Nonmonotonic Reasoning: An Overview

Nonmonotonic reasoning is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence trying to find more realistic formal models of reasoning than classical logic. In common sense reasoning one often draws conclusions that have to be withdrawn when further information is obtained. The set of conclusions thus does not grow monotonically with the given information. It is this phenomenon that nonmonotonic reasoning methods try to formalize. This volume gives an overview on recent results in the field and points to relevant literature for further study. This up-to-date survey of research in the area of nonmonotonic reasoning includes a concise description of the most influential nonmonotonic logics (e.g. circumscription, autoepistemic logic and default logic), a presentation of recent research in abduction, as well as an overview of semantics for logic programs with default negation. The primary goal of this volume is to make recent results in the field more accessible. An extensive bibliography is included.