The Logic of Partial Information

Appeared in Volume 8/3, August 1995

Areski Nait Abdallah
Email: areski@csd.uwo.ca

The book presents the foundations of reasoning with partial information and a theory of commonsense reasoning based on monotonic reasoning and partial structures. The theory was designed specifically for the needs of practicing computer scientists and provides easily implementable algorithms.

Starting from first principles, using the philosophical logic of scientific discovery of Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos, and the denotational semantics of Dana Scott, the book develops a system of reasoning with partial information and applies it to a comprehensive study of the problem examples found in the literature of commonsense reasoning. Proof-theoretic and model-theoretic views are both considered in the applications as well as the logical problems of theoretical physics, such as the issues related to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

The book points out that customary expositions of commonsense reasoning (default logic, circumscription, AEL, etc.) are based on a flawed non-monotonic reasoning paradigm and that the resulting solutions for major problems such as the frame problem, are either ad-hoc or inadequate. One brings to light that non-monotonicity is due to the hiding of some information that should not be hidden.

The essential research in commonsense reasoning has been developed in isolation from the disciplines of theoretical computer science and classical logic. We break this isolation, and establish deep links.

For more information, see:

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/nait-abdallah.html

EATCS Research Monographs in Theoretical Computer Science Series
Springer Verlag, 1994, xiii+600 pp
Hardcover US$98.00
ISBN 0 387 56583 3
ISBN 3 540 56583 3