On the social utility of symbolic logic: Lewis Carroll against ‘The Logicians’

Symbolic logic faced great difficulties in its early stage of development in order to acquire recognition of its utility for the needs of science and society. The aim of this paper is to discuss an early attempt by the British logician Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) to promote symbolic logic as a social good. This examination is achieved in three phases: first, Carroll’s belief in the social utility of logic, broadly understood, is demonstrated by his numerous interventions to fight fallacious reasoning in public debates. Then, Carroll’s attempts to promote symbolic logic, specifically, are revealed through his work on a treatise that would make the subject accessible to a wide and young audience. Finally, it is argued that Carroll’s ideal of logic as a common good influenced the logical methods he invented and allowed him to tackle more efficiently some problems that resisted to early symbolic logicians

Depicting Negation in Diagrammatic Logic: Legacy and Prospects

Here are considered the conditions under which the method of diagrams is liable to include non-classical logics, among which the spatial representation of non-bivalent negation. This will be done with two intended purposes, namely: a review of the main concepts involved in the definition of logical negation; an explanation of the epistemological obstacles against the introduction of non-classical negations within diagrammatic logic

'What the Tortoise said to Achilles': Lewis Carroll's Paradox of Inference

Lewis Carroll’s 1895 paper, 'What the Tortoise Said to Achilles' is widely regarded as a classic text in the philosophy of logic. This special issue of 'The Carrollian' publishes five newly commissioned articles by experts in the field. The original paper is reproduced, together with contemporary correspondence relating to the paper and an extensive bibliography

La représentation visuelle des classes d’objets

It is customary to draw a circle to represent a collection of objects. This makes it easy to represent logical relations between classes thanks to topological relations between spaces. The aim of this paper is to discuss the process by which spaces represent visually classes

Iš kito kranto: namų ir erdvinio dvilypumo samprata Leïlos Sebbar romane Krantų tyla

The duality of here and there is a recurring motif in Maghrebian exile literature, which revolves around the experiences of North African immigrants who reside in Europe. This dualistic framework underscores the sense of displacement and cultural alienation that many immigrants experience in their new homes, as they find themselves straddling two cultures and struggling to find a sense of belonging in either of them. Leïla Sebbar’s novel Le silence des rives portrays the last day in the life of a Maghrebian immigrant in France, whose life is fraught with unfulfilled promises and shattered dreams. The present article examines how spatial duality and the here-there dichotomy serve as the main device for the exploration of the lives of the novel’s characters. This article also highlights the argument that the notions of “home” and “belonging” are not merely physical, but also emotional and psychological. The concept of spatial duality, as developed by Gaston Bachelard, provides a valuable framework for understanding the intricate relationship between exiles’ experiences of physical and psychological space. The postcolonial reading perspective also elucidates the complexity of (im)migrant subjectivity and the discourse of belonging.Erdvės dvilypumas yra pasikartojantis motyvas frankofoniškoje egzodo literatūroje, pasakojančioje apie Europoje gyvenančių Šiaurės Afrikos imigrantų patirtį. Ši dvilypė struktūra išskleidžia dislokacijos ir kultūrinio susvetimėjimo emocinę dinamiką, kurią daugelis imigrantų išgyvena atsidūrę tarp dviejų kultūrų. Leïlos Sebbar romane Le silence des rives (Krantų tyla) apmąstomas alžyriečio imigranto gyvenimas Prancūzijoje, jo prisiminimai ir neišsipildžiusios svajonės. Šiame straipsnyje nagrinėjama, kaip per erdvinio dvilypumo topologiją ir čia-ten priešpriešą Sebbar konstruoja romano veikėjų gyvenimo pasakojimą. Atsiremiant į Gastono Bachelardo samprotavimus apie erdvės poetiką, iškeliama mintis, jog romane permąstomos „namų“ ir „priklausymo“ sąvokos yra ne tik fizinės, bet ir emocinės bei psichologinės. Pokolonijinė skaitymo perspektyva taip pat išryškina (i)migrantų subjektyvumo ir tapatybės diskurso sudėtingumą

Vincent F. Hendricks and John Symons (eds.), "Formal Philosophy", Automatic Press, 2005

Book Reviews: Vincent F. Hendricks and John Symons (eds.), "Formal Philosophy", Automatic Press, 2005, vii + pp. 246

Is Euler’s circle a symbol or an icon?

The most familiar scheme of diagrams used in logic is known as Euler’s circles. It is named after the mathematician Leonhard Euler who popularized it in his Letters to a German Princess (1768). The idea is to use spaces to represent classes of individuals. Charles S. Peirce, who made significant contributions to the theory of diagrams, praised Euler’s circles for their ‘beauty’ which springs from their true iconicity. More than a century later, it is not rare to meet with such diagrams in semiotic literature. They are often offered as instances of icons and are said to represent logic relations as they naturally are. This paper discusses the iconicity of Euler’s circles in three phases: first, Euler’s circles are shown to be icons because their relations imitate the relations of the classes. Then, Euler’s circles themselves, independently of their relations to one another, are shown to be icons of classes. Finally, Euler’s circles are shown to be iconic in the highest degree because they have the relations that they are said to represent. The paper concludes with a note on the so-called naturalness of Euler’s circles

Explicit modeling of composite plates and beams in the dynamics of multibody systems

The state of the art dynamic response analysis of flexible multibody systems is currently restricted to elastic bodies with homogeneous materials. The requirements for high speed operation has made it necessary to use lightweight multi layered composite bodies in robotic systems and space structure applications. Dynamic modeling and analysis of such systems are particularly important since the effects of body flexibility to the performance are likely to be more pronounced. The eight-noded isoperimetric quadrilateral element with independent rotational and displacement degrees of freedom is extended to laminated composite elements. The element includes an arbitrary number of bonded layers, each of which may have a different thickness. The transverse shear deformation which is a predominant factor in the analysis of laminated composite structures is taken into account in developing the stiffness and mass matrices. The corresponding 3-D mode shapes are then incorporated to the multibody system dynamical equations. Floating body reference frames allow the selection of different boundary conditions, and the dynamical equations contain all the nonlinear interactions between the rigid and elastic motion. Example simulations are presented to illustrate the methods proposed

La logique symbolique en débat à Oxford à la fin du XIXe siècle : les disputes logiques de Lewis Carroll et John Cook Wilson

The development of symbolic logic is often presented in terms of a cumulative story of consecutive innovations that led to what is known as modern logic. This narrative hides the difficulties that this new logic faced at first, which shaped its history. Indeed, negative reactions to the emergence of the new logic in the second half of the nineteenth century were numerous and we study here one case, namely logic at Oxford, where one finds Lewis Carroll, a mathematical teacher who promoted symbolic logic, and John Cook Wilson, the Wykeham Professor of Logic who notoriously opposed it. An analysis of their disputes on the topic of logical symbolism shows that their opposition was not as sharp as it might look at first, as Cook Wilson was not so much opposed to the « symbolic » character of logic, but the intrusion of mathematics and what he perceived to be the futility of some of its problems, for logicians and philosophers alike