Irving Marmer Copi (; né Copilovich or Copilowish; July 28, 1917 – August 19, 2002) was an American philosopher,

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...

ian, and university textbook author.

Biography

Copi studied under

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

while at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

. In 1948 he contributed to the

calculus of relations In mathematical logic, algebraic logic is the reasoning obtained by manipulating equations with free variables. What is now usually called classical algebraic logic focuses on the identification and algebraic description of models appropriate for ...

with his article using logical matrices. Copi taught at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

, the

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academy in El Paso County, Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs. It educates cadets for service in the officer corps of the United States Air Force and U ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, and the

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

Logic Institute, before teaching

at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, 1958–69, and at the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

, 1969–90. Assigned to teach logic, Copi reviewed textbooks available and decided to write his own. The manuscript was split into ''Introduction to Logic'' and ''Symbolic Logic''. A reviewer noted that it had an "unusually comprehensive chapter on definition" and "The author accounts for the seductive nature of informal fallacies." The

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...

s proved popular, and a reviewer of the third edition noted over 100 new exercises added. Both textbooks are widely used, with the former currently in its 14th edition. In 1941 Copi married Amelia Glaser. They had four children David, Thomas, William, and Margaret.David Ouse (2002
Irving Copi
from Zenith City Online

Books

* 1953: ''Introduction to Logic''. Macmillan. * 1954: ''Symbolic Logic''. Macmillan. * 1958: ''Artificial Languages''. * 1958: (with Elgot and Wright) ''Realization of Events with Logical Nets''. * 1965: (edited with Paul Hente). ''Language, Thought and Culture''. The University of Michigan Press. * 1966: (edited with Robert Beard) ''Essays on Wittgenstein's Tractatus''. * 1967: (edited with James Gould) ''Contemporary Readings in Logical Theory''. Macmillan. * 1971: ''The Theory of Logical Types'', Routledge and Kegan Paul. * 1986: (with Keith Burgess-Jackson) ''Informal Logic'', Macmillan.

Articles

* 1953: "Analytical Philosophy and Analytical Propositions", ''

Philosophical Studies ''Philosophical Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal for philosophy in the analytic tradition. The journal is devoted to the publication of papers in exclusively analytic philosophy and welcomes papers applying formal techniques to philo ...

'' 4(6): 87–93. * 1954: "Essence and Accident", ''

Journal of Philosophy ''The Journal of Philosophy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal on philosophy, founded in 1904 at Columbia University. Its stated purpose is "To publish philosophical articles of current interest and encourage the interchange of ideas, e ...

'' 51(23): 706–19. * 1956: "Another variant of Natural Deduction", ''

Journal of Symbolic Logic The '' Journal of Symbolic Logic'' is a peer-reviewed mathematics journal published quarterly by Association for Symbolic Logic. It was established in 1936 and covers mathematical logic. The journal is indexed by ''Mathematical Reviews'', Zentralb ...

'' 21(1): 52–5. * 1956: (with

Arthur W. Burks Arthur Walter Burks (October 13, 1915 – May 14, 2008) was an American mathematician who worked in the 1940s as a senior engineer on the project that contributed to the design of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. ...

) "The Logical Design of an Idealized General-Purpose Computer", ''

Journal of the Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

'' 261: 299–314, and 421–36. * 1957: "Tractatus 5.542", ''

Analysis Analysis ( : analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (3 ...

'' 18(5): 102–4. * 1958: "The Burali-Forti Paradox", ''

Philosophy of Science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...

'' 25(4): 281–6. * 1963: (with Eric Stenius) "Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: A Critical Exposition of its Main Lines of Thought", ''

Philosophical Review ''The Philosophical Review'' is a quarterly journal of philosophy edited by the faculty of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University and published by Duke University Press (since September 2006). Overview The journal publishes original ...

'' 72(3): 382.

References

External links

* * Eliot Deutsch (2002)
"Irving Copi, 1917-2002"
from Bertrand Russell Society (also in ''

Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarly ...

'' 76(2): 125–6)
''Introduction to Logic''
at

Goodreads Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and read ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Copi, Irving 1917 births 2002 deaths American logicians 20th-century American philosophers University of Michigan faculty