DEFINITION OF CHESSY CAT TRIAL

“Please would you tell me,” said Alice . . . “why your cat grins like that? ” “It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. The Duchess’s response is typical of the non-answers Alice is given during her stay in Wonderland, yet the exchange suggests there’s a riddle to be solved nonetheless.ĭ ecoding Carroll’s fairy-tale world is difficult, because each apparently rational insight into its nature is contradicted by the revelations of subsequent analyses-revelations often found within the specialized language Wonderland’s inhabitants employ. Many of the characters use everyday words that have entirely different, formal meanings within the contexts of various academic disciplines. In Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, the Red Queen explains exactly this: “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” she says, “but I’ve heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!” They might make sense from the perspective of a philosopher or a mathematician, say, but they sound preposterous when used in ordinary speech. The trick is in finding the right dictionary. At the tea party in Wonderland, for instance, Alice is bewildered by the bizarre wordplay of the mad Hatter and the March Hare: “The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English.” She recognizes that the pair is speaking in logically structured sentences, but is also correct in concluding that their conversation has no discernible meaning-or perhaps no more meaning than an algebraic expression has in ordinary speech.

DEFINITION OF CHESSY CAT TRIAL

In the final chapter, during the trial of the Knave of Hearts, Alice objects to the Queen’s system of “sentence first, verdict afterwards.” Unknowingly, Alice has entered into an argument that employs the formal mathematical language of sentential calculus (today known as propositional calculus), in which, as the Queen says, the sentence (or formula) must be complete before any valid verdict (or conclusion) can be reached. This formal system also requires the Queen’s ruthless application of axes, by which Carroll really means axioms.

And in any system of logic or mathematics, contradicting the axioms (or rules) leads to chaos and collapse. So when Alice confronts the Queen and challenges her authority (“You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”), the trial literally collapses like a house of cards, and Alice’s dream ends.

Much absurd humour is derived from this sort of interdisciplinary wordplay.

Definition of chessy cat