Editorial Introduction: Substructural Logics and Metainferences

Abstract

The concept of substructural logic was originally introduced in relation to limitations of Gentzen’s structural rules of Contraction, Weakening and Exchange. Recent years have witnessed the development of substructural logics also challenging the Tarskian properties of Reflexivity and Transitivity of logical consequence. In this introduction we explain this recent development and two aspects in which it leads to a reassessment of the bounds of classical logic. On the one hand, standard ways of defining the notion of logical consequence in classical logic naturally induce substructural logics when admitting more than two truth values; on the other hand, these substructural logics give rise to hierarchies of metainferences that can be used to approximate classical logic at different levels.