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Readership: Essential reading for researchers and graduate students in philosophy. Also of interest to researchers int he social sciences and AI.
The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.
Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?
How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.
Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.
The antidote to fuzzy thinking, with furry animals!
Have you read (or stumbled into) one too many irrational online debates? Ali Almossawi certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments! This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much-needed dose of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle).
Here are cogent explanations of the straw man fallacy, the slippery slope argument, the ad hominem attack, and other common attempts at reasoning that actually fall short—plus a beautifully drawn menagerie of animals who (adorably) commit every logical faux pas. Rabbit thinks a strange light in the sky must be a UFO because no one can prove otherwise (the appeal to ignorance). And Lion doesn’t believe that gas emissions harm the planet because, if that were true, he wouldn’t like the result (the argument from consequences).
Once you learn to recognize these abuses of reason, they start to crop up everywhere from congressional debate to YouTube comments—which makes this geek-chic book a must for anyone in the habit of holding opinions.
Logically Fallacious is one of the most comprehensive collections of logical fallacies with all original examples and easy to understand descriptions, perfect for educators, debaters, or anyone who wants to improve his or her reasoning skills.
"Expose an irrational belief, keep a person rational for a day. Expose irrational thinking, keep a person rational for a lifetime." - Bo Bennett
Eric Steinhart provides lucid explanations of the basic mathematical concepts and sets out most commonly used notational conventions. Furthermore, he demonstrates how mathematics applies to many fundamental issues in branches of philosophy such as metaphysics, philosophy of language, epistemology, and ethics.
Utilizing real questions submitted to his popular website ReasonableFaith.org, Dr. Craig models well-reasoned, skillful, and biblically informed interaction with his inquirers. A Reasonable Response goes beyond merely talking about apologetics; it shows it in action. With cowriter Joseph E. Gorra, this book also offers advice about envisioning and practicing the ministry of answering people’s questions through the local church, workplace, and in online environments.
Whether you're struggling to respond to tough objections or looking for answers to your own intellectual questions, A Reasonable Response will equip you with sound reasoning and biblical truth.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Lively, clever, and thought-provoking, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten is a portable feast for the mind that is sure to satisfy any intellectual appetite.
The two-part selection of puzzles and paradoxes begins with examinations of the nature of infinity and some curious systems related to Gödel's theorem. The first three chapters of Part II contain generalized Gödel theorems. Symbolic logic is deferred until the last three chapters, which give explanations and examples of first-order arithmetic, Peano arithmetic, and a complete proof of Gödel's celebrated result involving statements that cannot be proved or disproved. The book also includes a lively look at decision theory, better known as recursion theory, which plays a vital role in computer science.
For anyone tackling philosophical logic and critical thinking for the first time, Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Reasoning Well provides a practical guide to the skills required to think critically. From the basics of good reasoning to the difference between claims, evidence and arguments, Robert Arp and Jamie Carlin Watson cover the topics found in an introductory course.
Now revised and fully updated, this Second Edition features a glossary, chapter summaries, more student-friendly exercises, study questions, diagrams, and suggestions for further reading. Topics include:
the structure, formation, analysis and recognition of arguments
deductive validity and soundness
inductive strength and cogency
inference to the best explanation
truth tables
tools for argument assessment
informal and formal fallacies
With real life examples, advice on graduate school entrance exams and an expanded companion website packed with additional exercises, an answer key and help with real life examples, this easy-to-follow introduction is a complete beginner's tool set to good reasoning, analyzing and arguing. Ideal for students in basic reasoning courses and students preparing for graduate school.
Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form "common knowledge." Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, knowledge of the knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. Michael Chwe applies this insight, with striking erudition, to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. He shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. For instance, people watching the Super Bowl know that many others are seeing precisely what they see and that those people know in turn that many others are also watching. This creates common knowledge, and advertisers selling products that depend on consensus are willing to pay large sums to gain access to it. Remarkably, a great variety of rituals and ceremonies, such as formal inaugurations, work in much the same way.
By using a rational-choice argument to explain diverse cultural practices, Chwe argues for a close reciprocal relationship between the perspectives of rationality and culture. He illustrates how game theory can be applied to an unexpectedly broad spectrum of problems, while showing in an admirably clear way what game theory might hold for scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are not yet acquainted with it.
In a new afterword, Chwe delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age.
Logic is synonymous with reason, judgment, sense, wisdom, and sanity. Being logical is the ability to create concise and reasoned arguments—arguments that build from given premises, using evidence, to a genuine conclusion. But mastering logical thinking also requires studying and understanding illogical thinking, both to sharpen one’s own skills and to protect against incoherent, or deliberately misleading, reasoning.
Elegant, pithy, and precise, Being Logical breaks logic down to its essentials through clear analysis, accessible examples, and focused insights. D. Q. McInerney covers the sources of illogical thinking, from naïve optimism to narrow-mindedness, before dissecting the various tactics—red herrings, diversions, and simplistic reasoning—the illogical use in place of effective reasoning.
An indispensable guide to using logic to advantage in everyday life, this is a concise, crisply readable book. Written explicitly for the layperson, McInerny’s Being Logical promises to take its place beside Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style as a classic of lucid, invaluable advice.
Praise for Being Logical
“Highly readable . . . D. Q. McInerny offers an introduction to symbolic logic in plain English, so you can finally be clear on what is deductive reasoning and what is inductive. And you’ll see how deductive arguments are constructed.”—Detroit Free Press
“McInerny’s explanatory outline of sound thinking will be eminently beneficial to expository writers, debaters, and public speakers.”—Booklist
“Given the shortage of logical thinking,
And the fact that mankind is adrift, if not sinking,
It is vital that all of us learn to think straight.
And this small book by D.Q. McInerny is great.
It follows therefore since we so badly need it,
Everybody should not only but it, but read it.”
—Charles Osgood
With zest and rigor, Bertrand Russell applies twentieth-century thinking to age-old philosophy, from the works of Plato and Aristotle to those of René Descartes and John Locke. In The Problems of Philosophy, he reviews the Western canon’s most influential ideas and thought experiments, offering a comprehensive and enlightening text for curious and seasoned philosophy readers alike. Infused with Russell’s own observations and critiques, this study offers reviews of topics such as idealism, knowledge, and the natures of truth, reality, and existence. Including the author’s prominent thinking on knowledge by acquaintance versus knowledge by description, The Problems of Philosophy is a critical look at the major philosophical accomplishments spanning from classical Greece to the twentieth century.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Cybercrime is the fastest growing area of crime as more criminals seek to exploit the speed, convenience and anonymity that the Internet provides to commit a diverse range of criminal activities. Today's online crime includes attacks against computer data and systems, identity theft, distribution of child pornography, penetration of online financial services, using social networks to commit crimes, and the deployment of viruses, botnets, and email scams such as phishing. Symantec's 2012 Norton Cybercrime Report stated that the world spent an estimated $110 billion to combat cybercrime, an average of nearly $200 per victim.
Law enforcement agencies and corporate security officers around the world with the responsibility for enforcing, investigating and prosecuting cybercrime are overwhelmed, not only by the sheer number of crimes being committed but by a lack of adequate training material. This book provides that fundamental knowledge, including how to properly collect and document online evidence, trace IP addresses, and work undercover.
Provides step-by-step instructions on how to investigate crimes onlineCovers how new software tools can assist in online investigationsDiscusses how to track down, interpret, and understand online electronic evidence to benefit investigationsDetails guidelines for collecting and documenting online evidence that can be presented in court"Why are Christians so intolerant?"
"Why can't we just coexist?"
In an age in which preference has replaced morality, many people find it difficult to speak the truth, afraid of the reactions they will receive if they say something is right or wrong. Using engaging stories and personal experience, Edward Sri helps us understand the classical view of morality and equips us to engage relativism, appealing to both the head and the heart. Learn how Catholic morality is all about love, why making a judgment is not judging a person's soul, and why, in the words of Pope Francis, "relativism wounds people." Topics include:
• Real Freedom, Real Love
• Sharing truth with compassion
• Why "I disagree" doesn't mean "I hate you"
An instructor’s website is available with solutions to all the exercises in the text, including the many new exercises which have been added to this new edition.
The book emphasizes the relationship between models and the traditional goal of logic, the evaluation of arguments, and critically examines apparatus and assumptions that often are taken for granted. Philosophical Logic provides an unusually thorough treatment of conditional logic, unifying probabilistic and model-theoretic approaches. It underscores the variety of approaches that have been taken to relevantistic and related logics, and it stresses the problem of connecting formal systems to the motivating ideas behind intuitionistic mathematics. Each chapter ends with a brief guide to further reading.
Philosophical Logic addresses students new to logic, philosophers working in other areas, and specialists in logic, providing both a sophisticated introduction and a new synthesis.
While you can interface with Google in 97 languages and glean results in 35, you can't find any kind of instruction manual from Google. Lucky for you, our fully updated and greatly expanded second edition to the bestselling Google: The Missing Manual covers everything you could possibly want to know about Google, including the newest and coolest--and often most underused (what is Froogle, anyway?)--features. There's even a full chapter devoted to Gmail, Google's free email service that includes a whopping 2.5 GB of space).
This wise and witty guide delivers the complete scoop on Google, from how it works to how you can search far more effectively and efficiently (no more scrolling through 168 pages of seemingly irrelevant results); take best advantage of Google's lesser-known features, such as Google Print, Google Desktop, and Google Suggest; get your website listed on Google; track your visitors with Google Analytics; make money with AdWords and AdSense; and much more.
Whether you're new to Google or already a many-times-a-day user, you're sure to find tutorials, tips, tricks, and tools that take you well beyond simple search to Google gurudom.
In How We Think, Dewey shares his views on the educator’s role in training students to think well. Basing his assertions on the belief that knowledge is strictly relative to human interaction with the world, he considers the need for thought training, its use of natural resources, and its place in school conditions; inductive and deductive reasoning, interpreting facts, and concrete and abstract thinking; the functions of activity, language, and observation in thought training; and many other subjects.
John Dewey’s influence on American education and philosophy is incalculable. This volume, as fresh and inspirational today as it was upon its initial publication a century ago, is essential for anyone active in the field of teaching or about to embark on a career in education.
This is the first time both volumes have been available in paperback. They include a new introduction by Dermot Moran, placing the Investigations in historical context and bringing out their contemporary philosophical importance.
These editions include a new preface by Sir Michael Dummett.
Peter Christen’s book is divided into three parts: Part I, “Overview”, introduces the subject by presenting several sample applications and their special challenges, as well as a general overview of a generic data matching process. Part II, “Steps of the Data Matching Process”, then details its main steps like pre-processing, indexing, field and record comparison, classification, and quality evaluation. Lastly, part III, “Further Topics”, deals with specific aspects like privacy, real-time matching, or matching unstructured data. Finally, it briefly describes the main features of many research and open source systems available today.
By providing the reader with a broad range of data matching concepts and techniques and touching on all aspects of the data matching process, this book helps researchers as well as students specializing in data quality or data matching aspects to familiarize themselves with recent research advances and to identify open research challenges in the area of data matching. To this end, each chapter of the book includes a final section that provides pointers to further background and research material. Practitioners will better understand the current state of the art in data matching as well as the internal workings and limitations of current systems. Especially, they will learn that it is often not feasible to simply implement an existing off-the-shelf data matching system without substantial adaption and customization. Such practical considerations are discussed for each of the major steps in the data matching process.This book is targeted at all aspiring administrators, architects, or students who want to build cloud environments using Openstack. Knowledge of IaaS or cloud computing is recommended.
What You Will LearnGet an introduction to OpenStack and its componentsAuthenticate and authorize the cloud environment using KeystoneStore and retrieve data and images using storage components such as Cinder, Swift, and GlanceUse Nova to build a Cloud Computing fabric controllerAbstract technology-agnostic networks using the Neutron network componentGain an understanding of optional components such as Ceilometer, Trove, Ironic, Sahara, Barbican, Zaqar, Designate, Manila, and many moreSee how all of the OpenStack components collaborate to provide IaaS to usersCreate a production-grade OpenStack and automate your OpenStack CloudIn DetailOpenStack is a free and open source cloud computing platform that is rapidly gaining popularity in Enterprise data centres. It is a scalable operating system and is used to build private and public clouds. It is imperative for all the aspiring cloud administrators to possess OpenStack skills if they want to succeed in the cloud-led IT infrastructure space.
This book will help you gain a clearer understanding of OpenStack's components and their interaction with each other to build a cloud environment. You will learn to deploy a self-service based cloud using just four virtual machines and standard networking.
You begin with an introduction on the basics of cloud computing. This is followed by a brief look into the need for authentication and authorization, the different aspects of dashboards, cloud computing fabric controllers, along with “Networking as a Service” and “Software Defined Networking.” Then, you will focus on installing, configuring, and troubleshooting different architectures such as Keystone, Horizon, Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Swift, and Glance. Furthermore, you will see how all of the OpenStack components come together in providing IaaS to users. Finally, you will take your OpenStack cloud to the next level by integrating it with other IT ecosystem elements before automation.
By the end of this book, you will be proficient with the fundamentals and application of OpenStack.
Style and approachThis is a practical step-by-step guide comprising of installation prerequisites and basic troubleshooting instructions to help you build an error-free OpenStack cloud easily.
With all the wit and charm that have delighted readers of his previous books, Smullyan transports us once again to that magical island where knights always tell the truth and knaves always lie. Here we meet a new and amazing array of characters, visitors to the island, seeking to determine the natives’ identities. Among them: the census-taker McGregor; a philosophical-logician in search of his flighty bird-wife, Oona; and a regiment of Reasoners (timid ones, normal ones, conceited, modest, and peculiar ones) armed with the rules of propositional logic (if X is true, then so is Y). By following the Reasoners through brain-tingling exercises and adventures—including journeys into the “other possible worlds” of Kripke semantics—even the most illogical of us come to understand Gödel’s two great theorems on incompleteness and undecidability, some of their philosophical and mathematical implications, and why we, like Gödel himself, must remain Forever Undecided!
This third edition of the successful Analysis and Design of Information Systems provides a comprehensive introduction and user-friendly survey to all aspects of business transformation and analysis, and aims to provide the complex set of tools covering all types of systems, including legacy, transactional, database, and web/e-commerce topics. Focusing on the applied aspects of analysis to create systems that meet the needs of their users, (consumers and businesses), this revised text aims to enhance the set of techniques and tools that the analyst/designer requires for success and to organizations to implement business transformation of operations.
Topics and features:
• Additional chapters on Web interface tools, security and change control, and data warehouse system design
• Developments on new designs and technologies, particularly in the area of web analysis and design; a revised Web/Commerce chapter addresses component middleware for complex systems design
• New case studies and more examples, providing readers with a deeper understanding of practicalities
• Presents modelling tools within a SDLC framework, thereby providing readers with a step-by-step understanding of when and how to use them
• More coverage on converting logical models to physical models, how to generate DDL, and testing database functionalities
• Expanded scope of analysis and design to include more specific conventions, such as logical to physical design steps, XML, data values, and denormalization
Based on feedback the author received from instructors and practitioners in industry, this enhanced text/reference presents a set of good practices that allow readers to adjust to the constraints and needs of any business. It is a valuable resource and guide for all information systems students, as well as practitioners and professionals who need an in-depth understanding of the principles of the analysis and design process.
Dr. Arthur M. Langer is the senior director of the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Community Engagement at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. He is on the faculty in the Department of Organization and Leadership at the Graduate School of Education (Teachers College), and associate director of instruction and curricular development for programs in information technology in the School of Continuing Education.
The book offers a rich blend of theory and practice. It is suitable for students, researchers and practitioners interested in Web mining and data mining both as a learning text and as a reference book. Professors can readily use it for classes on data mining, Web mining, and text mining. Additional teaching materials such as lecture slides, datasets, and implemented algorithms are available online.
This comprehensive Guide to Web Development with Java introduces readers to the three-tiered, Model-View-Controller architecture by using Hibernate, JSPs, and Java Servlets. These three technologies all use Java, so that a student with a background in programming will be able to master them with ease, with the end result of being able to create web applications that use MVC, validate user input and save data to a database.
Topics and features: presents the many topics of web development in small steps, in an accessible, easy-to-follow style - focusing on the most important information first, and allowing the reader to gain basic understanding before moving forwards; uses existing powerful technologies that are freely available on the web to speed up web development, such as JSP, JavaBeans, annotations, JSTL, Java 1.5, Hibernate and Tomcat; discusses HTML, HTML Forms, Cascading Style Sheets and XML; starts with the simplest technology for web development (JSP) and gradually introduces the reader to more complex topics; introduces core technologies from the outset, such as the Model-View-Controller architecture; contains many helpful pedagogical tools for students and lecturers such as questions and exercises at the end of each chapter, detailed illustrations, chapter summaries, and a glossary; includes examples for accessing common web services; provides supplementary examples and tutorials at http://www.bytesizebook.com/.
Written for novice developers with a solid background in programming, but who do not have any database training, this thorough, easy-to-use textbook/guide provides an exemplary introductory course in web development for undergraduates, as well as web developers. With its straightforward and systematic style this text is also ideal for self-study.
This is the first time both volumes have been available in paperback. They include a new introduction by Dermot Moran, placing the Investigations in historical context and bringing out their contemporary philosophical importance.
These editions include a new preface by Sir Michael Dummett.
He identifies with devastating examples all the most common fallacies popularly used in argument. We all like to think of ourselves as clear-headed and logical - but all readers will find in this book fallacies of which they themselves are guilty. The author shows you how to simultaneously strengthen your own thinking and identify the weaknesses in other people arguments. And, more mischievously, Pirie also shows how to be deliberately illogical - and get away with it. This book will make you maddeningly smart: your family, friends and opponents will all wish that you had never read it.
Publisher's warning: In the wrong hands this book is dangerous. We recommend that you arm yourself with it whilst keeping out of the hands of others. Only buy this book as a gift if you are sure that you can trust the recipient.
The syllogism is Aristotle’s most famous contribution to logic and because any valid argument must take the form of a syllogism, his work in analyzing syllogisms provides a basis for analyzing all arguments and prove rigorously whether they are true or false, valid or invalid.
Based on the same study of syllogisms and their practical application to life, the Author proposes an analysis of relationships in modern times using deductive reasoning. Therefore, the book answers the most common questions women have regarding men, combining a total of 69 syllogisms about attraction, behavior, communication, relationships and love.
An estimated 60 percent of scientists are atheists or agnostics. However, the skeptical world view has been given little currency even in advanced societies, because of a cultural prohibition against the criticism of religion. At the same time, science has become increasingly narrow and specialized so that few people can draw on its broader intellectual and cultural implications. Skepticism and Humanism attempts to meet this need. It defends skepticism as a method for developing reliable knowledge by using scientific inquiry and reason to test all claims to truth. It also defends scientific naturalism-an evolutionary view of nature, life, and the human species. Kurtz sees the dominant religious doctrines as drawn from an agricultural/nomadic past, and emphasizes the need for a new outlook applicable to the postindustrial information age. At the same time, he rejects postmodernism for abandoning science and embracing a form of nihilism.
There can be no doubt that as a new global civilization emerges, scientific naturalism, rationalism, and secular humanism have something significant to say about the meaning of life. Skepticism and Humanism shows how they can to foster democratic values and social prosperity. The book will be important for philosophers, scientists, and all those concerned with contemporary issues.
Paul Kurtz taught at Trinity College, Vassar College, and State University of New York at Buffalo. He is founder of Prometheus Books, a major publisher of philosophical works. He is the author of some thirty books including Toward a New Enlightenment (available from Transaction) Humanist Manifesto 2000, and A Secular Humanist Declaration. He is chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, and editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry magazine.
A Developer’s Guide to the Semantic Web helps the reader to learn the core standards, key components and underlying concepts. It provides in-depth coverage of both the what-is and how-to aspects of the Semantic Web. From Yu’s presentation, the reader will obtain not only a solid understanding about the Semantic Web, but also learn how to combine all the pieces to build new applications on the Semantic Web.
The second edition of this book not only adds detailed coverage of the latest W3C standards such as SPARQL 1.1 and RDB2RDF, it also updates the readers by following recent developments. More specifically, it includes five new chapters on schema.org and semantic markup, on Semantic Web technologies used in social networks and on new applications and projects such as data.gov and Wikidata and it also provides a complete coding example of building a search engine that supports Rich Snippets.
Software developers in industry and students specializing in Web development or Semantic Web technologies will find in this book the most complete guide to this exciting field available today. Based on the step-by-step presentation of real-world projects, where the technologies and standards are applied, they will acquire the knowledge needed to design and implement state-of-the-art applications.
* Proof Theory
* Propositional Structures
* Frames
* Decidability
* Coda
Both students and professors of philosophy, computing, linguistics, and mathematics will find this to be an important addition to their reading.