A Course on Mathematical Logic

Traditional logic as a part of philosophy is one of the oldest scientific disciplines and can be traced back to the Stoics and to Aristotle. Mathematical logic, however, is a relatively young discipline and arose from the endeavors of Peano, Frege, and others to create a logistic foundation for mathematics. It steadily developed during the twentieth century into a broad discipline with several sub-areas and numerous applications in mathematics, informatics, linguistics and philosophy.

This book, presented in two parts, offers a slow introduction to mathematical logic, and several basic concepts of model theory, such as first-order definability, types, symmetries, and elementary extensions.

This self-contained book is an exposition of the fundamental ideas of model theory. It presents the necessary background from logic, set theory and other topics of mathematics. Only some degree of mathematical maturity and willingness to assimilate ideas from diverse areas are required.

There are many kinds of books on formal logic. Some have philosophers as their intended audience, some mathematicians, some computer scien­ tists. Although there is a common core to all such books, they will be very different in emphasis, methods, and even appearance.