Struggling to understand Russell's work on logic / Question about learning logic
This is my first post. I'm British, 18, and live in Cambridge. I will begin studying Philosophy at Harvard in the autumn.
I have read a wide variety of introductory texts, as well as some of the good stuff. I would like to delve into understanding logic. I have in my possession a copy of Principia Mathematica and Logic And Knowledge (a collection of essays by Russell).
These works, particularly Russell's 1901 essay 'The Logic of Relations', I simply cannot apprehend. The writing itself is perfectly understandable - it is the logical notations that I struggle to grasp. I am able to find what every symbol means and put individual notations together slowly, but if I was to continue doing this the works would take multiple years to read.
Question: Where can I learn systems of logic? Websites? Books? Or do I need to wait until I get to university (I would not like to do this)? I would like to be able to read a passage and understand every symbol and how each notation relates; I want to be able to speak the language, not just use google translate every time, if that makes sense.
To be clear, I understand how arguments are formulation and how standard form works etc.
I have read a wide variety of introductory texts, as well as some of the good stuff. I would like to delve into understanding logic. I have in my possession a copy of Principia Mathematica and Logic And Knowledge (a collection of essays by Russell).
These works, particularly Russell's 1901 essay 'The Logic of Relations', I simply cannot apprehend. The writing itself is perfectly understandable - it is the logical notations that I struggle to grasp. I am able to find what every symbol means and put individual notations together slowly, but if I was to continue doing this the works would take multiple years to read.
Question: Where can I learn systems of logic? Websites? Books? Or do I need to wait until I get to university (I would not like to do this)? I would like to be able to read a passage and understand every symbol and how each notation relates; I want to be able to speak the language, not just use google translate every time, if that makes sense.
To be clear, I understand how arguments are formulation and how standard form works etc.
Comments (4)
Luckily there are a lot of introductory texts in logic. Logic With Trees is a popular undergraduate one covering propositional and predicate calculus - sequent calculus, semantic tableaux and elementary model theory for both. You'll also probably have to study modal logic at some point in your degree, this is a free introductory reference with a few citations.
More advanced logic classes might have you learn proof/model and category/topos theory, but I never got to those. :)