Production Inference, Nonmonotonicity and Abduction

We introduce a general formalism of production inference relations that posses both a standard monotonic semantics and a natural nonmonotonic semantics. The resulting nonmonotonic system is shown to provide a syntax-independent representation of abductive reasoning. Abduction is a reasoning from facts to their possible explanations that is widely used now in many areas of AI, including diagnosis, truth maintenance, knowledge assimilation, database updates and logic programming. In this study we are going to show that this kind of reasoning can be given a formal, syntax-independent representation in terms of production inference relations that constitute a particular formalization of input-output logics [MdT00]. Among other things, such a representation will clarify the relation between abduction and nonmonotonic reasoning, as well as show the expressive capabilities of production inference as a general-purpose nonmonotonic formalism. We will assume that our basic language is a classic...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: AMAI
• Authors: Alexander Bochman
• Keywords: AMAI 2004, Artificial Intelligence, Natural Nonmonotonic Semantics, Production Inference, Production Inference Relations