I’ve become quite interested in analytical philosophy as of late, mostly because of my newest love affair with Ludwig Wittgenstein. However, I find myself at a loss with regards to the symbolic logic he uses. I have a general grasp on the basic symbology of it (i.e., v being or, [b][1] being and, → being if . . . then, etc.), but I would like to get a more formal understanding of analytical logic. Where should I start with this? Bertrand Russell maybe? What about Gottlob Frege?
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as an introduction? i would suggest a good textbook, personally
but that’s just me
find a good one and make it your bible for awhile
entry level critical thinking courses
Don’t laugh. Logic for dummies. Seriously.
What Smears said. Symbolic logic is not that complicated, but most books about it will make harder than it has to be.
Yeah, every online text I come across is just full of complex shit without any consideration for newbies.
I guess when you need elaborate metaphors and examples that border on the absurd to explain the gist of a concept to you, you need a ‘For Dummies’ book. sigh And I thought I was past all that.
I like both of those things. 
No way man. I’m with Einstein on this one when he says something like If you can’t explain your big idea to your grandmother in a way she can understand it, then you don’t really understand it. It really does take a great mastery of a concept to be able to explain it small every day words.
Haha. God, I love Einstein. I wish he was my grandpa.
amazon.com/Logic-Philosophy- … 0534561721
This one was the one I depended on when I had my symbolic logic class. The book assigned to the class was just terrible.
If you want to learn the language of logic - I would suggest Paul Tomassi’s ‘Logic’ - or try some of the other suggesttions here. I found Tomassi pretty workable myself, and he does a good job of explaning the theory as well. It’d take a few months to work through the whole book, but be worthwhile. Actually there are loads of decent books for this. Logic is like maths though - you need to find a book with exercises and start doing those exercises: working your way through problems is the only real way to learn. On the plus side, logic is really fun! 
If it’s the philosophy of logic you are interested in (although you’ll need a basic grip of formal logic to start inquiring in to it) Susan Haack’s Philosophy of Logics is held in high esteem by many for being clear, interesting and a formidable academic enquiry in its own right (even if it was written in the 80’s [i think]). Leave Frege and Russell alone for a bit, I’d say.
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Godel Escher Bach seems to be able to explain some rudimentary logic in a very digestible format. Of course it’s kind of hard to find, 300 pages in.
On the other hand, maybe this book would be better, it has trees and diagrams for the “gotta see it in front of me” kind of guy: books.google.ca/books?id=zPOE04F … 1#PPA11,M1