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A Semantics for Conditionals with Default Negation

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Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Reasoning with Uncertainty (ECSQARU 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10369))

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Abstract

Ranking functions constitute a powerful formalism for nonmonotonic reasoning based on qualitative conditional knowledge. Conditionals are formalized defeasible rules and thus allow one to express that certain individuals or subclasses of some broader concept behave differently. More precisely, in order to model these exceptions by means of ranking functions, it is necessary to state that they behave contrarily with respect to the considered property. This paper proposes conditionals with default negation which instead enable a knowledge engineer to formalize exceptions without giving more specific information. This is useful when a subclass behaves indifferent towards a certain property, or the knowledge engineer wants to exclude a certain subclass because she is not aware of its behavior. Based on this novel type of conditionals, we further present and discuss a nonmonotonic inference formalism.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the DFG research unit FOR 1513 on “Hybrid Reasoning for Intelligent Systems” and the DFG grant KI1413/5-1 to Prof. Kern-Isberner as part of the priority program “New Frameworks of Rationality” (SPP 1516).

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Correspondence to Marco Wilhelm .

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Wilhelm, M., Eichhorn, C., Niland, R., Kern-Isberner, G. (2017). A Semantics for Conditionals with Default Negation. In: Antonucci, A., Cholvy, L., Papini, O. (eds) Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Reasoning with Uncertainty. ECSQARU 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10369. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61581-3_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61581-3_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61580-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61581-3

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