Can you recommend an epistemology book and a logic book?

[Tosh5457]

Hi, I'm looking for a book about epistemology and another about logic. But preferably books that aren't too technical, because I want to read them more as a hobby rather than as homework. But not too simple either please!

On epistemology I found http://www.amazon.com/dp/0719579678/?tag=pfamazon01-20. Some reviews say the book is really good, has anybody read it?

 

[JBauer85]

There are a lot of really good intro to logic books. The one I am most familiar with is intro to logic edited by Copi and Cohen. It's to the point but not dry, has a lot of examples, and charts.

For epistimology I would suggest an intro book like the one you posted and then digging into something like Plato, or Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'.

Hume's book in particular, while incredibly time consuming to digest, is fantastic. A lot of editions come with commentry to help with learning the material. After reading the intro type book you selected, I would highly recommend digging right into a real philosophy book to really further your understanding.

 

[920118]

I would recommend getting an introductory textbook and an anthology for the epistemology. I would recommend "Epistemology - A Contemporary Introduction" by Robert Audi, and/or Michael Williams' "Problems of Knowledge". I haven't read any anthologies on epistemology, so I can't really recommend any. Williams might be a bit hard to follow if you're new to philosophy though.

"Meaning and Argument" by Lepore is fine logic text if you're not concerned with the mathematical sides of the subject. If you want to follow it up I'd recommend Sider's "Logic for Philosophy" and Burgess' "Philosophical Logic". They both go beyond sentential and predicate calculus, and cover topics such as modal logic, temporal logic and relevantistic logic. I don't know any good introductory texts for more mathematically oriented logictexts, though.

Camebridge University Press also have great introductory textbooks. Relevant in this case would be "An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge" by Noah Lemos, "An Introduction to Formal Logic" by Peter Smith, and, depending on your interests, "An Introduction to Gödel's Theorems" by Peter Smith.

I would also recommend you to get a dictionary for philosophy (both Penguin's and Oxford's dictionaries are very good).