This article is the introduction to the special issue of Studia Logica, which is devoted to paraconsistent logic. It gives a brief discussion of the point and history of paraconsistent logic and surveys three different formal approaches to the subject. A more extended discussion of these matters can be found in the introductory chapters of \textit{G. Priest} et al.: ''Paraconsistent logics'', Philosophia Verlag (1986).