Sullivan S. An Introduction to Traditional Logic - Classical Reasoning for Contemporary Minds

3rd Edition. — Houston: Classical Theist Publishing, 2013. — XVI, 224 p.A Textbook for high school and university students on traditional logic. This is a logic book for beginners. It is written both for the college student and the “do-it yourselfer”. You may be asking yourself, why do we need another book on traditional logic? It is true that there are many traditional logic books out there, but often these works of wisdom are out of print and collecting dust in libraries since the trend today is contemporary symbolic logic, and an additional problem is that these older texts are often inaccessible to today’s beginner because the language is too technical for one not well versed in Aristotelian philosophy. This coupled with a need for more diagrams in such a text that might prove helpful to the “visual learner” amounts to what seems to me to be a need for yet another text on traditional logic.I hope to remedy these defects here. Now of course, a logic text by its very nature is always going to be a tough read for the beginner, but I have tried as much as possible not to make it any tougher than it needs to be. Logical terms are, I hope, patiently explained in easy to understand everyday language, numerous diagrams are provided to help the beginner to visually process the information, and finally a plethora of exercises will give the student plenty of opportunity for practice.Now a note about the term, “traditional logic”. This is a relatively loose term intended to cover the logical systems from ancient Greece to the heyday of medieval scholasticism. The logic we cover here is the logic that enjoyed an organic development from its founding by Aristotle and input from the Stoics and Megarian logicians to a later flourishing the Middle Ages; a logic that, although having some minor differences, nevertheless retained a common core and can generally be considered as the logic used and studied by the Neoplatonists, Boethius, St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, John of St. Thomas, etc. This system of logic gradually decreased in popularity as it went through a transitional period around the time of Leibniz, and eventually suffered a substantial change into the more mathematical and symbolic varieties of the logic that we see in Frege, Russell, and Whitehead.Traditional logic is a relevant logic, it is a logic based on philosophical realism, which is simply a fancy way of saying it is a logic based on common experience. Logic is a part of philosophy and cannot get by without presupposing philosophical views about reality and how we come to know it.This is an excellent book. Sullivan does a great job of explaining how traditional logic differs from modern logic. In particular, his treatment of Realism as the foundation for traditional logic is very helpful. He also does a good job in exposing some of the flaws with Nominalism, and this is important because Nominalism seems to lie beneath the surface of modern logic (even though modern logic is often said to be free of metaphysical assumptions). This is a relatively short book, but the author does a good job of packing it full of a lot of important information and clear explanations.Definition
Signification, Concepts & Terms
The Categories & the Predicables
Forming DefinitionsPropositions
Propositions
Propositional Properties & Compound PropositionsArgument
Argumentation & the Syllogism
Valid Syllogistic Forms & Reduction to the First Figure
Other Types of Syllogisms
Some Final Aspects on Argumentation
FallaciesAppendix: In Defense of the Square of Opposition