Paraconsistency in classical logic

Gabriele Pulcini, Achille C. Varzi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Classical propositional logic can be characterized, indirectly, by means of a complementary formal system whose theorems are exactly those formulas that are not classical tautologies, i.e., contradictions and truth-functional contingencies. Since a formula is contingent if and only if its negation is also contingent, the system in question is paraconsistent. Hence classical propositional logic itself admits of a paraconsistent characterization, albeit “in the negative”. More generally, any decidable logic with a syntactically incomplete proof theory allows for a paraconsistent characterization of its set of theorems. This, we note, has important bearing on the very nature of paraconsistency as standardly characterized.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-12
Number of pages12
JournalSynthese
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • Classical logic
  • Complementary system
  • Consequence relation
  • Decidability
  • Paraconsistency
  • Unprovability

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