On Pragmatic Denial

In a classical theory of denial to deny A is equivalent to asserting ¬A. Glut theorists reject the right-to-left direction of the Classical denial: asserting ¬A must not commit one to denying A, i.e. denial must not be reducible to the assertion of ¬A. In particular, the paraconsistent denial of A is stronger than the assertion of ¬A. Unlike paraconsistent negation, which allows for overlap between truthand falsity, denial is assumed to be exclusive: assertion and denial are mutually incompatible speech acts. Starting from this basic idea, i.e. that assertion and denial are mutually incompatible speech acts, we outline a logic for denial. We first consider a logic for assertion, i.e. the logic for pragmatics (LP), proposed by DallaPozza and Garola in Dalla Pozza and Garola (1995) and ask: Is it possibile to extend LP so to include also the speech act of denial? First, we defend a negative answer to the question, then we outline a new pragmatic logicthat should be considered as a logic of denial LPD.