Ebook: Non-Monotonic Reasoning: Formalization of Commonsense Reasoning

From preface: Non-monotonic reasoning can be loosely described as the process of drawing conclusions which may be invalidated by new information. Owing to its close relationship to human common-sense reasoning, non-monotonic inference has become one of the major research topics in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

I have attempted to achieve two goals in writing this book. One was to explain what non-monotonic reasoning is and how it has been approached in the AI research. The other was to provide a detailed study of the most influential non-monotonic logics. The book is primarily addressed to students and research workers in AI (and related disciplines), but should also be useful to practitioners involved in expert and intelligent knowledge-based systems.