Lewis Carroll’s method of trees: Its origins in “Studies in logic”. (English) Zbl 0708.01009

Abeles, Francine F.

Mod. Log. 1, No. 1, 25-35 (1990).

The position of Lewis Carroll in the history of logic is rather strange. His Alice books, and others such as Sylvie and Bruno, are recognized by the more discerning reader as landmarks in the perception of issues in logic and its relationship to language, while the books explicitly entitled to logic are somewhat boring meanderings around sorites and syllogistic. The authoress treats the most interesting aspects of this second gener by showing that he had an understanding of tableaux to indicate logical consequences.

Reviewer: I.Grattan-Guinness

MSC:

01A55	History of mathematics in the 19th century
03-03	History of mathematical logic and foundations

Keywords:

sorites; syllogistic; logical consequences