Why make things simple when you can make them complicated? An appreciation of Lewis Carroll's symbolic logic (Q2239387)

The mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832--1898) wrote under his pen name Lewis Carroll not only children's books [Alice's adventures in Wonderland. 150th anniversary edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (2015; Zbl 1359.01094)] but also logic books, e.g. [The game of logic. (German) Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Frommann-Holzboog (1998; Zbl 0915.00004)]. As a logician, Carroll can be perceived as both an innovator (symbolic notations, logic diagrams, logic trees) and a conservative who defended the traditional doctrine of existential import. The latter goes back to Aristotle and is the idea that universally quantified statements (e.g., ``I aced all my exams'') should not be vacuously true (because I didn't take any). The author's goal is ``to untangle this dilemma by exploring Carroll's guidelines in the design of his logic'' (p.~359), and the conclusion he reaches is that Carroll ``favoured the practical convenience of the theory over the ease of the logician. The reason is that Carroll believed in the social utility of logic'' (p.~372). The article is divided into seven sections: 1.~Introduction (ca.\,1 p.) -- 2.~The problem of eimination (ca.\,3 pp.) -- 3.~An overview of Carroll's logic (ca.\,3 pp.) -- 4.~Carroll's contributions to logic (ca.ł,3 pp.) -- 5.~The theory of existential import (ca.\,3 pp.) -- 6.~The utility of symbolic logic (ca.\,3.5 pp.) -- 7.~Conclusion (ca.\,0.5 p.) -- followed by a bibliography (ca.\,4 pp.). \par The paper is written by someone who has written extensively on Carroll -- it thus doubles as a review of the recent literature on Carroll -- and reads well. Those interested in seeing the dilemma resolved in Sections 5 and 6 will, however, arrive at their destination via many detours that paint a picture broader than strictly necessary for the task at hand (which is probably due to the fact that the article under review is based on a talk the author gave in 2017). As far as the crux of the matter is concerned (i.\,e., Sections 5 and 6), the reviewer would rate an earlier paper by the author higher [``On the social utility of symbolic logic: Lewis Carroll against the logicians'', Stud. Metodol. 35, 133--150 (2015; \url{doi:10.14746/sm.2015.35.10})]. \par The few typos do not obfuscate the intended meaning. Confusing, though, is the author's idiosyncratic capitalization (e.g., `proposition' and `conclusion' are always capitalized, but `argument' never).