Paraconsistency Everywhere



Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic

Paraconsistency Everywhere

Greg Restall

Source: Notre Dame J. Formal Logic Volume 43, Number 3 (2002), 147-156.

Abstract

Paraconsistent logics are, by definition, inconsistency tolerant: In a paraconsistent logic, inconsistencies need not entail everything. However, there is more than one way a body of information can be inconsistent. In this paper I distinguish {contradictions} from {other inconsistencies}, and I show that several different logics are, in an important sense, "paraconsistent" in virtue of being inconsistency tolerant without thereby being contradiction tolerant. For example, even though no inconsistencies are tolerated by intuitionistic propositional logic, some inconsistencies are tolerated by intuitionistic predicate logic. In this way, intuitionistic predicate logic is, in a mild sense, paraconsistent. So too are orthologic and quantum propositional logic and other formal systems. Given this fact, a widespread view—that traditional paraconsistent logics are especially repugnant because they countenance inconsistencies—is undercut. Many well-understood nonclassical logics countenance inconsistencies as well.

Primary Subjects: 03B53
Secondary Subjects: 03A05
Keywords: paraconsistent logic; intuitionistic logic; quantum logic

Full-text: Access granted (open access)

Links and Identifiers

Permanent link to this document: http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ndjfl/1074290713
Digital Object Identifier: doi:10.1305/ndjfl/1074290713
Mathematical Reviews number (MathSciNet): MR2032580
Zentralblatt MATH identifier: 1043.03021

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