Irving Marmer Copi (;

né The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Copilovich or Copilowish; July 28, 1917 – August 19, 2002) was an American

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

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 philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

while at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, 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 (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

, the

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academies, United States service academy in Air Force Academy, Colorado, Air Force Academy Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs. I ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, and the

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

Logic Institute, before teaching

at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, 1958–69, and at the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

, 1969–90. Assigned to teach logic, Copi reviewed the available textbooks and decided to write his own. His manuscript was split into his ''Introduction to Logic'' (1953), and ''Symbolic Logic'' (1954). A reviewer noted that it had an "unusually comprehensive chapter on definition" and mentions that "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, but also of learners ( ...

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.

Family

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

* 1948: "Matrix development of the calculus of relations",

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'', Zent ...

13(4): 193–20
Jstor link
* 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 phil ...

'' 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, es ...

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

'' 21(1): 52–5. * 1956: (with Arthur W. Burks) "The Logical Design of an Idealized General-Purpose Computer", '' Journal of the Franklin Institute'' 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 (38 ...

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

Philosophy of Science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...

'' 25(4): 281–6. * 1963: (with Eric Stenius) "Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: A Critical Exposition of its Main Lines of Thought", '' Philosophical Review'' 72(3): 382.

References

External links

* *

Eliot Deutsch Eliot Sandler Deutsch (January 8, 1931 – June 28, 2020) was a philosopher, teacher, and writer. He made important contributions to the understanding and appreciation of Eastern philosophies in the West through his many works on comparative phil ...

(2002)
"Irving Copi, 1917-2002"
from

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

(also in '' Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association'' 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 readi ...

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