Making sense of paraconsistent logic: The nature of logic, classical logic and paraconsistent logic

Abstract

Max Cresswell and Hilary Putnam seem to hold the view, often shared by classical logicians, that paraconsistent logic has not been made sense of, despite its well-developed mathematics. In this paper, I examine the nature of logic in order to understand what it means to make sense of logic. I then show that, just as one can make sense of non-normal modal logics (as Cresswell demonstrates), we can make ‘sense’ of paraconsistent logic. Finally, I turn the tables on classical logicians and ask what sense can be made of explosive reasoning. While I acknowledge a bias on this issue, it is not clear that even classical logicians can answer this question.