ethics, bringing these into conversation with one another in ways that spark the reader's critical thinking. At the same time, it is written in a way that is not overly self-referential, and it would be possible to use only excepts of the text without generating confusion. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book begins with an introduction to the study of ethics and the nature of argumentation. It then moves into core theories in animal ethics, and ends by covering debates regarding various uses of animals and the ethics of animal-related advocacy. ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text's interface is straightforward and easily navigable. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The book's grammar is excellent throughout, making for a fluid, non-disruptive reading experience.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive, but examples and thinkers are fairly Anglo- and US-centric.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"It is worth noting that this text was not designed to be a stand-alone volume. The author does a wonderful job of curating introductory readings in animal ethics and this text expertly serves as the \"glue\" that brings the readings together and cultivates argumentative/critical thinking skills on these topics. However, the text often references assigned readings that are listed but not included in their entirety (probably due to copyright). Links to web documents are included where available.","created_at":"2019-03-03T20:53:04.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-03-03T20:53:04.000-06:00"},{"id":2702,"first_name":"Matthew","last_name":"Haug","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"College of William \u0026 Mary","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"As stated in the author's preface, this text is not quite a stand-alone book on animal ethics but rather a companion or guide that can be read alongside some influential books on animals and ethics (in particular, Peter Singer's _Animal Liberation_, Tom Regan's _Empty Cages_, and Mark Rowlands' _Animals Like Us_). The first chapter helpfully clarifies what the core question of animal ethics is (e.g., explaining that it need not be whether animals have moral rights), explains some basic logical concepts, and connects animal ethics to some general approaches to human ethics. I think it would be helpful if later chapters were fleshed out more fully so that they are a bit closer to being self-standing. For example, in Ch. 2, the particular argument for the claim that animals have minds based on inference to the best explanation could be explained in a bit more detail. Similarly, a bit more detail could be added to the rather schematic treatment of the major arguments in later chapters (e.g., the arguments against using animals for food or clothing in Ch. 5, especially on pp.53-54).","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The text provides an accurate overview of influential arguments in animal ethics.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The extensive lists of further readings and internet sources for each chapter are especially interesting and helpful.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Overall, the writing is clear and concise.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book's terminology is consistent throughout.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"Each chapter is fairly independent of the others. I think that any course that discussed topics in animal ethics would want to include the material covered in Ch.1 in one form or another.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is well-organized overall. One way of making the book closer to a self-standing text might be to incorporate the two \"bonus essays\" into the main text. For example, material from the second bonus essay could be incorporated into Ch. 6, perhaps with some critical discussion.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Overall, the formatting is attractive and readable. However, seemingly unneeded blank pages appear after the list of readings in some chapters and after some chapters.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"I noticed a few grammatical mistakes/typos: in a section title in Ch. 1 (pp. ix and 9); in a set of sentences of the form \"This chapter we ...\" (pp.42,45,51,67) (probably a result of using 'replace' when editing); an instance where 'it' should be 'is' (p.61).","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I did not notice any culturally insensitive examples.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2019-03-28T10:08:58.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-03-28T10:08:58.000-05:00"},{"id":2922,"first_name":"Cheri","last_name":"Carr","position":"Associate Professor ","institution_name":"LAGCC","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book presents itself as supplemental to Singer's \"Animal Liberation\", Regan's \"Empty Cages\", and Rowland's \"Animals Like Us.\" I would add that it is more of a teacher's guide than a book to ask introductory students to read. The questions posed, the links to additional material, the argument summaries offered, the discussion questions collected, and the paper topics suggested are all excellent for helping a teacher craft their own class. These are the strengths of the book. But whereas many introductory texts expend much energy painting a story that will draw students along, motivating the questions posed, this book jumps straight to the meat of arguments. For some, this may be a strength as well. For others, this means that the book can be an excellent supplement and helpful preparatory tool, but that the student experience of context, narrative, and stakes will have to be presented in lecture or in other readings. While this text contains no index, the pdf is fully searchable.  I was surprised that there is no discussion of animal euthanasia. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Nobis is careful to present as unbiased a view as possible, allowing students to draw their own conclusions from careful evaluation of the arguments presented. Feminist and indigenous scholarship could be presented more centrally to the dialogue and could inform the way in which the book is presented. Why focus so entirely on argumentation surrounding rights, obligations, and harms when it may be learning needs in basic empathy and appreciation of connectedness that are the primary root of why the types of questions presented in the book seem urgent at all? ","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"When I noted that feminist and indigenous scholarship could be presented more centrally to the dialogue and could inform the way in which the book is presented, it is a point that has implications for the possible limits of the relevance of this text. As teaching shifts to more culturally relevant, inclusive practices, this book's focus on argumentation about rights and obligations can likely still be useful in the long run as a supplemental teaching guide, though some of the questions may seem less urgent as cultural awareness of our connectedness with the natural world increases. So, the questions will become versions of \"how to do we think and act in environmentally inclusive ways?\" instead of Nobis' various versions of \"should we think and act in environmentally inclusive ways?\" ","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"As noted above, the book's mission is not primarily in building context or fleshing out a narrative. It is, however, very clear and analytic in presenting the arguments it's interested in. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent and does build on it's own questions, such as ones surrounding \"taking someone's interests seriously\", criteria for \"having a mind\", and the centrality of \"rights\" discussions at all. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Short descriptions of the problems are followed by links to longer articles, short but deep dives into arguments, and suggestions for discussion questions and paper topics, all of which lead to a very modular, easily digested guide book for teachers looking to draw resources for their own classes. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The text is well organized, with a clear table of contents and a fully searchable pdf version","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There are no interface problems that I noticed, and I appreciate that the pdf is fully searchable. The links I sampled all work, and Nobus even offers instructions for what to do in case of any technical difficulties in accessing the things he has linked to. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Some sentences are long and technical, but not grammatically incorrect. Very clear argumentation throughout.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"This text is not culturally insensitive or offensive, though I would love to see an updated version that takes seriously feminist and indigenous perspectives, not just as abstracted argument artifacts, but as interlocutors for the form of the narrative, the learning objectives, and the very questions being posed. ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2019-05-17T11:00:22.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-05-17T11:00:22.000-05:00"},{"id":3616,"first_name":"Puspa ","last_name":"Damai","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Marshall University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"Though primarily focused on the works by Peter Singer, Tom Regan and Mark Rowlands, this book provides readers with a comprehensive list of ideas and arguments pertaining to the topics of animals and ethics. The content of the text is presented in a very reader-friendly way while still maintaining its academic tone and texture. The book aims at being a comprehensive guide to the issues of animal ethics by covering or engaging with many of the popular questions in the field. The summary of moral theories on pages 14 \u002615 is a clear indication of the book’s ambitious plan to be as extensive as possible within the scope available to a supplementary text. The examples used in the book, and the discussion questions supplied at the end of each chapter also help readers get a detailed picture of the topics covered. Perhaps the most effective element of the book is the “Readings” section in which the author lists a bunch of sources with external links for the really inquisitive and adventurous learners. The author even tries to be “populist” by recommending YouTube videos of relevant figures. The result is an intertextual, interdisciplinary montage of sources, ideas and arguments. This book is ready to be used in an introductory course not just on animal studies but also on logic, ethics and even critical thinking in general.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The author clearly presents the arguments, and is faithful to the sources discussed. ","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"This book will be quite useful and relevant to both the instructors and students looking for an easy-to-find and easy-to-follow textbook with ready discussion questions and ideas for short papers.  ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"One of the strengths of this book is its lucid style. It reads as if the author was teaching a class, and we as readers were listening to the instructor explaining and expounding on the material. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book presents its material in a consistent manner. In each chapter, the reader is guided through a nicely structured discussion of topics and questions. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The readings by all three authors (Singer, Regan and Rowlands) are distributed across the chapters in a very cohesive way; each new chapter builds its discussion on the last. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is divided into eight chapters. The opening chapter introduces the readers to ethics, logic and animal ethics. In the subsequent chapters, the author gradually moves from abstract philosophical issues (such as animal minds, animal rights to) more  practical issues including wearing and eating animals, and petting and hunting animals. This shift from the abstract to the concrete culminates suitably in the last chapter on a discussion on activism.  ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The book is available in four different formats; and it clearly explains the conditions of use.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"The book contains a few instances of grammatically inconsistent formulations: e.g. “Here this person probably does not mean to say your making these donations are [sic] morally obligatory, morally required, or a moral duty” (8). ","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"Discussions of pets, hunting, factory farming, etc. make the text culturally relevant. The book is primarily written for a Western audience.  ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I am planning to use the book for my critical thinking course. ","created_at":"2020-03-04T20:06:03.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-03-04T20:06:03.000-06:00"},{"id":34480,"first_name":"Danae","last_name":"Wirth","position":"Director of Accreditation for Education","institution_name":"Goshen College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text covers the subject appropriately and with appropriate references. Primary reading suggestions are listed at the beginning of the book. There is no formal index, readings and recommended resources are inserted in each chapter as links to information and or readings on websites. These readings are specific to each chapter and significantly add to the content. Footnotes are used throughout the text that help define terms and explain their meanings in this context.  There is no formal glossary of terms.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The author presents the content in non-bias ways and through a consistent philosophical approach in which opposing view points are well represented.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The text addresses ongoing issues and debates concerning morals, ethics and the rights of animals. It describes the foundations of ethics and morals in a variety of contexts in the first chapter. This serves as a touchstone for thinking about animal rights as the book progresses. It would be quite easy to maintain the main content of this text if updates were needed to the references and supporting texts, however this resource is highly dependent on outside reading assignments which may or may not be relevant in the future.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The clarity of the text is inhibited by the use of long footnotes.  In addition, sentences are long and at times grammatically confusing. However, terminology is clearly defined and used consistently in appropriate context.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The text is consistent in terms of both terminology and framework. There is a logical sequence in the structure of the chapters, and questions following each chapter are in a consistent format. Terminology that could be confusing or ambiguous is explained within the context of the writing.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The text is organized as a detailed course description with a series of classroom lessons that include readings, discussions, and end of chapter questions. It seems naturally divided into sections (chapters) that can be individually assigned or grouped as assignments.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The first chapter sets the tone for the rest of the text by providing background information on morals and ethics theory that frame the discussion in the following chapters. The author is forthcoming in the very beginning about the intent to inform but not influence the readers' thinking about these issues. Each chapter presents issues from opposing viewpoints and provides questions to facilitate deeper thinking about one's own views.  Each chapter is consistently formatted with an introduction, suggested readings, theories/arguments, discussion, questions, and assignment.  This structure culminates in the final additional readings that revisit the original premise of how human to human interactions influence the way we consider human to animal interactions.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The author points out that at the time of the writing the links to web resources were active, however the reader may have to find the resources another way if they become inactive.  This could be a problem since the text is heavily dependent on the readings in these links.  A few other links were inactive at the time of this review. The text itself is in a straight forward format, it includes appropriately formatted illustrations with captions in the additional readings at the end of the book. There were no issues navigating through the pages or chapters.","grammatical_rating":3,"grammatical_review":"Generally, the way sentences are structured throughout the text tends to be confusing for the reader and is distracting. At times, it is hard to understand the point of a given section of text without re-reading it several times.  The slight grammatical (or typographical) errors and long sentences interrupt the intended content.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The nature of this topic and the way it is presented naturally lends itself to cultural neutrality. As philosophy does, the text confronts the established beliefs of the reader and challenges the reader to critically question their own ideas by reading and reflecting on the established ideas of others. There were no glaring insensitivities in the writing. It should be noted that references to issues surrounding human abortion in application to how animal rights are framed may be offensive to some.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"This subject of this book is relevant and important in terms of current events and has considerable potential for addressing the subject matter. Just be aware it is a more of a detailed course outline that includes detailed descriptions of each class session than a textbook and it depends heavily on outside readings that may or may not be accessible in the future.","created_at":"2023-03-28T22:46:18.000-05:00","updated_at":"2023-03-28T22:46:18.000-05:00"},{"id":34611,"first_name":"Kevin","last_name":"DeCoux","position":"Philosophy","institution_name":"Minnesota West Community \u0026 Technical College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text presents a good intro to animal ethics.  It creates a context and way to consider this topic and then pretty systematically moves through the topic.  It includes some additional resources and readings that touch on many of the ideas you would like an animal ethics section or class to know about.  For example: Singer, Regan, and Rowlands.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"All ideas are presented clear and unbiased way.  Opposing views are represented and the space is created for students to do their own thinking.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The important ideas are presented here and the text feel current and up to date.  This isn't a new text, but it doesn't feel old.  I gave this a 4 as other positions could be considered more closely, but that isn't necessarily the goal of this book.  As an instructor, I would encourage my class to consider these other perspectives.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"This is a consistent book.  I can tell it has been used and updated to work for a class.  Ideas and vocabulary are explained with an appropriate amount of discussion.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"This book is consistent and builds off of the ideas already discussed.  It provides a reasonable framework for to be used in a class.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"There are links to additional readings and materials.  There are questions that could be used for discussions and paper topics.  This is all helpful and could be used easily for a unit in a larger class.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"I appreciate the organization.  It works here.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I didn't see any interface issues.  In the intro Nobis suggests that some links might break over time, but they worked for me.","grammatical_rating":3,"grammatical_review":"There are some spelling and grammatical mistakes, but it doesn't really impact your ability to use the text.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"This text fits a western context well.  Students will be able to approach the topics presented and have opinions on the topics.  I found the book to be pretty neutral and I wouldn't be concerned using it in my class.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"A reasonable introduction to animal ethics.  The book looks pretty good and would be usable for a section in my environmental ethics course on animals.","created_at":"2023-06-19T10:31:20.000-05:00","updated_at":"2023-06-19T10:31:20.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/animals-ethics-101-thinking-critically-about-animal-rights?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:10:08.000-05:00"},{"id":452,"title":"A Concise Introduction to Logic","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2017,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9781942341420","license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"A Concise Introduction to Logic is an introduction to formal logic suitable for undergraduates taking a general education course in logic or critical thinking, and is accessible and useful to any interested in gaining a basic understanding of logic. This text takes the unique approach of teaching logic through intellectual history; the author uses examples from important and celebrated arguments in philosophy to illustrate logical principles. The text also includes a basic introduction to findings of advanced logic. As indicators of where the student could go next with logic, the book closes with an overview of advanced topics, such as the axiomatic method, set theory, Peano arithmetic, and modal logic. Throughout, the text uses brief, concise chapters that readers will find easy to read and to review.","contributors":[{"id":4165,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Craig","middle_name":null,"last_name":"DeLancey","location":"SUNY Oswego","background_text":"Craig DeLancey is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at SUNY Oswego. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University. His publications include Passionate Engines: What Emotions Reveal about the Mind and Artificial Intelligence, with Oxford University Press. He has been a fellow of the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, a fellow of the National Endowment of the Humanities, and has received research funding from the Army Institute of Basic Research. When not teaching philosophy or doing research, he writes science fiction."}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":371,"url":"https://milneopentextbooks.org/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:39.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-04-15T13:40:48.000-05:00","name":"Open SUNY"}],"formats":[{"id":632,"type":"PDF","url":"https://milneopentextbooks.org/download/a-concise-introduction-to-logic/?tmstv=1672257570","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":633,"type":"eBook","url":"https://milneopentextbooks.org/concise-introduction-to-logic/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2129,"type":"Online","url":"https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/concise-introduction-to-logic","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2130,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"https://www.amazon.com/Concise-Introduction-Logic-Craig-DeLancey/dp/1942341431","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":4,"reviews":[{"id":1520,"first_name":"Tony","last_name":"Russell","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Central Oregon Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text begins with basic definitions and mapping tools for representing propositional logic and for creating truth tables. It then moves through first order logic, quantification, and proofs. It ends with a look forward to more advanced applications. There is neither index nor glossary, but terms are easy to find using the table of contents. Moreover, the chapters are brief, and terms are relatively easy to identify within them.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"DeLancey's work is careful and meticulous. Exercises and examples reflect a diversity of situations, viewpoints, and authors. I observed no glaring errors or bias.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The foundational principles of propositional logic aren't particularly new, but as the final section of this volume suggests, there a several advanced and creative ways to apply them. Some early sections point out what current thinking on certain topics is. While these points are unlikely to change, the text is written in such a way that it would be easy to modify later. Also, Part III: A Look Forward is written in a such a way that it could be edited easily to reflect further modifications, changes, or developments.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"This book is what it says it is: a concise introduction. DeLancey's writing is brief and methodical. Paragraphs are small and somewhat minimalist. This, however, is not a criticism. Explanations are short and effective. Terms build upon terms and concepts upon concepts. There are not examples for every single instance, but there are always examples to show how the concepts discussed in the chapter work together. Chapters are well-organized and short. Exercises are interesting and challenging (for that matter, the content matter is, too), and they reflect what is discussed in the chapters. I regularly review online course design and textbooks, and while I always find these reviews stimulating, this is the first time in a long time where I really wanted to take a course in this topic and ask questions about the content and application.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The formatting style, complete with chapter and section numbers, is consistent throughout. There is not much color—nor does there need to be—but for what there is, it is also consistent. DeLancey warns the reader of terminology that has different names but refers to the same concept. He even states that he may use certain terms interchangeably; however, these terms were not difficult to follow, and the interchangeable use was minimal.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"Most chapters are about ten pages. They include explanations, examples, and problems (exercises). These chapters could be easily assigned to students. It is conceivable that one might assume sections in order to introduce students to certain concepts, but the text is written in such a way that concepts build on one another. In addition, a method for representing logic, which includes signs and symbols, is introduced. With that in mind, unless students had prior experience with the material, it would not be advisable to reorganize the chapters. In my mind, the chapters and sections are very much dependent on their ordering.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The Reviewer's Notes provide an accurate overview of the text's organization. This is also reflected in the Table of Contents. From start to finish, the text introduces concepts and builds on them to move from basic to more advanced applications.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text is in a Pressbooks style. The PDF was easy to navigate. There appear to be two primary typefaces, a serif and sans serif font. Both were easy to read. Charts, tables, and images have rendered well. I observed no distracting pixelation, blurring, or alignment errors with these visuals.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"DeLancey's style is easy to read. I observed no significant errors in grammar or punctuation.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"DeLancey has been careful to include examples from various persons, both male and female, from a variety of cultures, races, and backgrounds. He also varies his use of pronouns, sometimes using he or she, sometimes he, sometimes she.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"The conciseness of the chapters, sections, paragraphs, and sentences is to be commended. The organization and structure is also easy to follow. I came to this book on the Open Textbook Library looking for a text for my introductory composition and rhetoric students. While I found some things that would be applicable to them, I found that the text was more in line with a philosophy or more traditional course in rhetoric than what I would typically present to first-year composition students. That said, I found the style and content of the book fascinating. I enjoyed doing the exercises, and I can visualize how students could use this text to confidently develop fundamental skills in using logic and representing it in truth tables and proofs.","created_at":"2017-08-15T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-08-15T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1579,"first_name":"John","last_name":"O'Connor","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Colorado State University - Pueblo","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"\nThis text provides a thorough and responsible introduction to symbolic logic from sentential calculus through first-order predicate logic with identity and its application to specific numbers in arguments.  While there is no index, this is hardly necessary in a digital text.  In place of a glossary, the text offers a very effective and detailed summary section for each of the two logical languages developed.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I found no errors or biases in the text; it accurately presents its field of logic.  Potential readers should be aware, though, that this is a text in symbolic / deductive logic, as such it reflects the conscious decision to exclude informal logic. Closely related to this is the equating of ‘good argument’ with ‘valid argument’ (using the traditional definition of the latter). A ’bad argument’ is, then, simply any invalid argument.  While that's fine given that the text concerns only deductive logic, students or faculty expecting discussion of a wider range of logical ‘goodness’ (e.g. strength) may find this jarring.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The portion of logic introduced by this text is very stable.  The systems presented are up-to-date and necessary revisions to the core ideas and techniques are unlikely for some time.\n","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"\nThe text is well-designed and clearly written for its intended audience.  For instance, most of the major concepts are introduced through  discussion of concrete examples from the history of philosophy and science. The author is thus able to introduce concepts and techniques while demonstrating their value. Furthermore, instead of burdening the main text with sidebars or esoteric developments of the material, the author relegates these to footnotes, where they are no doubt useful to more advanced students without risking distracting the less well-prepared.\n","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"\n This is a text in logic; as such it makes a virtue of its consistency.\n","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"This text is as modular as a systematic introduction to logic can be.  One could, for instance, teach/learn the sentential calculus on its own. That said, the nature of the discipline requires careful sequencing of material. A modular deductive logic text is unlikely to be as usable as this text. Furthermore, it is not clear that rearranging the material would be helpful. For logic, I’d call this a feature, not a bug.\n\n","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"In addition to the expected logical sequencing mentioned above, this text presents its material against the backdrop of history. Frederick Douglass, Hobbes, Socrates/Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, Hume, Frege, Russell, Peano, Meinong, Tarski and Carnap all make an appearance. Many students will find this structure helpful in putting flesh on the logical bones. ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I found no problems with the interface, navigation or text/image rendering in the pdf version of the text (the only version I read).  Any reader comfortable navigating pdf files should have no concerns. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is written in student-approachable professional English.  I found no grammatical or typpgraphical errors.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"I do not think the content or its presentation is likely to be found culturally insensitive or offensive at all (disclosure: I am a Caucasian male). That said, with only a single exception that I could find (Frederick Douglass) the historical examples are representative of the European male dominated philosophical canon.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1687,"first_name":"Shaeeda","last_name":"Mensah","position":"Professorial Lecturer","institution_name":"American University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text is very comprehensive. It covers each of the main connectives separately, proofs, and an introduction to propositional logic. The index covers each aspect of the text in explicit detail. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The text is accurate, error-free, and unbiased. ","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"The content is up-to-date but there are areas of logic that go largely uncovered. In particular, there is no explicit instruction on the construction of truth table and the usage of truth tables to assess consistency, tautologies, contingencies, and soundness. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is clearly organized. A student is able to learn about each main connective in its own chapter. The language in the text is accessible to a wide variety of audiences while ensuring that students become familiar with the technical terminology of logic. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is internally consistent. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is divided into chapters that individually address each main connective. Additionally, each chapter includes approximately three practice problems. It would be valuable to include additional practice problems given that logic is best learned through solving a wide variety of practice problems. Additionally, it would be helpful to have more problems that teach students how to use the main connectives together and not just independently. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization, structure, and flow of the text is impressive. ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text makes great use of colors and charts. It includes a combination of both logical equations and word problems. The problems within the text are presented in a multiple choice format. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is free of major spelling and grammar errors. ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text use a variety of contexts for the problems. The problems include both historical figures and contemporary figures, and examples from a variety of cultural contexts. ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":5020,"first_name":"David","last_name":"Jacobs","position":"Adjunct Professor","institution_name":"American University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This volume is a well-constructed introduction to logic for undergraduates. It’s depth and breadth are appropriate.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The author writes with care and leaves little room for misunderstanding.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Logic is not a perishable subject. Using intellectual history as a foundation gives the book enduring relevance.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The author is painstaking in his quest for clarity,","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Logical consistency is the sine qua non of a book of this kind. The style and structure are consistent throughout,","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text can be assigned by individual chapter. The chapter order is approved and cannot be altered. The book concludes with a look forward to advanced topics.\r\n\r\nI think I can use the volume as a reference for the occasional coverage of formal logic in my Business Ethics course,","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"It is a concise volume and proceeds logically.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I see no errors. The negation symbol used is not the one I thought was standard but apparently I was wrong!","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I have encountered no serious grammatical errors, or any really.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The volume is clearly written within the “Western” intellectual tradition. It would be fascinating if the author were to consider alternative logical approaches and probably would be unique among texts.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I intend to use this book as a refresher so that I can add more formal consideration of arguments as an element of my teaching.","created_at":"2021-06-01T13:37:44.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-06-01T13:37:44.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/a-concise-introduction-to-logic?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:10:47.000-05:00"},{"id":457,"title":"Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2016,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":null,"license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"This is an introductory textbook in logic and critical thinking. The goal of the textbook is to provide the reader with a set of tools and skills that will enable them to identify and evaluate arguments. The book is intended for an introductory course that covers both formal and informal logic. As such, it is not a formal logic textbook, but is closer to what one would find marketed as a “critical thinking textbook.”","contributors":[{"id":4179,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Matthew","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Van Cleave","location":"Lansing Community College","background_text":"Matthew Van Cleave, PhD, Philosophy, University of Cincinnati, 2007. VAP at Concordia College (Moorhead), 2008-2012. Assistant Professor at Lansing Community College, 2012-2016. Professor at Lansing Community College, 2016-"}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":376,"url":"https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-rkbctcWjo3OFhGODNSYTZPMVU/view","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:39.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-01-02T22:41:01.000-06:00","name":"Matthew J. Van Cleave"}],"formats":[{"id":644,"type":"PDF","url":"https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-rkbctcWjo3OFhGODNSYTZPMVU/view","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4","textbook_reviews_count":10,"reviews":[{"id":1449,"first_name":"Rebecca","last_name":"Owen","position":"Adjunct Professor, Writing","institution_name":"Chemeketa Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This textbook is quite thorough--there are conversational explanations of argument structure and logic. I think students will be happy with the conversational style this author employs. Also, there are many examples and exercises using current events, funny scenarios, or other interesting ways to evaluate argument structure and validity. The third section, which deals with logical fallacies, is very clear and comprehensive. My only critique of the material included in the book is that the middle section may be a bit dense and math-oriented for learners who appreciate the more informal, informative style of the first and third section. Also, the book ends rather abruptly--it moves from a description of a logical fallacy to the answers for the exercises earlier in the text.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is very reader-friendly, and the author writes with authority and clarity throughout the text. There are a few surface-level typos (Starbuck's instead of Starbucks, etc.). None of these small errors detract from the quality of the content, though.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"One thing I really liked about this text was the author's wide variety of examples. To demonstrate different facets of logic, he used examples from current media, movies, literature, and many other concepts that students would recognize from their daily lives. The exercises in this text also included these types of pop-culture references, and I think students will enjoy the familiarity--as well as being able to see the logical structures behind these types of references. I don't think the text will need to be updated to reflect new instances and occurrences; the author did a fine job at picking examples that are relatively timeless. As far as the subject matter itself, I don't think it will become obsolete any time soon.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The author writes in a very conversational, easy-to-read manner. The examples used are quite helpful. The third section on logical fallacies is quite easy to read, follow, and understand. A student in an argument writing class could benefit from this section of the book. The middle section is less clear, though. A student learning about the basics of logic might have a hard time digesting all of the information contained in chapter two. This material might be better in two separate chapters. I think the author loses the balance of a conversational, helpful tone and focuses too heavily on equations.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"Terminology in this book is quite consistent--the key words are highlighted in bold. Chapters 1 and 3 follow a similar organizational pattern, but chapter 2 is where the material becomes more dense and equation-heavy. I also would have liked a closing passage--something to indicate to the reader that we've reached the end of the chapter as well as the book.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"I liked the overall structure of this book. If I'm teaching an argumentative writing class, I could easily point the students to the chapters where they can identify and practice identifying fallacies, for instance. The opening chapter is clear in defining the necessary terms, and it gives the students an understanding of the toolbox available to them in assessing and evaluating arguments. Even though I found the middle section to be dense, smaller portions could be assigned.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The author does a fine job connecting each defined term to the next. He provides examples of how each defined term works in a sentence or in an argument, and then he provides practice activities for students to try. The answers for each question are listed in the final pages of the book. The middle section feels like the heaviest part of the whole book--it would take the longest time for a student to digest if assigned the whole chapter. Even though this middle section is a bit heavy, it does fit the overall structure and flow of the book. New material builds on previous chapters and sub-chapters. It ends abruptly--I didn't realize that it had ended, and all of a sudden I found myself in the answer section for those earlier exercises.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The simple layout is quite helpful! There is nothing distracting, image-wise, in this text. The table of contents is clearly arranged, and each topic is easy to find.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Tiny edits could be made (Starbuck's/Starbucks, for one). Otherwise, it is free of distracting grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This text is quite culturally relevant. For instance, there is one example that mentions the rumors of Barack Obama's birthplace as somewhere other than the United States. This example is used to explain how to analyze an argument for validity. The more \"sensational\" examples (like the Obama one above) are helpful in showing argument structure, and they can also help students see how rumors like this might gain traction--as well as help to show students how to debunk them with their newfound understanding of argument and logic.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"The writing style is excellent for the subject matter, especially in the third section explaining logical fallacies. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this text!","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1469,"first_name":"Laurel","last_name":"Panser","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Riverland Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is a review of Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking, an open source book version 1.4 by Matthew Van Cleave. The comparison book used was Patrick J. Hurley’s A Concise Introduction to Logic 12th Edition published by Cengage as well as the 13th edition with the same title. Lori Watson is the second author on the 13th edition.\n\nCompeting with Hurley is difficult with respect to comprehensiveness. For example, Van Cleave’s book is comprehensive to the extent that it probably covers at least two-thirds or more of what is dealt with in most introductory, one-semester logic courses. Van Cleave’s chapter 1 provides an overview of argumentation including discerning non-arguments from arguments, premises versus conclusions, deductive from inductive arguments, validity, soundness and more. Much of Van Cleave’s chapter 1 parallel’s Hurley’s chapter 1. Hurley’s chapter 3 regarding informal fallacies is comprehensive while Van Cleave’s chapter 4 on this topic is less extensive. Categorical propositions are a topic in Van Cleave’s chapter 2; Hurley’s chapters 4 and 5 provide more instruction on this, however. Propositional logic is another topic in Van Cleave’s chapter 2; Hurley’s chapters 6 and 7 provide more information on this, though. Van Cleave did discuss messy issues of language meaning briefly in his chapter 1; that is the topic of Hurley’s chapter 2.\n\nVan Cleave’s book includes exercises with answers and an index. A glossary was not included.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"Reviews of open source textbooks typically include criteria besides comprehensiveness. These include comments on accuracy of the information, whether the book will become obsolete soon, jargon-free clarity to the extent that is possible, organization, navigation ease, freedom from grammar errors and cultural relevance; Van Cleave’s book is fine in all of these areas. Further criteria for open source books includes modularity and consistency of terminology. Modularity is defined as including blocks of learning material that are easy to assign to students. Hurley’s book has a greater degree of modularity than Van Cleave’s textbook. The prose Van Cleave used is consistent.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Van Cleave’s book will not become obsolete soon.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Van Cleave’s book has accessible prose.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Van Cleave used terminology consistently.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"Van Cleave’s book has a reasonable degree of modularity.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Van Cleave’s book is organized. The structure and flow of his book is fine.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Problems with navigation are not present.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Grammar problems were not present.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Van Cleave’s book is culturally relevant.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Van Cleave’s book is appropriate for some first semester logic courses.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1728,"first_name":"Yoichi","last_name":"Ishida","position":"Assistant Professor of Philosophy","institution_name":"Ohio University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"This textbook covers enough topics for a first-year course on logic and critical thinking. Chapter 1 covers the basics as in any standard textbook in this area. Chapter 2 covers propositional logic and categorical logic. In propositional logic, this textbook does not cover suppositional arguments, such as conditional proof and reductio ad absurdum. But other standard argument forms are covered. Chapter 3 covers inductive logic, and here this textbook introduces probability and its relationship with cognitive biases, which are rarely discussed in other textbooks. Chapter 4 introduces common informal fallacies. The answers to all the exercises are given at the end. However, the last set of exercises is in Chapter 3, Section 5. There are no exercises in the rest of the chapter. Chapter 4 has no exercises either. There is index, but no glossary.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The textbook is accurate.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content of this textbook will not become obsolete soon.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The textbook is written clearly.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The textbook is internally consistent.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The textbook is fairly modular. For example, Chapter 3, together with a few sections from Chapter 1, can be used as a short introduction to inductive logic.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The textbook is well-organized.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There are no interface issues.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not find any grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This textbook is relevant to a first semester logic or critical thinking course.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1880,"first_name":"Payal","last_name":"Doctor","position":"Associate Professro","institution_name":"LaGuardia Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text is a beginner textbook for arguments and propositional logic. It covers the basics of identifying arguments, building arguments, and using basic logic to construct propositions and arguments. It is quite comprehensive for a beginner book, but seems to be a good text for a course that needs a foundation for arguments. There are exercises on creating truth tables and proofs, so it could work as a logic primer in short sessions or with the addition of other course content.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The books is accurate in the information it presents. It does not contain errors and is unbiased. It covers the essential vocabulary clearly and givens ample examples and exercises to ensure the student understands the concepts","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content of the book is up to date and can be easily updated. Some examples are very current for analyzing the argument structure in a speech, but for this sort of text understandable examples are important and the author uses good examples.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is clear and easy to read. In particular, this is a good text for community college students who often have difficulty with reading comprehension. The language is straightforward and concepts are well explained.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent in terminology, formatting, and examples. It flows well from one topic to the next, but it is also possible to jump around the text without loosing the voice of the text.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The books is broken down into sub units that make it easy to assign short blocks of content at a time. Later in the text, it does refer to a few concepts that appear early in that text, but these are all basic concepts that must be used to create a clear and understandable text. No sections are too long and each section stays on topic and relates the topic to those that have come before when necessary. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The flow of the text is logical and clear. It begins with the basic building blocks of arguments, and practice identifying more and more complex arguments is offered. Each chapter builds up from the previous chapter in introducing propositional logic, truth tables, and logical arguments. A select number of fallacies are presented at the end of the text, but these are related to topics that were presented before, so it makes sense to have these last.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text is free if interface issues. I used the PDF and it worked fine on various devices without loosing formatting.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"1. The book contains no grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is culturally sensitive, but examples used are a bit odd and may be objectionable to some students. For instance, President Obama's speech on Syria is used to evaluate an extended argument. This is an excellent example and it is explained well, but some who disagree with Obama's policies may have trouble moving beyond their own politics. However, other examples look at issues from all political viewpoints and ask students to evaluate the argument, fallacy, etc. and work towards looking past their own beliefs. Overall this book does use a variety of examples that most students can understand and evaluate.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"My favorite part of this book is that it seems to be written for community college students. My students have trouble understanding readings in the New York Times, so it is nice to see a logic and critical thinking text use real language that students can understand and follow without the constant need of a dictionary.\n","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1919,"first_name":"Jennie","last_name":"Harrop","position":"Chair, Department of Professional Studies","institution_name":"George Fox University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"While the book is admirably comprehensive, its extensive details within a few short chapters may feel overwhelming to students. The author tackles an impressive breadth of concepts in Chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, which leads to 50-plus-page chapters that are dense with statistical analyses and critical vocabulary. These topics are likely better broached in manageable snippets rather than hefty single chapters.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The ideas addressed in Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking are accurate but at times notably political. While politics are effectively used to exemplify key concepts, some students may be distracted by distinct political leanings.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The terms and definitions included are relevant, but the examples are specific to the current political, cultural, and social climates, which could make the materials seem dated in a few years without intentional and consistent updates.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"While the reasoning is accurate, the author tends to complicate rather than simplify -- perhaps in an effort to cover a spectrum of related concepts. Beginning readers are likely to be overwhelmed and under-encouraged by his approach.","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"The four chapters are somewhat consistent in their play of definition, explanation, and example, but the structure of each chapter varies according to the concepts covered. In the third chapter, for example, key ideas are divided into sub-topics numbering from 3.1 to 3.10. In the fourth chapter, the sub-divisions are further divided into sub-sections numbered 4.1.1-4.1.5, 4.2.1-4.2.2, and 4.3.1 to 4.3.6. Readers who are working quickly to master new concepts may find themselves mired in similarly numbered subheadings, longing for a grounded concepts on which to hinge other key principles.","modularity_rating":3,"modularity_review":"The book's four chapters make it mostly self-referential. The author would do well to beak this text down into additional subsections, easing readers' accessibility.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The content of the book flows logically and well, but the information needs to be better sub-divided within each larger chapter, easing the student experience.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The book's interface is effective, allowing readers to move from one section to the next with a single click. Additional sub-sections would ease this interplay even further.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"Some minor errors throughout.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"For the most part, the book is culturally neutral, avoiding direct cultural references in an effort to remain relevant.","overall_rating":7,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2018-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2917,"first_name":"Leslie","last_name":"Aarons","position":"Associate Professor of Philosophy","institution_name":"CUNY LaGuardia Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is an excellent introductory (first-year) Logic and Critical Thinking textbook. The book covers the important elementary information, clearly discussing such things as the purpose and basic structure of an argument; the difference between an argument and an explanation; validity; soundness; and the distinctions between an inductive and a deductive argument in accessible terms in the first chapter. It also does a good job introducing and discussing informal fallacies (Chapter 4). The incorporation of opportunities to evaluate real-world arguments is also very effective. Chapter 2 also covers a number of formal methods of evaluating arguments, such as Venn Diagrams and Propositional logic and the four basic truth functional connectives, but to my mind, it is much more thorough in its treatment of Informal Logic and Critical Thinking skills, than it is of formal logic. I also appreciated that Van Cleave’s book includes exercises with answers and an index, but there is no glossary; which I personally do not find detracts from the book's comprehensiveness.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"Overall, Van Cleave's book is error-free and unbiased. The language used is accessible and engaging. There were no glaring inaccuracies that I was able to detect.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Van Cleave's Textbook uses relevant, contemporary content that will stand the test of time, at least for the next few years. Although some examples use certain subjects like former President Obama, it does so in a useful manner that inspires the use of critical thinking skills. There are an abundance of examples that inspire students to look at issues from many different political viewpoints, challenging students to practice evaluating arguments, and identifying fallacies. Many of these exercises encourage students to critique issues, and recognize their own inherent reader-biases and challenge their own beliefs--hallmarks of critical thinking.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"As mentioned previously, the author has an accessible style that makes the content relatively easy to read and engaging. He also does a suitable job explaining jargon/technical language that is introduced in the textbook.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Van Cleave uses terminology consistently and the chapters flow well. The textbook orients the reader by offering effective introductions to new material, step-by-step explanations of the material, as well as offering clear summaries of each lesson.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This textbook's modularity is really quite good. Its language and structure are not overly convoluted or too-lengthy, making it convenient for individual instructors to adapt the materials to suit their methodological preferences.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics in the textbook are presented in a logical and clear fashion. The structure of the chapters are such that it is not necessary to have to follow the chapters in their sequential order, and coverage of material can be adapted to individual instructor's preferences.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The textbook is free of any problematic interface issues. Topics, sections and specific content are accessible and easy to navigate. Overall it is user-friendly.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not find any significant grammatical issues with the textbook.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The textbook is not culturally insensitive, making use of a diversity of inclusive examples. Materials are especially effective for first-year critical thinking/logic students.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I intend to adopt Van Cleave's textbook for a Critical Thinking class I am teaching at the Community College level. I believe that it will help me facilitate student-learning, and will be a good resource to build additional classroom activities from the materials it provides.","created_at":"2019-05-16T15:08:04.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-05-16T15:08:04.000-05:00"},{"id":3071,"first_name":"Lisa N.","last_name":"Thomas-Smith","position":"Graduate Part-time Instructor","institution_name":"CU Boulder","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text covers all the relevant technical aspects of introductory logic and critical thinking, and covers them well. A separate glossary would be quite helpful to students. However, the terms are clearly and thoroughly explained within the text, and the index is very thorough.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is excellent. The text is thorough and accurate with no errors that I could discern. The terminology and exercises cover the material nicely and without bias. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The text should easily stand the test of time. The exercises are excellent and would be very helpful for students to internalize correct critical thinking practices. Because of the logical arrangement of the text and the many sub-sections, additional material should be very easy to add.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is extremely clearly and simply written. I anticipate that a diligent student could learn all of the material in the text with little additional instruction. The examples are relevant and easy to follow.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text did not confuse terms or use inconsistent terminology, which is very important in a logic text. The discipline often uses multiple terms for the same concept, but this text avoids that trap nicely. ","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The text is fairly easily divisible. Since there are only four chapters, those chapters include large blocks of information. However, the chapters themselves are very well delineated and could be easily broken up so that parts could be left out or covered in a different order from the text.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The flow of the text is excellent. All of the information is handled solidly in an order that allows the student to build on the information previously covered. ","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The PDF Table of Contents does not include links or page numbers which would be very helpful for navigation. Other than that, the text was very easy to navigate. All the images, charts, and graphs were very clear","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I found no grammatical errors in the text.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The text including examples and exercises did not seem to be offensive or insensitive in any specific way. However, the examples included references to black and white people, but few others. Also, the text is very American specific with many examples from and for an American audience. More diversity, especially in the examples, would be appropriate and appreciated.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2019-07-01T12:58:58.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-07-01T12:58:58.000-05:00"},{"id":3271,"first_name":"Daniel","last_name":"Lee","position":"Assistant Professor of Economics and Leadership","institution_name":"Sweet Briar College","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"This textbook is not particularly comprehensive (4 chapters long), but I view that as a benefit. In fact, I recommend it for use outside of traditional logic classes, but rather interdisciplinary classes that evaluate argument","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"To the best of my ability, I regard this content as accurate, error-free, and unbiased","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The book is broadly relevant and up-to-date, with a few stray temporal references (sydney olympics, particular presidencies).  I don't view these time-dated examples as problematic as the logical underpinnings are still there and easily assessed","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"My only pushback on clarity is I didn't find the distinction between argument and explanation particularly helpful/useful/easy to follow. However, this experience may have been unique to my class.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"To the best of my ability, I regard this content  as internally consistent","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"I found this text quite modular, and was easily able to integrate other texts into my lessons and disregard certain chapters or sub-sections","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book had a logical and consistent structure, but to the extent that there are only 4 chapters, there isn't much scope for alternative approaches here","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No problems with the book's interface","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is grammatically sound","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"Perhaps the text could have been more universal in its approach. While I didn't find the book insensitive per-se, logic can be tricky here because the point is to evaluate meaningful (non-trivial) arguments, but any argument with that sense of gravity can also be traumatic to students (abortion, death penalty, etc)","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"No additional comments","created_at":"2019-11-11T09:40:04.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-11-11T09:40:04.000-06:00"},{"id":4664,"first_name":"Susan","last_name":"Rottmann","position":"Part-time Lecturer","institution_name":"University of Southern Maine","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"I reviewed this book for a course titled \"Creative and Critical Inquiry into Modern Life.\" It won't meet all my needs for that course, but I haven't yet found a book that would. I wanted to review this one because it states in the preface that it fits better for a general critical thinking course than for a true logic course. I'm not sure that I'd agree. I have been using Browne and Keeley's \"Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking,\" and I think that book is a better introduction to critical thinking for non-philosophy majors. However, the latter is not open source so I will figure out how to get by without it in the future. Overall, the book seems comprehensive if the subject is logic. The index is on the short-side, but fine. However, one issue for me is that there are no page numbers on the table of contents, which is pretty annoying if you want to locate particular sections.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"I didn't find any errors. In general the book uses great examples. However, they are very much based in the American context, not for an international student audience. Some effort to broaden the chosen examples would make the book more widely applicable.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"I think the book will remain relevant because of the nature of the material that it addresses, however there will be a need to modify the examples in future editions and as the social and political context changes.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The text is lucid, but I think it would be difficult for introductory-level students who are not philosophy majors. For example, in Browne and Keeley's \"Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking,\" the sub-headings are very accessible, such as \"Experts cannot rescue us, despite what they say\" or \"wishful thinking: perhaps the biggest single speed bump on the road to critical thinking.\" By contrast, Van Cleave's \"Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking\" has more subheadings like this: \"Using your own paraphrases of premises and conclusions to reconstruct arguments in standard form\" or \"Propositional logic and the four basic truth functional connectives.\" If students are prepared very well for the subject, it would work fine, but for students who are newly being introduced to critical thinking, it is rather technical.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"It seems to be very consistent in terms of its terminology and framework.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The book is divided into 4 chapters, each having many sub-chapters. In that sense, it is readily divisible and modular. However, as noted above, there are no page numbers on the table of contents, which would make assigning certain parts rather frustrating. Also, I'm not sure why the book is only four chapter and has so many subheadings (for instance 17 in Chapter 2) and a length of 242 pages. Wouldn't it make more sense to break up the book into shorter chapters? I think this would make it easier to read and to assign in specific blocks to students.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The organization of the book is fine overall, although I think adding page numbers to the table of contents and breaking it up into more separate chapters would help it to be more easily navigable.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The book is very simply presented. In my opinion it is actually too simple. There are few boxes or diagrams that highlight and explain important points.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text seems fine grammatically. I didn't notice any errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The book is written with an American audience in mind, but I did not notice culturally insensitive or offensive parts.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"Overall, this book is not for my course, but I think it could work well in a philosophy course.","created_at":"2021-03-02T06:37:53.000-06:00","updated_at":"2021-03-02T06:37:53.000-06:00"},{"id":5064,"first_name":"\"yusef\" Alexander","last_name":"Hayes","position":"Professor","institution_name":"North Shore Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Formal and informal reasoning, argument structure, and fallacies are covered comprehensively, meeting the author's goal of both depth and succinctness.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is accurate.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"While many modern examples are used, and they are helpful, they are not necessarily needed.  The usefulness of logical principles and skills have proved themselves, and this text presents them clearly with many examples.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"It is obvious that the author cares about their subject, audience, and students.  The text is comprehensible and interesting.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The format is easy to understand and is consistent in framing.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This text would be easy to adapt.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization is excellent, my one suggestion would be a concluding chapter.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I accessed the PDF version and it would be easy to work with.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The writing is excellent.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This is not an offensive text.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2021-06-09T09:29:05.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-06-09T09:29:05.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/introduction-to-logic-and-critical-thinking?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:06:00.000-05:00"},{"id":475,"title":"Ethics for A-Level","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2017,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9781783743902","license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"What does pleasure have to do with morality? What role, if any, should intuition have in the formation of moral theory? If something is ‘simulated', can it be immoral? This accessible and wide-ranging textbook explores these questions and many more. Key ideas in the fields of normative ethics, metaethics and applied ethics are explained rigorously and systematically, with a vivid writing style that enlivens the topics with energy and wit. Individual theories are discussed in detail in the first part of the book, before these positions are applied to a wide range of contemporary situations including business ethics, sexual ethics, and the acceptability of eating animals. A wealth of real-life examples, set out with depth and care, illuminate the complexities of different ethical approaches while conveying their modern-day relevance. This concise and highly engaging resource is tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies, with a clear and practical layout that includes end-of-chapter summaries, key terms, and common mistakes to avoid. It should also be of practical use for those teaching Philosophy as part of the International Baccalaureate. Ethics for A-Level is of particular value to students and teachers, but Fisher and Dimmock's precise and scholarly approach will appeal to anyone seeking a rigorous and lively introduction to the challenging subject of ethics.","contributors":[{"id":4279,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Mark","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Dimmock","location":"Torquay Boys' Grammar School","background_text":"Mark Dimmock graduated with a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Nottingham, defending the theories of Moral Error Theory and Moral Abolitionism. He now works as a Philosophy Teacher at Torquay Boys' Grammar School."},{"id":4280,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Andrew","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Fisher","location":"University of Nottingham","background_text":"Andrew Fisher is Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham and has been lecturing philosophy for fifteen years. He has published in metaethics, philosophy of education, philosophy of sport, philosophy of religion, philosophy for children and how to use technology in teaching. He is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and teaches philosophy to local primary school children."}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"},{"id":51,"name":"Religion","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"BL1","visible_textbooks_count":19,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/religion?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":410,"url":"https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/639/ethics-for-a-level","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:39.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:39.000-05:00","name":"Open Book Publishers"}],"formats":[{"id":697,"type":"PDF","url":"https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/639/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":698,"type":"Online","url":"https://www.openbookpublishers.com/read/978-1-78374-388-9","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":2052,"type":"XML","url":"https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/639/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":5,"reviews":[{"id":1598,"first_name":"Sarah","last_name":"Kath","position":"Philosophy Instructor","institution_name":"Central Lakes College","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"The approach taken in this text, while specific to the AQA philosophy and OCR religious programs, would work quite well with lower level/introductory ethics students, who have no background in philosophy. However, the book covers only 4 major ethical theories: utilitarianism, deontology, virtue theory and natural law theory. So, it misses social contractarianism, divine command theory, ethical relativism, and ethical egoism. I would have to supplement this text.\n\nPart I covers the four classical ethical theories traditionally covered by introductory ethics courses plus one on situational ethics. The chapter content is straightforward and peppered occasionally with direct quotes from relevant philosophers. The thought experiments are effective and useful in helping students further connect with the abstract theories. That there is a section of “Problems” with the various theories is also excellent. The idea of helpful sections like “common student mistakes” was appreciated, and it does capture some of what my students tend to struggle with. Another benefit is that the text itself was very clear, basic and thorough in explaining ethical reasoning processes that many introductory students struggle to grasp. For example, they often struggle with conducting the hedonic calculus and recognizing the difference between act and rule utilitarianism, or applying the categorical imperative to various scenarios. Helpfully, this text goes into depth explaining and demonstrating how to understand apply these approaches to sample cases. So, although there are no exercises or quizzes with this text, the text itself provides plenty of discussion fodder. Additionally, the “Issues to Consider” and “Key Terms” sections which are very helpful and can be adapted for student reflection or discussion. Placing the references section at the end of each chapter with some resources that are “freely available” is very helpful for students who want to quickly look up additional resources. However, that drops off as the chapters progress. A nice addition would be a section containing further readings or additional resources. I certainly think it's possible to locate some freely available resources for the chapter on Virtue Theory. \n\nPart II could be skipped in an intro to ethics course, or used in an intro to philosophy course. I didn’t review this section as I prefer to take an applied approach to philosophy.\n\n Part III: Applied Ethics is pertinent to anyone who likes to incorporate some popular moral arguments and it nicely covers several major ethical dilemmas. The section on euthanasia is structured well in that it provides multiple pro and con arguments for the students to analyze. Initially I was unsure how relevant a section on “Stealing” is for students, but the application of Kantian ethics to the concept of property is quite good. The remaining sections contain theoretical reasoning by applying the ethical theories to the moral issues. These should make for a good beginning to discussion. However, they would be strengthened by the inclusion of pro/con arguments so students would have something to analyze. \n\n","accuracy_rating":3,"accuracy_review":"Generally the text accurately summarizes the theories themselves and supplies relevant critiques of the theories. However, there is a strong bias toward religious reasoning that is evident throughout and particularly apparent in the treatment of natural law theory and euthanasia. There is also some inconsistency in the headings/section titles used throughout the book, which is confusing at best and at times appears deceptive. For example, the switch in category headings from “Problems” to “Objections” might be confusing to some. \n\nAs an example of the weaknesses of this text, the chapter on natural law theory only very briefly covers divine command theory, but students usually need more of an explanation on why religious ethics like this are abandoned. Although, I do recognize that even with a thorough analysis many students fail to fully grasp the implications of the Euthyphro dilemma; so, perhaps it is better to gloss over it in favor of Natural Law. \n\nAnother problem is that while the explication of the Natural Law position is solid, the critique is downplayed and ultimately hidden under a deceptive section title. First the critiques were called “Problems,” then “Objections,” and in this chapter they changed to “Some thoughts.” This is a letdown. It appears biased. The authors, as philosophers (lovers of wisdom and truth) have an obligation to maintain an evenhanded critique of strengths and weaknesses for all theories. \n\nIt is also an interesting choice to structure the last section as Fletcher’s situationism when I see more problems with relativism and a far greater need to clarify and critique that position. Moderate objectivism or ethical situationalism (see Pojman) would have been a better choice; however, I think again the author’s loyalties/origins have affected its inclusion.\n\nIn Part III, particularly the section on euthanasia, the authors also skew the analysis toward religion. Since I can’t assume all my students are Catholic, nor do I think that strictly faith based religious or Biblical reasoning is relevant as a critique, this section of the text falls short in modeling true philosophical reasoning and rational critique. However, the analysis of sexual ethics appears forthright and objectively handled, although instead of pro or con arguments we are given the various theories’ treatment of sexual ethics. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"I don't think there will be an issue of this book going out of date. The examples/issues remain relevant. The theories are classics.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text appears very clear and any jargon used is fully defined and explained through copious examples and applications.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"As noted above, the switch in headings from \"problems\" to \"objections\" to \"thoughts\" is misleading and confusing. Additionally, there is a definite propensity toward religion and religious reasoning, which leads to uneven analysis in some points.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The layout of this text is lovely. The chapters could be reorganized and as I stated above, the entirety of part two could be skipped. Additionally, the effective use of headings allows certain sections of the text to be cut or supplemented.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The text's flow and organization is consistent and appealing. It is easy to section out, and the examples are appropriately inserted to support and clarify key concepts.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The interface is nice. It is published both as a PDF and online, so readers can choose their preference. The PDF has a nice book like setup, so you can flip to the next page and don't have to scroll downward through pages. Both the web and PDF version are very clear and clean. Additionally, for students who desire a print copy, the web version allows printing of chapters, sections, etc.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"While I did not do a close study, I only noticed a few minor grammatical issues like pluralization and possessives.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"The text is fine. It might even be too wary of offending at the expense of sound analysis.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Overall, when paired with some additional readings in moral theories and arguments in applied ethics, this secondary text provides a solid basis for a lower level intro to ethics course.","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1924,"first_name":"Ivan ","last_name":"Guajardo, Ph.D.","position":"Assistant Professor of Philosophy ","institution_name":"Virginia Western Community College ","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This textbook is tailored to AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious studies, yet it is comprehensive enough to be easily adapted to introductory surveys in Ethics. It contains a helpful introduction to the field of ethics, discusses some standard ethical theories (Part I), the classic debate in Metaethics between cognitivism/non-cognitivism about moral utterances and realism/anti-realism about the existence of moral facts (Part II), and applies the moral theories covered in part I to important moral issues (Part III).  \n\nThe introduction defines the field of ‘ethics’, explains basic distinctions and methods like thought-experiments and their role in evaluating moral beliefs, and discusses other important distinctions like the difference between moral and legal reasons. The authors, however, omit any discussion of the logic of moral arguments or standard criteria for evaluating competing moral theories, despite the methodological significance of these topics.   Supplementary materials or chapters on these topics must be added for this introduction to be better suited for an ethics class.  \n\n Part I covers Utilitarianism, Kant’s Ethics, Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, Natural Law Theory, and Joseph Fletcher’s Situation Ethics.  The exposition and evaluation of these theories is clear, concise, engaging, and manage to avoid unnecessary jargon.  A central benefit of these chapters is that they are short and to the point, so the reader gets a good sense of the core elements of each theory as well as their pros and cons.  For instance, students often struggle to understand the idea that Kant’s Categorical Imperative does not appeal to consequences in evaluating maxims but focuses instead on a maxim’s ability to function consistently if turned into law.  The authors manage effectively to explain and illustrate the difference with interesting cases like lying and suicide.  Each chapter also contains a nice summary, a very helpful section of common student mistakes, a list of terms covered, and a set of issues that can be used for further reflection.  All of these features can be used for discussions, exercises, and quizzes. The list of references at the end of each chapter is also welcomed, although it would be nice to add sections containing “further readings” or “additional resources” in case the reader wants to further pursue the topics. \n\nPart I does not cover Ethical Egoism, Social Contract Theory, The Ethics of Care, or Feminism.  This may be understandable if A-Level students are not being tested on these theories but less so if this book is to be used for a class in ethics. Despite that most philosophers reject it, Ethical Egoism is quite popular outside philosophy, so students ought to be given the opportunity to learn why this is so.  Social Contract Theory forms the basis of some of the most influential theories of Justice, like John Rawls’ Justice as Fairness, and The Ethics of Care and Feminism represent some of the important contributions that women philosophers have made to our understanding of right and wrong.  Accordingly, these topics would have to be added to make the textbook better suited for an ethics class.\n\nThe part on Metaethics details the classic positions about the meaning of ethical utterances and the status of moral facts for those who wish to cover this topic in their classes.  This part, however, would be enhanced if a chapter discussing relativism were added.  Many students think that morality is reducible to individual or cultural preferences.  Accordingly, a textbook purporting to introduce students to ethics should cover relativism’s pros and cons, as well as how one could defend a belief in the objectivity of morality against it.\n\nThe discussion of how the ethical theories covered in Part I apply to the moral issues and dilemmas posed by Euthanasia, Sexual Ethics, Stealing, Simulated Killing, Lying, and Animal Rights is quite good.  These chapters provide the reader with a general sense of how these theories deal with the central issues that define these topics.  For instance, the application of Utilitarianism’s emphasis on suffering as the mark of moral status to animal rights is quite good.  So is the application of Kant’s ethics to the concept of private property and its relation to stealing.  However, teachers focusing on practical issues may be disappointed by the absence of important issues like abortion, cloning, genetic enhancement, same-same marriage, the death penalty, affirmative action, war, terrorism, torture, economic inequality, and other moral issues typically cover in an applied ethics class. \n\n\n\n\n\n","accuracy_rating":3,"accuracy_review":"The textbook handles the material covered fairly accurately.  However, it contains a strong bias towards religious thinking, especially in its presentation of Natural Law Theory. For instance, the authors downplay or fail to mention several standard objections against Natural Law Theory, like the difficulty of deriving an “ought” from an “is” or of identifying an activity’s proper function.  Also, their decision to cover Joseph Fletcher’s situational ethics instead of more important frameworks, like the Ethics of Care or Feminism, appear gratuitous and gender bias.  Anyone wanting to teach ethics more inclusively would have to rely on extra readings or add new chapters to address these shortcomings.\n","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The textbook presents classic theories, arguments, and examples. These contents should stand the test of time. The book’s format and organization allows for easy incorporation of revisions and updates if needed. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The textbook stands out for its clarity and concision.  It uses technical jargon sparingly and defines technical term well when it does.  It also offers a vey useful vocabulary at the end. ","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"The content is generally consistently developed, but there is a clear bias towards Natural Law Theory and a stronger emphasis on religious arguments than I think is appropriate for a philosophical approach to moral issues. This may be explained by the fact that the textbook was written for OCR Religious Studies.  Nevertheless, these issues need to be addressed before I could use it for my classes.  ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The textbook is broken down nicely into chapters and sections that stand on their own and can be easily revised, reorganized, or remixed in various ways.  Some chapters, e.g., the part on Metaethics, can be skipped completely without undermining the coherence, intelligibility, or flow of the remaining chapters.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The textbook is well organized.  Key concepts are explained and material is appropriately divided into easily digestible chunks.  The authors use relevant examples that support well important problems and concepts.   Transitions are easy to follow and allow the reader to make important connections within and between chapters and parts. Overall, I really like the way the book is structured and the way its explanations flow.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"Students have access to a PDF and an ease-to-navigate, online version of this textbook.   Printed copies of the whole or parts of it can be made easily.  It is also published under a CC By license, which permits the greatest freedom to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute its contents.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The authors mistakenly use the term ‘rationale’ instead of ‘rational’ on page 41; otherwise the book is generally free of grammatical errors.  \n","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"Although in important ways culturally relevant, the book fails to include enough women perspectives. ","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"Overall, this textbook can work well for an introductory class in ethics if supplemented with additional readings or chapters that address the limitations I have already described. \n\n","created_at":"2018-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2334,"first_name":"Laurie","last_name":"Johansen","position":"Professor","institution_name":"MnSCU","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text will be a great supplemental resource while introducing ethics to nursing students.  The four major ethical theories covered in the text are appropriate to the profession of nursing.  I really appreciate the \"problems' sections - very applicable.  The resources provided to the readers are very helpful and useful.  Nicely done. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Understanding that the focus of this text is not for the profession of nursing, I don't see a bias that is concerning.  This text would be a supplement resource, which would be valuable.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Relevant and pertinent.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Appreciate the key terminology available.  This creates clarity for the novice reader.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Content is displayed consistently.  ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Chapters are well delineated and organized.  Text structure is understandable.  ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Chapters are well delineated and organized.  Text structure is understandable.  ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"Appreciate the CC by license publication.  Easy to use PDF online version of text.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"Free of grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"No concerns.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"Will be a valuable supplemental text.","created_at":"2018-10-11T20:50:08.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-10-11T20:50:08.000-05:00"},{"id":3367,"first_name":" Lisa","last_name":" Kemmerer","position":"professor","institution_name":"TRAILS","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"It is always difficult to decide which topics will become a focus for applied ethics.  This book, apparently written by two men, largely ignores feminist ethics, and in the applied ethics section, moral issues that are likely to be of more concern for women, such as date rape and insurance covering abortion.  I am keenly aware, as I read, of a lack of any perspective outside of \"Western\" ethics--though this is never clearly indicated.  (There are, of course, moral theories outside those of the Greek/Western European tradition.)  \r\n\r\nEven inside the \"Western\" traditions I note serious omissions beyond feminist thinkers.  How is it possible to talk about Rights theory and animals/anymals without including anything from the late Tom Regan?  He is as important to Kantian anymal ethics as is Singer is to Utilitarian anymal ethics.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"I suppose it would not be possible to be fully versed on every topic, and I have focused here on my area of specialty, anymal ethics.  An example of an  error in this section is citing of the Bible as a defense of eating flesh.  There are many scholars who disagree.  (See, for example \"Animals and World Religions.\")  Note that the deity originally ordains a vegan diet,  and only accepts flesh-eating as a concession to human violence/shortcomings.  ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"Good array of applied ethics topics, though lacking feminist influence.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The fact that the book is written for a specific institution/courses makes the book less reader-friendly for other students, particularly the inclusion of chapters that belong in an intro to religion book, but not necessarily an ethics book, and vice versa--particularly an entire chapter on Aquinas' Natural Law Theory.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"In the chapter 14, Eating Animals, the authors' meat-eating tendencies and lack of familiarity with the broader topic is apparent in a handful of ways noted elsewhere.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"very well done","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"very well done","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"none","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"all fine","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"Always better to have more diverse authors for any text. I would prefer to use a text that includes a chapter on ethics from another culture, and of course feminist ethics ought to be included.  Sometimes the authors even admit to their narrowness: The authors make clear at the outset where they stand on the issue of diet and ethics, and their bias  is apparent in coverage of the topic.  I find more omissions and errors in this section than in others.  For example, a comment that vegetarian food is less attractive, and another that a vegetarian diet may be nutritionally deficient for children--as if it were broccoli causing all of those heart attacks, as if malnourished vegans were flooding the streets of San Francisco.  A final example of the cultural shortcomings of the writing is provided in examples of situations where eating flesh might be acceptable--the examples strike me as petty and upper class, failing to mention, for example, indigenous people who have nothing else to eat, or those living in food deserts.  ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"The book is an easy and even fun read, well organized, with many important sub-headings, all  of which equate to a huge plus. ","created_at":"2019-12-10T18:59:59.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-12-10T18:59:59.000-06:00"},{"id":3832,"first_name":"Chandrika","last_name":"Shah","position":"Adjunct","institution_name":"Bunker Hill Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book covers major Western Philosophers, completely ignores the Feminists philosophers. I do understand that every author has to select, but in today's world not including Feminism, is a must.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"It is accurate and clear to a community college level reading student. It is difficult to be unbiased. The selection of Applied ethics topics reflects bias. But, that is true of most texts.  I do understand that one's bias can be unconscious too.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"I doubt it will become obsolete. The cases or examples might become dated. But in philosophy, one can always reflect on them.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Yes, it is clearly organized and provides adequate context for technical terms. The Common Students Mistake  make is a good addition. Helps students avoid those mistakes.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"It is consistent in its structure.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Well done.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Well done. It is presented in a logical, clear fashion.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"Good.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"None, I came across.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"Well, here they could at least included one chapter on non western point of view.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I am planning to adopt some aspects of this text. I think students will benefit from it. It is tailored for community college students reading level.","created_at":"2020-05-27T07:14:24.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-05-27T07:14:24.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/ethics-for-a-level?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:06:02.000-05:00"},{"id":491,"title":"Fundamental Methods of Logic","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2017,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9780996150224","license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"Fundamental Methods of Logic is suitable for a one-semester introduction to logic/critical reasoning course. It covers a variety of topics at an introductory level. Chapter One introduces basic notions, such as arguments and explanations, validity and soundness, deductive and inductive reasoning; it also covers basic analytical techniques, such as distinguishing premises from conclusions and diagramming arguments. Chapter Two discusses informal logical fallacies. Chapters Three and Four concern deductive logic, introducing the basics of Aristotelian and Sentential Logic, respectively. Chapter Five deals with analogical and causal reasoning, including a discussion of Mill's Methods. Chapter Six covers basic probability calculations, Bayesian inference, fundamental statistical concepts and techniques, and common statistical fallacies.","contributors":[{"id":4457,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Matthew","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Knachel","location":"University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee","background_text":"Matthew Knachel is a Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy department at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI."}],"subjects":[{"id":6,"name":"Humanities","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":418,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/humanities?locale=es"},{"id":34,"name":"Philosophy","parent_subject_id":6,"call_number":"B72","visible_textbooks_count":40,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":431,"url":"http://dc.uwm.edu/phil_facbooks/1/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:39.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-01-20T10:35:35.000-06:00","name":"A.T. Still University"}],"formats":[{"id":805,"type":"PDF","url":"https://dc.uwm.edu/phil_facbooks/1/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":806,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"http://www.lulu.com/shop/matthew-knachel/fundamental-methods-of-logic/paperback/product-23308949.html","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":3,"reviews":[{"id":1742,"first_name":"James","last_name":"Summerford","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Ohio University - Lancaster","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text is very well suited to the sort of Introduction to Logic course taught at most state universities. It begins with basic concepts in Logic and then follows up with sections on inductive arguments, categorical logic, truth functionality and truth tables in the propositional logic, and then finishes with material on causality and probability. If there is a defect it is that some professors or instructors might well prefer a section on natural deduction rather than one on causality and probability - this is particularly true if the class is a feeder class for an upper level course in symbolic logic. Still it is a fairly simple matter for a professor or instructor to provide that material him or herself. Each section is supplemented with a nice selection of exercises.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content of the book is accurate and without any errors in the presentation of material ","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The content is up -to-date. The fundamentals of logic change little and so the usefulness of the book promises to be quite long. Some of the exercises and examples may age less well than does the substance of the book as they reference current political figures and events. This, of course, makes the exercises relevant and interesting to current students but, without updated exercises in the future, the text may come off as a bit dated. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is clear and accessible and well pitched to its audience which would primarily be college students in their first or second year of study. Logic is a definition driven discipline but care is taken at every step to ensure students understand each definition and understand it's significance in the body of the course.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent. Definitions are appropriate and consistently used and applied. The book itself is nicely structured with each topic well developed and presented in an orderly fashion.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text lends itself well to the classroom. Sections are easily divisible into manageable reading blocks and classroom sessions. I see no foreseeable difficult in using the text easily and effectively in a semester long introductory logic course. There is also some flexibility as there is probably a section more than one might get through in a semester and so one could for example do the material on causality without doing the material on probability or vice versa allowing the individual professor or instructor some discretion in terms of his or her class. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The text is organized as most introductory logic books are. It is certainly organized as I would have chosen to organize it. Each section is appropriate in terms of its placement and the books flows well from one section to the next. ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I have only looked at the electronic version of the text on a computer and so I can't really speak to interface issues on a tablet or, what I think is increasingly common, a cell phone. On a computer the text is free of any significant display issues. Charts and venn diagrams and truth tables all maintain their original formatting and display properly and are large enough to be easily read and followed. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The author's writing and grammar are without noticeable errors. The text is well written and written in a grammatically correct and accessible manner. ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I saw no evidence of the text being culturally insensitive or offensive. I would not hesitate to use it in a class and, in fact, have plans to do so starting next semester. Examples are and exercises are all appropriate to the course and the college setting. ","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I think this text does a great service. Introduction to Logic is class that, along with Introduction to Ethics, serves as a sort of bread and butter course for many philosophy departments. That is, it is a course that sees high enrollments and many students every semester. It is also a course where the price of traditional textbooks has skyrocketed with the purchase costs of some now approaching $200. I think it is fair to say that no single text in philosophy could save more students more money than this one does. Teaching at a regional campus of a state university with many place bound and economically strapped students, I am grateful to the author for having invested his time and effort to produce such a needed text. ","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":2836,"first_name":"Michael","last_name":"Reno","position":"Lecturer of Philosophy","institution_name":"University of Mary Washington","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"In its intended aims, the book is comprehensive. For example, in presenting a system of sentential logic, it gives a complete set of operators and a method for determining validity of arguments using the system. This would work well for a course in which there is to be some formal logic, but where the main emphasis is on informal logic. The coverage is similar to texts like Fogelin and Sinnott-Armstrong's Understanding Arguments. So, there isn't any coverage of natural deduction, nor is predicate logic introduced. This makes the text as it stands unsuitable for the logic course at my institution. Fortunately, however, one could supplement this text with one's own sections on these topics. The text as it stands is comprehensive in the kinds of methods and skills it intends to cover. In addition, it contains more depth on inductive arguments than other texts of its kind. ","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The coverage of each method and system is accurate. It covers the basics of these systems in an adequate way. ","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"While many of the examples are contemporary, and so will need updating over time, the methods and skills articulated in the text are timeless. In addition, all texts of this sort require the kind of updating of examples in order to engage with students. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The writing style is precise enough to capture formal concepts like validity and those involved in logical operators and casual enough to be readable and engaging. The text really strikes the right balance for an introductory logic text. ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is entirely consistent in its use of key concepts like validity and soundness and its presentation of methods of representation and reconstruction of arguments. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"As mentioned other places in the review, a more formal course could add modules on formal topics without too much difficulty. And, too, cutting particular topics like inductive logic could also be done with little effort. Because of the organizational structure, the chapters are largely modular. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The text begins like many in this genre with representing and diagramming arguments, moves on to informal fallacies, then introduces some formal deductive systems, and concludes with coverage of inductive reasoning. This is a fine way to organize a text like this and instructors will find it familiar. This way of organizing the text lends itself to easily adding or removing modules. ","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"There are really only two minor issues here. One is simply the sheer amount of unbroken text. As screen readers used to social media, many students will have difficulty engaging with text in such large blocks. (This is, of course, a problem with books in general, or rather, a problem with our students and books). The other minor issue involves the truth tables. The spacing in the truth tables could be a bit wider to make absolutely clear what column goes with what operator. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is well edited. I did not find any grammatical errors. ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The examples in the text should appeal to traditional college students and non-traditional students alike in that they are taken from popular culture and current events, including politics. This style of attempting to engage through reference to these topics, while also, hopefully, getting students to think about, for example, the current political scene, is one that I also use and find effective. It is presented in a way that challenges without being offensive to any political group. The cultural references are appropriate and should be engaging to people from all sorts of backgrounds. ","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"This is an excellent contribution to the open source repository of logic texts. It would be appropriate for anyone teaching a relatively informal logic course. It is especially useful for those who want to emphasize informal reasoning. The inductive logic chapters are particularly impressive. ","created_at":"2019-04-25T08:34:33.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-04-25T08:34:33.000-05:00"},{"id":34335,"first_name":"Maureen","last_name":"Sander-Staudt","position":"Professor","institution_name":"Minnesota West Community \u0026 Technical College","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book covers introductory logic exceptionally well.  It would be a good introduction to critical thinking, inductive logic, and the basics of deductive logic.  It covers the basics of arguments, logical fallacies, Aristotelian logic, sentential logic, and inductive logic using analogies, causal claims, and statistics.  It does not cover logical proofs or predicate logic.  As far as I can tell, it does not have an index or glossary.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The book gives an accurate and clear presentation of logical concepts.  Some of the examples and problems venture into political territory that I would prefer not to include in my courses (e.g. arguments citing Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, etc.). These can be easily altered but they are somewhat numerous.  I would like to see more consciousness of student diversity in the examples, problems, and discussion.  In the introduction the author acknowledges the existence of diverse logics but does not delve into cultural or social variation of logical approaches.  To its credit it is more gender neutral and avoids blatant sexism detectable in other OER logic textbooks I have surveyed.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The textbook promises longevity with the exception of the already dated citation of political figures.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"One of the books greatest strengths is its clarity and approachability.  It consistently defines terminology and explains the reasons for it.  It is unfortunate that these terms are not gathered in an index or glossary.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book uses a consistent terminology and framework.  It uses familiar and standard logic symbols (dot, wedge, horseshoe, tilde, and triple bar) for symbolic logic.  Each section is followed by a good number of exercises.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The chapters are divided into manageable sub-sections that can be divided and rearranged if needed.  It is easy to download the text, and it is available as PDF and word.  But it is not possible to navigate to a section from the table of contents.  If a sub-section is desired on its own, it will be necessary to cut and paste it.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book has four main content areas:  introduction to arguments, informal fallacies, deductive logic, and inductive logic.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The text is clear, easy to read, and avoids distortion.  Images such as the square of opposition, Venn diagrams, and truth tables are large and discernable.  They are not easily cut and pasted into a Powerpoint or other document but would have to be recreated.  The 3 ring Venn diagrams are inverse from those I normally use.  It is not easy to navigate the text as a PDF, but it can be downloaded as a word document and bookmarked.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text's grammar is correct and without errors.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The text is not culturally offensive, but neither is it as culturally diverse as I would like.  Use of hypothetical names and people are decidedly mainstream White American/European.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"The book is lacking ancillary materials such as question banks for quizzes or exams.  There is a place to submit these materials from the textbook site.  But following the link there is no accessible repository.  Perhaps this is being compiled.  \r\nThere are exercises after each section but no answers are provided.  This means that instructors will have to generate these answers, undoubtedly a time consuming process.  I will be seeking for ancillaries elsewhere.","created_at":"2022-12-28T23:10:33.000-06:00","updated_at":"2022-12-28T23:10:33.000-06:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/fundamental-methods-of-logic?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-18T02:09:40.000-05:00"}],"links":{"self":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy.json?locale=es?page=1","total_pages":5,"total_count":45,"next":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/philosophy.json?locale=es?page=2"}}