Abstract
There is a certain style of paper which has become traditional in MAS – one where a formal logic is introduced to express some ideas, or where a logic is extended on the basis that it then covers certain particular cases, but where the logic is not actually used to make any substantial inferences and no application of the logic demonstrated. I argue that although these papers do follow a certain tradition, that they are not useful given the state of MAS and should, in future, be rejected as premature (just as if one had simulation but never run it). I counter the argument that theory is necessary by denying that the theory has to be so abstract. I counter the argument that logic helps communication on the simple grounds that for most people it doesn’t. I argue that the type of logic that tends to be used in these papers is inappropriate. I finish with some suggestions as to useful ways forward.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bons, R., Dignum, F., Lee, R., Tan, Y.-H.: A Formal Analysis of Auditing Principles for Electronic Trade Procedures. International Journal of Electronic Commerce 5(1), 57–82 (2000)
Conte, R., Edmonds, B., Moss, S., Sawyer, R.K.: Sociology and Social Theory in Agent Based Social Simulation: A Symposium. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory 7, 183–205 (2001)
Edmonds, B.: The Purpose and Place of Formal Systems in the Development of Science, CPM Report 00-75, MMU, UK (2000), http://cfpm.org/cpmrep75.html
Edmonds, B.: A review of Reasoning about Rational Agents. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 5(1) (2000), http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/5/1/reviews/edmonds.html
Edmonds, B.: Simplicity is Not Truth-Indicative. CPM Report 02-00, MMU (2002), http://cfpm.org/cpmrep99.html
Gabbay, D.M.: Classical vs. non-classical logics: the universality of classic logic. Max-Planck-Instituit für Informatik, Saarbrücken (1993)
Gabbay, D.M. (ed.): What is a logical system? Clarendon Press, Oxford (1994)
Gärdenfors, P.: Knowledge in flux: modeling the dynamics of epistemic states. MIT Press, Cambridge (1988)
Hopcroft, J.E., Ullman, J.D.: Introduction to automata theory, languages, and computation. Addison-Wesley, Boston (2001)
Khun, T.: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1962)
Lakatos, I.: The methodology of scientific research programmes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1983)
Moss, S., Gaylard, H., Wallis, S., Edmonds, B.: SDML: A Multi-Agent Language for Organizational Modelling. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory 4, 43–69 (1998), http://cfpm.org/cpmrep16.html
Whitehead, A.N., Russell, B.: Principia mathematica. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1962), originally published (1913)
Wooldridge, M.: Reasoning about Rational Agents. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Edmonds, B. (2004). How Formal Logic Can Fail to Be Useful for Modelling or Designing MAS. In: Lindemann, G., Moldt, D., Paolucci, M. (eds) Regulated Agent-Based Social Systems. RASTA 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2934. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25867-4_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25867-4_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20923-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-25867-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive