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On the Representation of Normative Sentences in FOL

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Logic Programs, Norms and Action

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7360))

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Abstract

Rules, regulations and policy statements quite frequently contain nested sequences of normative modalities as in, for example:

  • The database manager is obliged to permit the deputy-manager to authorise access for senior departmental staff.

  • Parking on highways ought to be forbidden. [24]

Accordingly, a knowledge-representation language for such sentences must be able to accommodate nesting of this kind. However, if—as some have proposed—normative modalities such as obligatory, permitted, and authorised are to be interpreted as first-order predicates of named actions, then nesting appears to present a problem, since the scope formula of obligatory in “obligatory that it is permitted that a” (where a names an action) is not a name but a sentence.

The ‘disquotation’ theory presented in Kimbrough (“A Note on Interpretations for Federated Languages and the Use of Disquotation”, and elsewhere) may provide a candidate solution to this FOL problem. In this paper we rehearse parts of that theory and evaluate its efficacy for dealing with the indicated normative nesting problem.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kings College London, UK

    Andrew J. I. Jones

  2. University of Pennsylvania, USA

    Steven O. Kimbrough

Authors
  1. Andrew J. I. Jones
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  2. Steven O. Kimbrough
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Software and Knowledge Engineering Laboratory, Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications, National Centre for Scientific Research ’Demokritos’, 15310, Athens, Greece

    Alexander Artikis

  2. Department of Computing, Imperial College London, 180 Queen’s Gate, SW7 2AZ, London, UK

    Robert Craven

  3. Department of Computer Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Dumlupınar Bulvarı No. 1, 06800, Çankaya, Ankara, Turkey

    Nihan Kesim Çiçekli

  4. Axiomatics AB, Box 2157, 103 14, Stockholm, Sweden

    Babak Sadighi

  5. Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

    Kostas Stathis

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Jones, A.J.I., Kimbrough, S.O. (2012). On the Representation of Normative Sentences in FOL. In: Artikis, A., Craven, R., Kesim Çiçekli, N., Sadighi, B., Stathis, K. (eds) Logic Programs, Norms and Action. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7360. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29414-3_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29414-3_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-29413-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-29414-3

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