Relevance and disjunctive syllogism (Q1107517)

This paper is a significant contribution to the debate over the acceptableness from the point of view of relevant logics of the use of disjunctive syllogism in everyday reasoning situations. The author argues that such uses are compatible with the claims of relevant logic. But unlike the similar response of \textit{C. Mortensen} [Nore Dame J. Formal Logic 24, 35-40 (1983; Zbl 0476.03005)] which claims that the validity of informal uses of disjunctive syllogism rests upon global assumptions of the consistency and completeness (normality) of the reasoning contexts, this paper shows that very local such assumptions will suffice. The author argues that the natural assertion in ordinary language of the local consistency and completeness of two sentences A and B is best formally represented by the assertion that they are ``locally Boolean'' (b(A,B)), i.e., the exclusive intensional disjunction of A\&B, A\&\(\neg B\), \(\neg A\&B\), and \(\neg A\&\neg B\). He then shows that \(b(A,B)\to.A\&(\neg AvB)\to B\) is provable in most of the usual relvant logics, most importantly in R. Hence, whenever one is justified in assuming the local consistency of A and B, one is justified according to R in assuming the validity of the appropriate instances of disjunctive syllogism. Although this local Boolean approach disagrees with the early Anderson/Belnap claim that the `or' of correct ordinary usage of disjunctive syllogism meant intensional disjunction, it does agree well with a very suitable modification of that position inasmuch as \(b(A,B)\to.AvB\to A+B\) is also provable. The paper addresses central questions and claims of \textit{N. D. Belnap} and \textit{J. M. Dunn} [``Entailment and the disjunctive syllogism'', Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey (ed. G. Floistad and G. H. von Wright) (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1981)], \textit{R. K. Meyer} [``A farewell to entailment'', Foundations of logic and linguistics, Sel. Pap. 7th Int. Congr. Logic, Methodol. Philos. Sci., Salzburg/Austria 1983, 577-636 (1985; Zbl 0624.03003)], \textit{C. Mortensen} [Notre Dame J. Formal Logic 27, 195-200 (1986; Zbl 0608.03001)], \textit{S. Read} [Notre Dame J. Formal Logic 24, 473-481 (1983; Zbl 0569.03005)] and \textit{R. Routley} [Canadian J. Philos. 14 (1984)].