INCONSISTENCY IN SCIENCE

Attracting philosophers and historians of science, logicians and computer scientists, the First World Congress on Paraconsistency was held in 1997 at Ghent U., Belgium, where the editor is based. In a dozen papers based on a congress workshop titled "The role of inconsistencies in the history and philosophy of science," contributors tackle paradoxes alien to classical logic and argue "how to reason sensibly yet naturally from inconsistencies"—as Meheus' contribution is called. The overarching thesis is that inconsistency is not a coup de grace in the empirical sciences or mathematics, given that: attention has shifted from products to processes in developing theories; science offers ample case histories of inconsistencies; and the study of paraconsistent logics has been around for 50 years.