Used as an introduction to philosophy and logical thinking, this book better serves as a debater's handbook. It well covers Aristotilian and syllogistic logic. The book's strongest point, however, is it's list of informal fallacies. With the help of this book, almost anyone can win nearly any argument, even those about unfamiliar subjects. Copi's grad students did a good job on this one, except for their refusal to put Aristotilian syllogisms in standard form. It lost points with me because of it's old textbook writing style making it an uneasy read

All I can do is echo the many enthusiastic reviews this book has already received. Copi covers a wide array of logics, formal and informal, classical and modern, and demonstrates their applications using real-life examples drawn from science, political journalism, and the law. He is lucid, nuanced, and insightful. Reading this remarkable textbook is the equivalent of taking introductory courses in symbolic logic, rhetoric, philosophy of science, and legal reasoning. I learned more from this one book than from an entire year at UC Berkeley. It's a keeper!

I never saw the previous editions of this book (picked up the 9th ed.) and I believe that originally Copi was the only author, so I don't know whether Cohen raised or merely maintained the standard, but it is a very high standard indeed. I have another of Copi's older books (Symbolic logic) and it too is excellent, but this one is more generally useful and of course, broader in scope. Most unusually for a respectable size of textbook, this one permits one to read and work all the way through it for entertainment, as I did while commuting by rail a few years ago.

The coverage is good, the style is easy and clear, the material is sound and as an introduction to the field the book is excellent. The only hazard is that tyros working their way through may be fooled into thinking that now they "know logic" (No, this is NOT a hypothetical problem; I have encountered it in practice.)

But one can't allow for every kind of idiot, not even the predominant kinds.

If I were to propose any improvement to the copy I bought, it would be the addition (possibly in an appendix?) of a broader discussion of less conventional fields such as paraconsistent logic.

Overall I recommend the book highly and I am not lending out my copy.