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Logic on trial

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Lettera Matematica

Abstract

We wander through logic and justice, theorems and trials, reporting several cases of often imaginary legal proceedings and court cases in which logic is either a useful tool, a paradoxical presence, or an embarrassing absence. We call as witnesses Dostoyevsky, Carroll, Cervantes, Diderot, Chesterton, Kafka and many others. We also call a hasty trial against logic itself and its supposed benefits for research in mathematics, which ends in an equally hasty acquittal.

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Notes

  1. For more on this, see the introduction in [25].

  2. Translator’s note: Enzo Tortora, a very popular TV host, was unjustly accused of belonging to the Camorra, a Mafia-like crime association, convicted and jailed, until he was finally acquitted years later.

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Correspondence to Stefano Leonesi.

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Leonesi, S., Toffalori, C. Logic on trial. Lett Mat Int 4, 141–150 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40329-016-0146-0

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