Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference: The Turn Towards the Practical, ISBN-13: 978-0444506504

The Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference is an authoritative reference work in a single volume, designed for the attention of senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in all the leading research areas concerned with the logic of practical argument and inference.

After an introductory chapter, the role of standard logics is surveyed in two chapters. These chapters can serve as a mini-course for interested readers, in deductive and inductive logic, or as a refresher.

Then follow two chapters of criticism; one the internal critique and the other the empirical critique. The first deals with objections to standard logics (as theories of argument and inference) arising from the research programme in philosophical logic. The second canvasses criticisms arising from work in cognitive and experimental psychology.

The next five chapters deal with developments in dialogue logic, interrogative logic, informal logic, probability logic and artificial intelligence.

The last chapter surveys formal approaches to practical reasoning and anticipates possible future developments. Taken as a whole the Handbook is a single-volume indication of the present state of the logic of argument and inference at its conceptual and theoretical best. Future editions will periodically incorporate significant new developments.

Dov M. Gabbay is Augustus De Morgan Professor Emeritus of Logic at the Group of Logic, Language and Computation, Department of Computer Science, King’s College London. He has authored over four hundred and fifty research papers and over thirty research monographs. He is editor of several international Journals, and many reference works and Handbooks of Logic.