Graph normal form, introduced earlier for propositional logic, is shown to be a normal form also for first-order logic. It allows to view syntax of theories as digraphs, while their semantics as kernels of these digraphs. Graphs are particularly well suited for studying circularity, and we provide some general means for verifying that circular or apparently circular extensions are conservative. Traditional syntactic means of ensuring conservativity, like definitional extensions or positive occurrences guaranteeing exsitence of fixed points, emerge as special cases.

A novel normal form for propositional theories underlies the logic pdl, which captures some essential features of natural discourse, independent from any particular subject matter and related only to its referential structure. In particular, pdlallows to distinguish vicious circularity from the innocent one, and to reason in the presence of inconsistency using a minimal number of extraneous assumptions, beyond the classical ones. Several, formally equivalent decision problems are identified as potential applications: non-paradoxical character of discourses, admissibility of arguments in argumentation (...) networks, propositional satisfiability, and the existence of kernels of directed graphs. Directed graphs provide the basis for the semantics of pdl and the paper concludes by an overview of relevant graph-theoretical results and their applications in diagnosing paradoxical character of natural discourses. (shrink)