Skip to main content

Relations between the logic of theory change and nonmonotonic logic

  • Theory Change And Nonmonotonic Reasoning
  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Book cover The Logic of Theory Change

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 465))

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the close relations between the logic of theory change (alias belief revision) on the one hand, and nonmonotonic logic on the other. The connection is most manifest at the level of general conditions on nonmonotonic inference operations, compared to those on theory revision operations. It also appears between some of the specific constructions that have been used in the literature to generate such operations.

After discussing the connection in intuitive terms, we express it as a formal translation procedure, and examine the outcome of translating well-known postulates and conditions from one domain to the other. On the level of specific constructions, we show the exact relationship, which is very close to identity, between the procedure of theory revision known as "full meet revision" and Poole's procedure for generating "default" inference operations.

Several illustrations are given of how results already known in one of the two domains throw light on the other domain, and also how they may suggest interesting open questions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Alchourrón, C.E., P. Gärdenfors, and D. Makinson (1985): "On the logic of theory change: Partial meet contraction and revision functions", The Journal of Symbolic Logic 50, 510–530.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alchourrón, C.E. and D. Makinson (1982): "On the logic of theory change: Contraction functions and their associated revision functions", Theoria 48, 14–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alchourrón, C.E. and D. Makinson (1985): "The logic of theory change: Safe contraction", Studia logica 44, 405–422.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arló Costa, H. and R. Carnota (1989a): "Non monotonic preferential models and conditional logic", manuscript, Depto. de Filosofía, Univ. de Buenos Aires.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arló Costa, H. and R. Carnota (1989b): "Non monotonic logics: Consequence relations and conditional operators", manuscript, Depto. de Filosofía, Univ. de Buenos Aires.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuhrmann, A. (1988): Relevant Logics, Modal Logics and Theory Change (Australian National University: Dept. of Philosophy and Automated Reasoning Project, RSSS).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gärdenfors P. (1988): Knowledge in Flux: Modeling the Dynamics of Epistemic States (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, Bradford Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gärdenfors, P. and D. Makinson. (1988): "Revisions of knowledge systems using epistemic entrenchment", in M. Vardi ed., Proceedings of the Second Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge. (Los Altos, CA: Morgan Kaufmann).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ginsberg, M. (1986): "Counterfactuals", Artificial Intelligence 30, 35–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hansson, S.O. (1989a): "New operators for theory change", Theoria 55, 114–136.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hansson, S.O. (1989b): "A dyadic representation of belief", manuscript, Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kraus, S., D. Lehmann, and M. Magidor, (1990): "Nonmonotonic reasoning, preferential models and cumulative logics", to appear in Artificial Intelligence. A preliminary version appeared as Technical Report TR 88-15 of the Dept. of Computer Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, November 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehmann, D. and M. Magidor (to appear): "Rational logics and their models: A study in cumulative logics". A preliminary version appeared as Technical Report TR 88-16 of the Dept. of Computer Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, November 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D. (1973): Counterfactuals (Oxford: Blackwell).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindström, S. and Rabinowicz, W. (1990): "Epistemic entrenchment with incomparabilities and relational belief revision", this volume.

    Google Scholar 

  • Makinson, D. (1989): "General theory of cumulative inference", in M. Reinfrank, J. de Kleer, M.L. Ginsberg, and E. Sandewall, eds., Non-Monotonic Reasoning (Berlin: Springer Verlag, Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence no 346).

    Google Scholar 

  • Makinson, D. (to appear): "General patterns in nonmonotonic reasoning", to appear as chapter 2 of Handbook of Logic in Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming, Volume II: Non-Monotonic and Uncertain Reasoning. (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Poole, D. (1988): "A logical framework for default reasoning", Artificial Intelligence 36, 27–47.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Reiter R. (1980): "A logic for default reasoning", Artificial Intelligence 13, 81–132.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shoham, Y. (1988): Reasoning about Change. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Stalnaker, R. (1968): "A theory of conditionals", in Studies in Logical Theory (American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph Series no 2), ed. N. Rescher. (Oxford: Blackwell).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

André Fuhrmann Michael Morreau

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Makinson, D., Gärdenfors, P. (1991). Relations between the logic of theory change and nonmonotonic logic. In: Fuhrmann, A., Morreau, M. (eds) The Logic of Theory Change. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 465. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0018421

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0018421

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-53567-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46817-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics