Philosophy Now Forum

Hello. I have studied philosophy--both in the classroom and on my own time--for several years, but I'm finding that many philosophical issues would be all the more interesting if I developed my math and logic skills. So I was wondering if anyone could recommend books or other references on those topics.

To narrow it down a little, I need to start with college algebra and go from there, and I need to refresh myself with predicate logic and then go from there. Of course, the less pricey the better, but I don't want to sacrifice quality for lower costs, necessarily, either. (I imagine such a compromise is hard to come by, seeing how ridiculous textbook prices typically are.) I've noticed there are many free math courses online (self-teaching sorts of sites), but I'm not crazy about relying on such references as my primary means of studying.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

if you want to study math, try http://www.khanacademy.org/

-Imp

zefan13,

If you want to understand how philosophy can be applied to mathematics then you can't do much better than Bertrand Russell's, "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy".

Imp,

A great site and a good story. Trying to enthuse my boy to join.

Many does the mistake of oversimplifying things, condensing life into mathematical equations and such. Goverments did that back in the days and made people's life into printcards with the arguments computers don't lie, which in itelf is true, but that would suggest we could replace all office workers with computers which we can't because computers can't have a conversation, barely understand primitive commands.

You must both train classic logic, but also abstract logic, putting things into context and think besides the obvious.

HexHammer wrote:...

You must both train classic logic, but also abstract logic, putting things into context and think besides the obvious.

Whats 'abstract logic' when its at home? As you can't get much more abstract than classical logic.