Logics and falsifications. A new perspective on constructivist semantics (Q2446030)

According to Graham Priest, ``Kapsner's book is the first detailed investigation of how to incorporate the notion of falsification into formal logic. This is a fascinating logico-philosophical investigation, which will interest non-classical logicians of all stripes''. This characterization is largely adequate and reflects the main idea of the book under review. As the author observes, the book is mainly inspired by what he calls Dummett's ``constructivist philosophy''. The author explains constructivism as a special semantic attitude to meaning, according to which a semantic value of a sentence has to be in some way ``epistemically accessible''. He then differentiates between two main kinds of constructivism, namely \textit{verificationism} and \textit{falsificationism}. It is stressed that whereas verificationism is characterized by rejection of the law of excluded middle, falsificationism, in its turn, has to give up the dual principle of explosion. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides a background for the whole study, the second part elaborates the author's understanding of falsificationism, and the third part present a logical framework for the main philosophical ideas of the book. Part I consists of three chapters, the first of which explains the Dummettian sense of verificationism, the second reexamines the main idea of intuitionistic mathematics and logic and a possibility of its expansion to the empirical realm, and the third deals with the ideas of truth values gaps and gluts in the context of verificationism/falsificationism debate. Part II contains two comprehensive chapters, the first of which presents five main stages on the way from pure verificationism to expanded verificationism, then to hybrid strategies, and then through the expanded falsificationism finally to the pure falsificationism; and the second investigates the key idea of the falsificationistic theories -- an assertion is correct if and only if it is unfalsifiable. Part III equips every stage described above with a suitable logical framework. The author argues, that intuitionistic logic is most appropriate to the purely verificationistic theory of meaning, and hence, it is dual intuitionistic logic that properly responds to the pure falsificationism. An expanded version of verificationism should deal with Nelson's logic of constructible falsity \(N_3\). For expanded falsificationism, the author introduces a specific ``falsificationistic Nelson logic'' \(N_{3f}\). In this logic, consequence is defined in a manner that ensures the transmission of \textit{non-falsifiability} from premises to conclusions. It is shown that \(N_{3f}\) is paraconsistent and validates the excluded middle. In this way it is dual to \(N_3\). In the last chapter of the third part, three main types of hybrid strategies for the combinations of verificationism and falsificationism are considered: the discourse separation strategy, the correctness as verifiability and incorrectness as falsifiability strategy and the burden of proof distribution strategy. The book is nicely organized -- every chapter is equipped with an introductory chapter overview and a chapter summary. This greatly facilitates reading.