## 1. History



Defeasible reasoning has been the subject of study by both
philosophers and computer scientists (especially those involved in the
field of artificial intelligence). The philosophical history of the
subject goes back to Aristotle, while the field of artificial
intelligence has greatly intensified interest in it over the last
forty years.


### 1.1 Philosophy



According to Aristotle, deductive logic (especially in the form of the
syllogism) plays a central role in the articulation of scientific
understanding, deducing observable phenomena from definitions of
natures that hold universally and without exception. However, in the
practical matters of everyday life, we rely upon generalizations that
hold only "for the most part", under normal circumstances,
and the application of such common sense generalizations involves
merely *dialectical* reasoning, reasoning that is defeasible
and falls short of deductive validity. Aristotle lays out a large
number and great variety of examples of such reasoning in his work
entitled the *Topics*.



Investigations in logic after Aristotle (from later antiquity through
the twentieth century) seem to have focused exclusively on deductive
logic. This continued to be true as the predicate logic was developed
by Peirce, Frege, Russell, Whitehead, and others in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With the collapse of logical
positivism in the mid-twentieth century (and the abandonment of
attempts to treat the physical world as a logical construction from
facts about sense data), new attention was given to the relationship
between sense perception and the external world. Roderick Chisholm
(Chisholm 1957; Chisholm 1966) argued that sensory appearances give
good, but defeasible, reasons for believing in corresponding facts
about the physical world. If I am "appeared to redly"
(have the sensory experience as of being in the presence of something
red), then, Chisholm argued, I may presume that I really am in the
presence of something red. This presumption can, of course, be
defeated, if, for example, I learn that my environment is relevantly
abnormal (for instance, all the ambient light is red).



H. L. A. Hart (Hart 1951), at a 1949 meeting of the Aristotelian
Society, noted the centrality of defeasible reasoning in the law,
especially within the Anglo-American common law tradition. Hart
pointed out that judges must take into account exceptional
circumstances in which a legal principle cannot be applied at all or
must be applied in a weakened form. Hart refers explicitly to
conditions that can  *defeat* (Hart 1951, p. 175) the claim
that a contract exists, even when the standard definition of
'contract' is satisfied. A defeasible logic is needed
because a judge is required to make a judgment on the basis of an
incomplete set of facts: those facts that are presented to the judge
by the two parties as germane to the claim.



The idea of defeasibility also showed up in work on the formal theory
of argumentation, including Stephen Toulmin's  *The Uses of
Argument* (Toulmin 1964). Toulmin, building on Hart's
observations, argues for the importance of distinguishing between
warrants and rebuttals (Toulmin 1964, 101ff, 143ff). The formal theory
of argumentation (van Eemeren et al. 2020; Prakken and Vreeswijk 2002)
has proved a fruitful ground for the development of models of
defeasible reasoning.



John L. Pollock developed Chisholm's idea into a theory of
*prima facie reasons* and *defeaters* of those reasons
(Pollock 1967, 1970, 1974, 1987, 1995, 2010). Pollock distinguished
between two kinds of defeaters of a defeasible inference:
*rebutting defeaters* (which give one a prima facie reason for
believing the denial of the original conclusion) and
 *undercutting defeaters*
 (which give one a reason for doubting that the usual relationship
between the premises and the conclusion hold in the given case).
According to Pollock, a conclusion is warranted, given all of
one's evidence, if it is supported by an ultimately undefeated
argument whose premises are drawn from that evidence.


### 1.2 Artificial Intelligence



As the subdiscipline of artificial intelligence took shape in the
1960s, pioneers like John M. McCarthy and Patrick J. Hayes soon
discovered the need to represent and implement the sort of defeasible
reasoning that had been identified by Aristotle and Chisholm. McCarthy
and Hayes (McCarthy and Hayes 1969) developed a formal language they
called the "situation calculus," for use by expert systems
attempting to model changes and interactions among a domain of objects
and actors. McCarthy and Hayes encountered what they called the
*frame problem*: the problem of deciding which conditions will
*not* change in the wake of an event. They required a
defeasible principle of inertia: the presumption that any given
condition will not change, unless required to do so by actual events
and dynamic laws. In addition, they encountered the *qualification
problem*: the need for a presumption that an action can be
successfully performed, once a short list of essential prerequisites
have been met. McCarthy (McCarthy 1977, 1038-1044) suggested
that the solution lay in a logical principle of
*circumscription*: the presumption that the actual situation is
as unencumbered with abnormalities and oddities (including unexplained
changes and unexpected interferences) as is consistent with our
knowledge of it. (McCarthy 1982; McCarthy 1986) In effect, McCarthy
suggests that it is warranted to believe whatever is true in all the
*minimal* (or otherwise *preferred*) models of
one's initial information set.



In the early 1980s, several systems of defeasible reasoning were
proposed by others in the field of artificial intelligence: Ray
Reiter's default logic (Reiter 1980; Etherington and Reiter
1983, 104-108), McDermott and Doyle's Non-Monotonic Logic
I (McDermott and Doyle, 1982), Robert C. Moore's Autoepistemic
Logic (Moore 1985), and Hector Levesque's formalization of the
"all I know" operator (Levesque 1990). These early
proposals involved the search for a kind of *fixed point* or
cognitive equilibrium. Special rules (called *default rules* by
Reiter) permit drawing certain conclusions so long as these
conclusions are consistent with what one knows, including all that one
knows on the basis of these very default rules. In some cases, no such
fixed point exists, and, in others, there are multiple, mutually
inconsistent fixed points. In addition, these systems were procedural
or computational in nature, in contrast to the semantic
characterization of warranted conclusions (in terms of preferred
models) in McCarthy's circumscription system. Later work in
artificial intelligence has tended to follow McCarthy's lead in
this respect.


## 2. Applications and Motivation



Philosophers and theorists of artificial intelligence have found a
wide variety of applications for defeasible reasoning. In some cases,
the defeasibility seems to be grounded in some aspect of the subject
or the context of communication, and in other cases in facts about the
objective world. The first includes defeasible rules as communicative
or representational conventions and *autoepistemic* (reasoning
about one's own knowledge and lack of knowledge). The latter,
the objective sources of defeasibility, include defeasible
obligations, defeasible laws of nature, induction, abduction, and
Ockham's razor (the presumption that the world is as
uncomplicated as possible).


### 2.1 Defeasibility as a Convention of Communication



Much of John McCarthy's early work in artificial intelligence
concerned the interpretation of stories and puzzles (McCarthy and
Hayes 1969; McCarthy 1977). McCarthy found that we often make
assumptions based on what is not said. So, for example, in a puzzle
about safely crossing a river by canoe, we assume that there are no
bridges or other means of conveyance available. Similarly, when using
a database to store and convey information, the information that, for
example, no flight is scheduled at a certain time is represented
simply by *not* listing such a flight. Inferences based on
these conventions are defeasible, however, because the conventions can
themselves be explicitly abrogated or suspended.



Nicholas Asher and his collaborators (Lascarides and Asher 1993, Asher
and Lascarides 2003, Vieu, Bras, Asher, and Aurnague 2005, Txurruka
and Asher 2008) have argued that defeasible reasoning is useful in
unpacking the pragmatics of conversational implicature.


### 2.2 Autoepistemic Reasoning



Robert C. Moore (Moore 1985) pointed out that we sometimes infer
things about the world based on our *not* knowing certain
things. So, for instance, I might infer that I do not have a sister,
since, if I did, I would certainly know it, and I do not in fact know
that I have a sister. Such an inference is, of course, defeasible,
since if I subsequently learn that I have a sister after all, the
basis for the original inference is nullified.


### 2.3 Semantics for Generics and the Progressive



Generic terms (like *birds* in *Birds fly*) are
expressed in English by means of bare common noun phrases (without
determiner). Adverbs like *normally* and *typically* are
also indicators of generic predication. As Asher and Pelletier (Asher
and Pelletier 1997) have argued, the semantics for such sentences
seems to involve intentionality: a generic sentence can be true even
if the majority of the kind, or even all of the kind, fail to conform
to the generalization. It can be true that birds fly even if, as a
result of a freakish accident, all surviving birds are abnormally
flightless. A promising semantic theory for the generic is to
represent generic predication by means of a defeasible rule or
conditional.



The progressive verb involves a similar kind of intentionality. (Asher
1992) If Jones *is crossing the street*, then it would normally
be the case that Jones *will succeed* in crossing the street.
However, this inference is clearly defeasible: Jones might be hit by a
truck midway across and never complete the crossing.


### 2.4 Defeasible Reasons



Jonathan Dancy (Dancy 1993, 2004) has developed and defended an
anti-Humean conception of practical reasoning, according to which it
is the facts themselves, and not our desires, aversions, or other
attitudes towards those facts, that constitute *reasons for
acting*. These facts consist of particulars' having
properties, and those properties provide in each such case some reason
for acting--as, for example, someone's need can provide a reason
for meeting that need. However, each general property can provide a
reason only defeasibly: not only can a reason be overwhelmed by
contrary considerations, but a property's valence for action can
be completely neutralized or even reversed by further considerations.
For example, even if giving pleasure is in general a reason in favor
of acting in a certain way, the fact that some action would give
pleasure to those pleased by the suffering of others is a reason *against* and not for so acting. Dancy has introduced (in Dancy
2004) the concepts of *intensifiers* and *attenuators*,
applying to facts that strengthen or weaken the force of reasons. In
the extreme case, a fact can *disable* a reason altogether,
corresponding to what Joseph Raz had described as an *exclusionary
reason* (Raz 1975), and to John Pollock's idea of an
 undercutting defeater.



To the extent that our practical reasoning is guided at all by general
rules or principles (something that Dancy explicitly denies), the
reasoning must be defeasible, as John Horty has argued (Horty 2007b).
From this perspective, Dancy's thesis of *moral
particularism* corresponds to the potential defeasibility of all
general reasons (see Lance and Little 2004, 2007). Defeasible logic
can enable general rules to play an indispensable role despite the
*reasons holism* that Dancy has uncovered.



In addition, defeasible reasoning can be used to illuminate moral and
legal dilemmas, cases in which general rules come into conflict (see
Horty 1994, 2003). This can be done without attributing logical
inconsistency to the conflicting rules and without treating the
conflict as merely apparent, i.e., as due to an incomplete
representation of the rules.


### 2.5 Defeasible Obligations



Philosophers have, for quite some time, been interested in defeasible
obligations, which give rise to defeasible inferences about what we
are, all things considered, obliged to do. David Ross, in 1930,
discussed the phenomena of *prima facie* obligations (Ross
1930, 1939). The existence of a prima facie obligation gives one good,
but defeasible grounds, for believing that one ought to fulfill that
obligation. When formal *deontic logic* was developed by
Chisholm and others in the 1960s (Chisholm 1963), the use of classical
logic gave rise to certain paradoxes, such as Chisholm's paradox
of contrary-to-duty imperatives. These paradoxes can be resolved by
recognizing that the inference from imperative to actual duty is a
defeasible one (Asher and Bonevac 1996; Nute 1997). 



Such defeasible obligations can also appear in the domain of law: see
Prakken and Sartor 1995 and 1996.


### 2.6 Defeasible Laws of Nature and Scientific Programs



Philosophers David M. Armstrong and Nancy Cartwright have argued that
the actual laws of nature are *oaken* rather than *iron*
(to use Armstrong's terms). (Armstrong 1983; Armstrong 1997,
230-231; Cartwright 1983). Oaken laws admit of exceptions: they
have tacit *ceteris paribus* (other things being equal) or
*ceteris absentibus* (other things being absent) conditions. As
Cartwright points out, an inference based on such a law of nature is
always defeasible, since we may discover that additional
*phenomenological factors* must be added to the law in question
in special cases. 



There are several reasons to think that deductive logic is not an
adequate tool for dealing with this phenomenon. In order to apply
deduction to the laws and the initial conditions, the laws must be
represented in a form that admits of no exceptions. This would require
explicitly stating each potentially relevant condition in the
antecedent of each law-stating conditional. This is impractical, not
only because it makes the statement of each and every law extremely
cumbersome, but also because we know that there are many exceptional
cases that we have not yet encountered and may not be able to imagine.
Defeasible laws enable us to express what we really know to be the
case, rather than forcing us to pretend that we can make an exhaustive
list of all the possible exceptions.



More recently, Tohme, Delrieux, and Bueno (2011) have argued
that defeasible reasoning is crucial to the understanding of
scientific research programs.


### 2.7 Defeasible Principles in Metaphysics and Epistemology



Many classical philosophical arguments, especially those in the
perennial philosophy that endured from Plato and Aristotle to the end
of scholasticism, can be fruitfully reconstructed by means of
defeasible logic. Metaphysical principles, like the laws of nature,
may hold in normal cases, while admitting of occasional exceptions.
The principle of causality, for example, that plays a central role in
the cosmological argument for God's existence, can plausibly
construed as a defeasible generalization (Koons 2001).



As discussed above (in section 1.1), prima facie reasons and defeaters
of those reasons play a central role in contemporary epistemology, not
only in relation to perceptual knowledge, but also in relation to
every other source of knowledge: memory, imagination (as an indicator
of possibility) and testimony, at the very least. In each cases, an
impression or appearance provides good but defeasible evidence of a
corresponding reality.


### 2.8 Occam's Razor and the Assumption of a "Closed World"



Prediction always involves an element of defeasibility. If one predicts
what will, or what would, under some hypothesis, happen, one must
presume that there are no unknown factors that might interfere with
those factors and conditions that are known. Any prediction can be
upset by such unanticipated interventions. Prediction thus proceeds
from the assumption that the situation as modeled constitutes a
*closed world*: that nothing outside that situation could
intrude in time to upset one's predictions. In addition, we seem
to presume that any factor that is not known to be causally relevant
is in fact causally irrelevant, since we are constantly encountering
new factors and novel combinations of factors, and it is impossible to
verify their causal irrelevance in advance. This closed-world
assumption is one of the principal motivations for McCarthy's
logic of circumscription (McCarthy 1982; McCarthy 1986).


## 3. Varieties of Approaches



We can treat the study of defeasible reasoning either (i) as a branch
of epistemology (the theory of knowledge), or (ii) as a branch of
logic. In the epistemological approach, defeasible reasoning can be
studied as a form of inference, that is, as a process by which we add
to our stock of knowledge. Alternatively, we could
treat *defeat* as a relation between arguments in a
disputational discourse. In either version, the epistemological
approach is concerned with the obtaining, maintaining, and
transmission of *warrant*, with the question of when an
inference, starting with justified or warranted beliefs, produces a
new belief that is also warranted, given potential defeaters. This
approach focuses explicitly on the norms of belief persistence and
change.



In contrast, a logical approach to defeasible reasoning fastens on a
relationship between propositions or possible bodies of information.
Just as deductive logic consists of the study of a certain
*consequence relation* between propositions or sets of
propositions (the relation of valid implication), so defeasible (or
*nonmonotonic*) logic consists of the study of a different kind
of consequence relation. Deductive consequence is monotonic: if a set
of premises logically entails a conclusion, than any superset (any set
of premises that includes all of the first set) will also entail that
some conclusion. In contrast, defeasible consequence is nonmonotonic.
A conclusion follows defeasibly or nonmonotonically from a set of
premises just in case it is true in *nearly all* of the models
that verify the premises, or in the *most normal* models that
do.



The two approaches are related. In particular, a logical theory of
defeasible consequence will have epistemological consequences. It is
presumably true that an ideally rational thinker will have a set of
beliefs that are closed under defeasible, as well as deductive,
consequence. However, a logical theory of defeasible consequence would
have a wider scope of application than a merely epistemological theory
of inference. Defeasible logic would provide a mechanism for engaging
in *hypothetical* reasoning, not just reasoning from actual
beliefs.



Conversely, as David Makinson and Peter Gardenfors have pointed
out (Makinson and Gardenfors 1991, 185-205; Makinson 2005),
an epistemological theory of belief change can be used to define a set
of nonmonotonic consequence relations (one relation for each initial
belief state). We can define the consequence relation \(\alpha
\dproves \beta\), for a given set of beliefs \(T\), as holding just in
case the result of adding belief \(\alpha\) to \(T\) would include
belief in \(\beta\). However, on this approach, there would be many
distinct nonmonotonic consequence relations, instead of a single
perspective-independent one.



And, as Phan Minh Dung has argued (Dung 1995), formal argumentation
can also be used to provide a basis for defining a nonmonotonic
consequence relation. A formal argument structure \(F\) is an ordered
pair \([?]A, B[?]\), where \(A\) is a set of arguments, and \(B\) is a
binary relation on \(A\) (the *attack* relation). Then we can
say that an argument structure \(F\) has \(p\) has a consequence just
in case \(p\) is the conclusion of some argument in the
optimal *extension* of \(F\) (which can be defined in a variety
of ways--see section 4.4).


## 4. Epistemological Approaches



There are have been four versions of the epistemological approach,
each of which attempts to define how an cognitively ideal agent
arrives at warranted conclusions, given an initial input. The first
two of these, John L. Pollock's theory of defeasible reasoning
and the theory of semantic inheritance networks, are explicitly
computational in nature. They take as input a complex, structured
state, representing the data available to the agent, and they define a
procedure by which new conclusions can be warranted. The third
approach, based on the theory of belief change (the AGM model)
developed by Alchourron, Gardenfors, and Makinson
(Alchourron, Gardenfors, and Makinson 1982), instead lays
down a set of conditions that an ideal process of belief change ought
to satisfy. The AGM model can be used to define a nonmonotonic
consequence relation that is temporary and local. This can represent
reasoning that is hypothetically or counterfactually defeasible, in
the sense that what "follows" from a conjunctive
proposition \((p \amp q)\) need not be a superset of what
"follows" from \(p\) alone. The fourth approach is that of
formal argumentation theory, in which *defeat* is treated as a
relation between *arguments* within a dialogue


### 4.1 Formal Epistemology



John Pollock's approach to defeasible reasoning consists of
enumerating a set of rules that are constructive and effectively
computable, and that aim at describing how an ideal cognitive agent
builds up a rich set of beliefs, beginning with a relatively sparse
data set (consisting of beliefs about immediate sensory appearances,
apparent memories, and such things). The inferences involved are not,
for the most part, deductive. Instead, Pollock defines, first, what it
is for one belief to be a *prima facie reason* for believing
another proposition. In addition, Pollock defines what it is for one
belief, say in \(p\), to be a *defeater* for \(q\) as
a prima facie reason for \(r\). In fact. Pollock distinguishes
two kinds of defeaters:
 *rebutting defeaters*,
 which are themselves prima facie reasons for believing the negation
of the conclusion, and *undercutting defeaters*, which provide
a reason for doubting that \(q\) provides any support, in the actual
circumstances, for \(r\). (Pollock 1987, 484) A belief is
*ultimately warranted* in relation to a data set (or
*epistemic basis*) just in case it is supported by some
ultimately undefeated argument proceeding from that epistemic
basis.



In Pollock 1995, Pollock uses a directed graph
to represent the structure of an ideal cognitive state. Each directed
link in the network represents the first node's being a prima
facie reason for the second. The new theory includes an account of
*hypothetical*, as well as categorical reasoning, since each
node of the graph includes a (possibly empty) set of hypotheses.
Somewhat surprisingly, Pollock assumes a principle of monotonicity
with respect to hypotheses: a belief that is warranted relative to a
set of hypotheses is also warranted with respect to any superset of
hypotheses. Pollock also permits conditionalization and reasoning by
cases.



An argument is *self-defeating* if it supports a defeater for
one of its own defeasible steps. Here is an interesting example: (1)
Robert says that the elephant beside him looks pink. (2)
Robert's color vision becomes unreliable in the presence of pink
elephants. Ordinarily, belief 1 would support the conclusion that the
elephant is pink, but this conclusion undercuts the argument, thanks
to belief 2. Thus, the argument that the elephant is pink is
self-defeating. Pollock argues that all self-defeating arguments
should be rejected, and that they should not be allowed to defeat
other arguments. In addition, a set of nodes can experience mutual
destruction or *collective defeat* if each member of the set is
defeated by some other member, and no member of the set is defeated by
an undefeated node that is outside the set.



In formalizing the undercutting rebuttal, Pollock introduces a new
connective, \(\otimes\), where \(p \otimes q\) means that it is not
the case that \(p\) wouldn't be true unless \(q\) were
true. Pollock uses rules, rather than conditional propositions, to
express the prima facie relation. If he had, instead, introduced a
special connective \(\Rightarrow\), with \(p \Rightarrow q\) meaning
that \(p\) would be a prima facie reason for \(q\), then undercutting
defeaters could be represented by means of negating this
conditional. To express the fact that \(r\) is an undercutting
defeater of \(p\) as a prima facie reason for \(q\), we could state
both that \((p \Rightarrow q)\) and \(\neg((p \amp r) \Rightarrow
q)\).



In the case of conflicting prima facie reasons, Pollock rejects the
principle of *specificity*, a widely accepted principle
according to which the defeasible rule with the more specific
antecedent takes priority over conflicting rules with less specific
antecedents. Pollock does, however, accept a special case of
specificity in the area of statistical syllogisms with projectible
properties. (Pollock 1995, 64-66) So, if I know that most
\(A\)s are \(B\)s, and the most \(AC\)s are not
\(B\)s, then I should, upon learning that individual \(b\)
is both \(A\) and \(C\), give priority to the \(AC\)
generalization over the \(A\) generalization (concluding that
\(b\) is not a \(B)\).



Pollock's theory of warrant is intended to provide normative
rules for belief, of the form: if you have warranted beliefs that are
prima facie reasons for some further belief, and you have no
ultimately undefeated defeaters for those reasons, then that further
belief is warranted and should be believed. For more details of
Pollock's theory, see the following supplementary document:



> 
> John Pollock's System
> 



Wolfgang Spohn (Spohn 2002) has argued that Pollock's system is
*normatively defective* because, in the end, Pollock has no
normative standard to appeal to, other than ad hoc intuitions about
how a reasonable person would respond to this or that cognitive
situation. Spohn suggests that, with respect to the state of
development of the study of defeasible reasoning, Pollock's
theory corresponds to C. I. Lewis's early investigations into
modal logic. Lewis suggested a number of possible axiom systems, but
lacked an adequate semantic theory that could provide an independent
check on the correctness or completeness of any given list (of the
kind that was later provided by Kripke and Kanger). Analogously, Spohn
argues that Pollock's system is in need of a unifying normative
standard. This very same criticism can be lodged, with equal justice,
against a number of other theories of defeasible reasoning, including
semantic inheritance networks and default logic.


### 4.2 Semantic Inheritance Networks



The system of semantic inheritance networks, developed by Horty,
Thomason, and Touretzky (1990), is similar to Pollock's system.
Both represent cognitive states by means of directed graphs, with
links representing defeasible inferences. The semantic inheritance
network theory has a intentionally narrower scope: the initial nodes
of the network represent particular individuals, and all non-initial
nodes represent kinds, categories or properties. A link from an
initial (individual) node to a category node represents simply
predication: that Felix (initial node) is a cat (category node), for
example. Links between category nodes represent defeasible or generic
inclusion: that birds (normally or usually) are flying things. To be
more precise, there are both positive ("is a") and
negative ("is not a") links. The negative links are
usually represented by means of a slash through the body of the
arrow.



Semantic inheritance networks differ from Pollock's system in
two important ways. First, they cannot represent one fact's
constituting an *undercutting* defeater of an inference,
although they can represent *rebutting* defeaters. For example,
they do not allow an inference from the apparent color of an elephant
to its actual color to be undercut by the information that my color
vision is unreliable, unless I have information about the actual color
of the elephant that contradicts its apparent color. Secondly, they do
incorporate the principle of specificity (the principle that rules
with more specific antecedents take priority in case of conflict) into
the very definition of a warranted conclusion. In fact, in contrast to
Pollock, the semantic inheritance approach gives priority to rules
whose antecedents are weakly or defeasibly more specific. That is, if
the antecedent of one rule is defeasibly linked to the antecedent of a
second rule, the first rule gains priority. For example, if Quakers
are typically pacifists, then, when reasoning about a Quaker pacifist,
rules pertaining to Quakers would override rules pertaining to
pacifists. For the details of semantic inheritance theory, see the
following supplementary document:



> 
> Semantic Inheritance Networks.
>  



David Makinson (Makinson 1994) has pointed out that semantic network
theory is very sensitive to the form in which defeasible information
is represented. There is a great difference between having a direct
link between two nodes and having a path between the two nodes being
supported by the graph as a whole. The notion of preemption gives
special powers to explicitly given premises over conclusions. Direct
links always take priority over longer paths. Consequently,
inheritance networks lack two desirable metalogical properties: cut
and cautious monotony (which will be covered in more detail in the
section on Logical Approaches).


* Cut: If \(G\) is a subgraph of \(G'\), and every
link in \(G'\) corresponds to a path supported by
\(G\), then every path supported by \(G\) is also supported
by \(G'\).
* Cautious Monotony: If \(G\) is a subgraph of
\(G'\), and every link in \(G'\) corresponds to
a path supported by \(G\), then every path supported by
\(G'\) is also supported by \(G\).



Cumulativity (Cut plus Cautious Monotony) corresponds to reasoning by
lemmas or subconclusions. The Horty-Thomason-Touretzky system does
satisfy special cases of Cut and Cautious Monotony: if \(A\) is
an atomic statement (a link from an individual to a category), then if
graph \(G\) supports \(A\), then for any statement
\(B, G \cup \{A\}\) supports \(B\) if and
only if \(G\) supports \(B\).



Another form of inference that is not supported by semantic
inheritance networks is that of reasoning by cases or by dilemma. In
addition, semantic networks do not license modus-tollens-like
inferences: from the fact that birds normally fly and Tweety does not
fly, we are not licensed to infer that Tweety is not a bird. (This
feature is also lacking in Pollock's system.)


### 4.3 Belief Revision Theory



Alchourron, Gardenfors, and Makinson (1982) developed a
formal theory of belief revision and contraction, drawing largely on
Willard van Orman Quine's model of the *web of belief*
(Quine and Ullian 1970). The cognitive agent is modelled as believing
a set of propositions that are ordered by their degree of
entrenchment. This model provides the basis for a set of normative
constraints on belief contraction (subtracting a belief) and belief
revision (adding a new belief that is inconsistent with the original
set). When a belief is added that is logically consistent with the
original belief set, the agent is supposed to believe the logical
closure of the original set plus the new belief. When a belief is
added that is inconsistent with the original set, the agent retreats
to the most entrenched of the maximal subsets of the set that are
consistent with the new belief, adding the new proposition to that set
and closing under logical consequence. For the axioms of the AGM
model, see the following supplementary document:



> 
> AGM Postulates
> 



AGM belief revision theory can be used as the basis for a system of
defeasible reasoning or nonmonotonic logic, as Gardenfors and
Makinson have recognized (Makinson and Gardenfors 1991). If
\(K\) is an epistemic state, then a nonmonotonic consequence
relation
\(\dproves\)
can be defined as follows: \(A \dproves B\) iff \(B \in K \* A\). Unlike
Pollock's system or semantic inheritance networks, this
defeasible consequence relation depends upon a background epistemic
state. Thus, the belief revision approach gives rise, not to a single
nonmonotonic consequence relation, but to family of relations. Each
background state \(K\) gives rise to its own characteristic
consequence relation.



One significant limitation of the belief-revision approach is that
there is no representation in the object-language of a defeasible or
default rule or conditional (that is, of a conditional of the form
*If p, then normally q* or *That p would be a prima facie
reason for accepting that q*). In fact, Gardenfors
(Gardenfors 1978; Gardenfors 1986) proved that no
conditional satisfying the Ramsey test can be added to the AGM system
without trivializing the revision
 relation.[1]
 (A conditional \(\Rightarrow\) satisfies the Ramsey test just in
case, for every epistemic state \(K, K\) includes \((A \Rightarrow
B)\) iff \(K \* A\) includes \(B\).)



Since the AGM system cannot include conditional beliefs, it cannot
elucidate the question of what logical relationships hold between
conditional defaults.



The lack of a representation of conditional beliefs is closely
connected to another limitation of the AGM system: its inability to
model repeated or *iterated* belief revision. The input to a
belief change is an epistemic state, consisting both of a set of
propositions believed and an entrenchment relation on that set. The
output of an AGM revision, in contrast, consists simply of a set of
beliefs. The system provides no guidance on the question of what would
be the result of revising an epistemic state in two or more steps. If
the entrenchment relation could be explicitly represented by means of
conditional propositions, then it would be possible to define the new
entrenchment relation that would result from a single belief revision,
making iterated belief revision representable. A number of proposals
along these lines have been made. The difficulty lies in defining
exactly what would constitute a *minimal* change in the
relative entrenchment or epistemic ranking of a set of beliefs. To
this point, no clear consensus has emerged on this question. (See
Spohn 1988; Nayak 1994; Wobcke 1995; Bochman 2001.)



On the larger question of the relation between belief revision and
defeasible reasoning, there are two possibilities: that a theory of
defeasible reasoning should be grounded in a theory of belief
revision, and that a theory of belief revision should be grounded in a
theory of defeasible reasoning. The second view has been defended by
John Pollock (Pollock 1987; Pollock 1995) and by Hans Rott (Rott
1989). On this second view, we must make a sharp distinction between
basic or foundational beliefs on the one hand and inferred or derived
beliefs on the other. We can then model belief change on the
assumption that new beliefs are added to the foundation (and are
logically consistent with the existing set of those beliefs). Beliefs
can be added which are inconsistent with previous inferred beliefs,
and the new belief state consists simply in the closure of the new
foundational set under the relation of defeasible consequence. On such
an approach, default conditionals can be explicitly represented among
the agent's beliefs. Gardenfors's triviality result
is then avoided by rejecting one of the assumptions of the theorem,
*preservation*:



**Preservation**:  

If \(\neg A \not\in K\),then \(K \subseteq K \* A\).



From the perspective that uses defeasible reasoning to define belief
revision, there is no good reason to accept Preservation. One can add
a belief that is consistent with what one already believes and thereby
*lose* beliefs, since the new information might be an
undercutting defeater to some defeasible inference that had been
successful.


### 4.4 Formal Argumentation Theory



Phan Minh Dung (Dung 1995) initiated a new and fruitful approach to
defeasible reasoning, one that focuses on the structure of
arguments. Dung defines an *argument structure* as an ordered
pair \( [?] A, B [?] \), in which \(A\) is a set of arguments and \(B\) is
a binary relation on \(A\), representing the *attacks*
relation. In other words, if \( [?] x, y [?] \in B\), then argument \(x\)
is representing as attacking argument \(y\) in some way. An argument
is a sequence of propositions, with the last proposition designated as
its conclusion. (The premises of an argument can be null, in which
case we can treat the argument as equivalent to the assertion of the
single proposition it contains.) 



Dung's approach doesn't distinguish between the various ways in which
one argument can attack another, such as rebutting, undermining, or
undercutting, although this additional information can be added by
differentiating several types of attack relations. One
argument *rebuts* another when their conclusions are
contradictories. An argument *undermines* a second argument
when the conclusion of the first contradicts one of the premises of
the second. And an argument *undercuts* another when its
conclusion provides reason for doubting that the premises of the
second are in the actual circumstances reliable indicators of the
truth of the conclusion. In many applications, these distinctions can
be ignored. However, Henry Prakken (Prakken 2010) makes use of all
three forms of attack in his ASPIC+ system.



Central to Dung's approach is the idea of an *admissible*
set of arguments relative to an argument structure. A set of arguments
\(A\) is admissible if and only if it is conflict free (no argument in
\(A\) attacks another argument in \(A\)), and there is every argument
that attacks something in \(A\) is itself attacked by something in
\(A\). In other words, \(A\) can defeat everything that defeats one of
its members. Dung's approach incorporates the principle: "the
one who laughs last, laughs best."


A *preferred extension* of an argument structure is a
maximal admissible set of the structure. Every structure possesses at
least one preferred extension. A *stable extension* of a
structure is a conflict-free set \(S\) that attacks each argument that
does not belong to \(S\). Every stable extension is a preferred
extension, but not vice versa. Some structures do not have stable
extensions. Leendert van der Torre and Srdjan Vesic (van der Torre and
Vesic 2018) outline the full range of definitions of extensions, along
with the principles of rationality they embody.


The characteristic function \(F\_{AS}\) of an argument structure
\(AF\) is defined as follows:



\(F\_{AS}\)(\(S\)) = {\(A\): \(A\) is acceptable with respect to \(S\)}




The *grounded extension* of an argument structure is the
least fixed point of its characteristic function. An extension \(S\)
is *complete* if it contains every argument that is admissible
with respect to \(S\). The grounded extension is the minimal complete
extension of a structure. If a structure is well-founded (with no
infinite regress of attack relations, then the structure has a unique
complete extension that is grounded, preferred, and stable (Dung 1995,
331).



These various notions of optimal extension can be used to define when
a proposition has been proved or refuted in a particular structure,
depending on whether the proposition or its negation belongs to the
optimal extension of the structure.



Gerald Vreeswijk (Vreeswijk 1997) has built upon Dung's
framework by introducing preference relations among arguments. The
relation of relative conclusive force could be determined by such
factors as the presence or absence of defeasible rules, the occurrence
of a premise of one argument as the conclusion of another, the number
of steps in the argument, or the use in the arguments of defeasible
rules with varying degrees of reliability. The HERMES system of
Karacapilidis and Papadias (Karacapilidis and Papadias 2001)
implements numeric weights for reasons for and against a
conclusion.



Henry Prakken (Prakken 2010) has expanded Dung's model by
including support as well as attack relations between arguments. Bart
Verheij's DefLog system (Verheij 2003, 2005) makes use of a
conditional to represent support and a negation operator to represent
attack. Anthony Hunter, Sylwia Polberg, and Matthias Thimm (Hunter et
al. 2020) have recently used epistemic graphs to represent both
positive and negative interactions among arguments.



Others have used probabilities to measure the comparative strength of
arguments: Dung and Thang (2010), Verheij (2012), and Hunter
(2013).


## 5. Logical Approaches



Logical approaches to defeasible reasoning treat the subject as a part
of logic: the study of *nonmonotonic* consequence relations (in
contrast to the monotonicity of classical logic). These relations are
defined on propositions, not on the beliefs of an agent, so the focus
is not on epistemology per se, although a theory of nonmonotonic logic
will certainly have implications for epistemology.


### 5.1 Relations of Logical Consequence



A consequence relation is a mathematical relation that models what
follows logically from what. Consequence relations can be defined in a
variety of ways, such as Hilbert, Tarski, and Scott relations. A
Hilbert consequence relation is a relation between pairs of formulas,
a Tarski relation is a relation between sets of formulas (possibly
infinite) and individual formulas, and a Scott relation is a relation
between two sets of formulas. In the case of Hilbert and Tarski
relations, \(A \vDash B\) or \(\Gamma \vDash B\) mean
that the formula \(B\) follows from formula \(A\) or from
set of formulas \(\Gamma\). In the case of Scott consequence relations,
\(\Gamma \vDash \Delta\) means that the joint truth of all the members
of \(\Gamma\) implies (in some sense) the truth of at least one member of
\(\Delta\). To this point, studies of nonmonotonic logic have defined
nonmonotonic consequence relations in the style of Hilbert or Tarski,
rather than Scott.



A (Tarski) consequence relation is *monotonic* just in case it
satisfies the following condition, for all formulas \(p\) and all
sets \(\Gamma\) and \(\Delta\):



**Monotonicity**:  

If \(\Gamma \vDash p\), then \(\Gamma \cup \Delta \vDash p\).



Any consequence relation that fails this condition is
*nonmonotonic*. A relation of defeasible consequence clearly
must be nonmonotonic, since a defeasible inference can be defeated by
adding additional information that constitutes a rebutting or
undercutting defeater.


### 5.2 Metalogical Desiderata



Once monotonicity is given up, the question arises: why call the
relation of defeasible consequence a *logical consequence*
relation at all? What properties do defeasible consequence and
classical logical consequence have in common, that would justify
treating them as sub-classes of the same category? What justifies
calling nonmonotonic consequence *logical*?



To count as *logical*, there are certain minimal properties
that a relation must satisfy. First, the relation ought to permit
reasoning by lemmas or subconclusions. That is, if a proposition
\(p\) already follows from a set \(\Gamma\), then it should make no
difference to add \(p\) to \(\Gamma\) as an additional premise.
Relations that satisfy this condition are called *cumulative*.
Cumulative relations satisfy the following two conditions (where
"\(C(\Gamma)\)" represents the set of defeasible
consequences of \(\Gamma)\):



**Cut**:  

If \(\Gamma \subseteq \Delta \subseteq C(\Gamma)\), then \(C(\Delta) \subseteq C(\Gamma)\).



**Cautious Monotony**:  
 
If \(\Gamma \subseteq \Delta
\subseteq C(\Gamma)\), then \(C(\Gamma) \subseteq C(\Delta)\).



In addition, a defeasible consequence relation ought to be
*supraclassical*: if \(p\) follows from \(q\) in
classical logic, then it ought to be included in the defeasible
consequences of \(q\) as well. A formula \(q\) ought to
count as an (at least) defeasible consequence of itself, and anything
included in the content of \(q\) (any formula \(p\) that
follows from \(q\) in classical logic) ought to count as a
defeasible consequence of \(q\) as well. Moreover, the defeasible
consequences of a set \(\Gamma\) ought to depend only on the content of
the formulas in \(\Gamma\), not in how that content is represented.
Consequently, the defeasible consequence relation ought to treat
\(\Gamma\) and the classical logical closure of \(\Gamma\) (which we'll
represent as "\(Cn(\Gamma)\)") in exactly the same
way. A consequence relation that satisfies these two conditions is
said to satisfy *full absorption* (see Makinson 1994, 47).



**Full Absorption**:  

\(Cn(C(\Gamma)) = C(\Gamma) = C(Cn(\Gamma))\)



Finally, a genuinely logical consequence relation ought to enable us
to reason by cases. So, it should satisfy a principle called
distribution: if a formula \(p\) follows defeasibly from both
\(q\) and \(r\), then it ought to follow from their
disjunction. (To require the converse principle would be to reinstate
monotonicity.) The relevant principle is this:



**Distribution**:  

\(C(\Gamma) \cap C(\Delta) \subseteq C(Cn(\Gamma) \cap Cn(\Delta))\).



Consequence relations that are cumulative, strongly absorptive, and
distributive satisfy a number of other desirable properties, including
*conditionalization*: If a formula \(p\) is a defeasible
consequence of \(\Gamma \cup \{q\}\), then the material
conditional \((q \rightarrow p)\) is a defeasible consequence
of \(\Gamma\) alone. In addition, such logics satisfy the property of
*loop*: if \(p\_1 \dproves p\_2 \ldots p\_{n-1} \dproves p\_n\) (where "
\(\dproves\)
" represents the defeasible consequence relation), then the
defeasible consequences of \(p\_i\) and
\(p\_j\) are exactly the same, for any
\(i\) or
 \(j\).[2]



There are three further conditions that have been much discussed in
the literature, but whose status remains controversial:
*disjunctive rationality*, *rational monotony*, and
*consistency preservation*.




**Disjunctive Rationality**:  

If \(\Gamma \cup \{p\} \notdproves r\), and \(\Gamma \cup \{q\}
\notdproves r\), then \(\Gamma \cup \{\)(p \(\vee\) q)\(\} \notdproves
r\).



**Rational Monotony**:  

If \(\Gamma \dproves A\), then either \(\Gamma \cup \{B\} \dproves A\)
or \(\Gamma \dproves \neg B\).



**Consistency Preservation**:  

If \(\Gamma\) is classically consistent, then so is \(C(\Gamma)\) (the
set of defeasible consequences of \(\Gamma)\).




All three properties seem desirable, but they set a very hight
standard for the defeasible reasoner.


### 5.3 Default Logic



Ray Reiter's default logic (Reiter 1980; Etherington and Reiter
1983) was part of the first generation of defeasible systems developed
in the field of artificial intelligence. The relative ease of
computing default extensions has made it one of the more popular
systems.



Reiter's system is based on the use of *default rules*. A
default rule consists of three formulas: the *prerequisite*,
the *justification*, and the *consequent*. If one
accepts the prerequisite of a default rule, and the justification is
consistent with all one knows (including what one knows on the basis
of the default rules themselves), then one is entitled to accept the
consequent. The most popular use of default logic relies solely on
*normal defaults*, in which the justification and the
consequent are identical. Thus, a normal default of the form
\((p\); \(q \therefore q)\) allows one to infer
\(q\) from \(p\), so long as \(q\) is consistent with
one's endpoint (the *extension* of the default
theory).



A default theory consists of a set of formulas (the facts), together
with a set of default rules. An *extension* of a default theory
is a fixed point of a particular inferential process: an extension
\(E\) must be a consistent theory (a consistent set closed under
classical consequence) that contains all of the facts of the default
theory \(T\), and, in addition, for each normal default
\((p \Rightarrow q)\), if \(p\) belongs to \(E\),
and \(q\) is consistent with \(E\), then \(q\) must
belong to \(E\) also.



Since the consequence relation is defined by a fixed-point condition,
there are default theories that have no extension at all, and other
theories that have multiple, mutually inconsistent extensions. For
example, the theory consisting of the fact \(p\) and the pair of
defaults \((p\) ; \((q \amp r) \therefore q)\) and \((q\) ; \(\neg r
\therefore \neg r)\) has no extension. If the first default is
applied, then the second must be, and if the second default is not
applied, the first must be. However, the conclusion of the second
default contradicts the prerequisite of the first, so the first cannot
be applied if the second is. There are many default theories that have
multiple extensions. Consider the theory consisting of the facts \(q\)
and r and the pair of defaults \((q\) ; \(p \therefore p)\) and \((r\)
; \(\neg p \therefore \neg p)\). One or the other, but not both,
defaults must be applied. 



Furthermore, there is no guarantee that if \(E\) and
\(E'\) are both extensions of theory \(T\), then the
intersection of \(E\) and \(E'\) is also an extension
(the intersection of two fixed points need not be itself a fixed
point). Default logic is usually interpreted as a *credulous*
system: as a system of logic that allows the reasoner to select
*any* extension of the theory and believe all of the members of
that theory, even though many of the resulting beliefs will involve
propositions that are missing from other extensions (and may even be
contradicted in some of those extensions).



Default logic fails many of the tests for a logical relation that were
introduced in the previous section. It satisfied Cut and Full
Absorption, but it fails Cautious Monotony (and thus fails to be
cumulative). In addition, it fails Distribution, a serious limitation
that rules out reasoning by cases. For example, if one knows that
Smith is either Amish or Quaker, and both Quakers and Amish are
normally pacifists, one cannot infer that Smith is a pacifist. Default
logic also fails to represent Pollock's *undercutting
defeaters*. Finally, default logic does not incorporate any form
of the principle of *Specificity*, the principle that defaults
with more specific prerequisites ought, in cases of conflict, to take
priority over defaults with less specific prerequisites. Recently,
John Horty (Horty 2007a, 2007b) has examined the implications of
adding priorities among defaults (in the form of a partial ordering),
which would permit the recognition of specificity and other grounds
for preferring one default to another. In addition, Horty allows for
defeasible reasoning about these priorities (the relative weights of
various defaults) by means of higher-order default rules. Such
defeasible reasoning about relative weights enables Horty to give an
account of Pollock's
 undercutting defeaters:
 an undercutting defeater is a triggered default rule that lowers the
weight of the undercut rule below some threshold, with the result that
the undercut rule can no longer be triggered.


### 5.4 Nonmonotonic Logic I and Autoepistemic Logic



In both McDermott-Doyle's Nonmonotonic Logic I and Moore's
Autoepistemic logic (McDermott and Doyle, 1982; Moore, 1985; Konolige
1994), a modal operator \(M\) (representing a kind of epistemic
possibility) is used. Default rules take the following form: \(((p
\amp Mq) \rightarrow q)\), that is, if \(p\) is true and \(q\) is
"possible" (in the relevant sense), then \(q\) is also
true. In both cases, the extension of a theory is defined, as in
Reiter's default logic, by means of a fixed-point
operation. \(Mp\) represents the fact that \(\neg p\) does not belong
to the extension. For example, in Moore's case, a set \(\Delta\)
is a *stable expansion* of a theory \(\Gamma\) just in case
\(\Delta\) is the set of classical consequences of the set \(\Gamma
\cup \{\neg Mp: p \in \Delta \} \cup \{Mp: p \not\in \Delta \}\). As
in the case of Reiter's default logic, some theories will lack a
stable expansion, or have more than one. In addition, these systems
fail to incorporate *Specificity*.


### 5.5 Circumscription



In circumscription (McCarthy 1982; McCarthy 1986; Lifschitz 1988), one
or more predicates of the language are selected for minimization
(there is, in addition, a further technical question of which
predicates to treat as fixed and which to treat as variable). The
nonmonotonic consequences of a theory \(T\) then consist of all
the formulas that are true in every model of \(T\) that minimizes
the extensions of the selected predicates. One model \(M\) of
\(T\) is preferred to another, \(M'\), if and only if,
for each designated predicate \(F\), the extension of \(F\)
in \(M\) is a subset of the extension of \(F\) in
\(M'\), and, for some such predicate, the extension in
\(M\) is a *proper subset* of the extension in
\(M'\).



The relation of circumscriptive consequence has all the desirable
meta-logical properties. It is cumulative (satisfies Cut and Cautious
Monotony), strongly absorptive, and distributive. In addition, it
satisfies Consistency Preservation, although not Rational
Monotony.



The most critical problem in applying circumscription is that of
deciding on what predicates to minimize (there is, in addition, a
further technical question about which predicates to treat as fixed
and which as variable in extension). Most often what is done is to
introduce a family of *abnormality* predicates \(ab\_1, ab\_2\),
etc. A default rule then can be written in the form: \(\forall x((F(x)
\amp \neg ab\_i (x) ) \rightarrow G(x))\), where
"\(\rightarrow\)" is the ordinary material conditional of
classical logic. To derive the consequences of a theory, all of the
abnormality predicates are simultaneously minimized. This simple
approach fails to satisfy the principle of Specificity, since each
default is given its own, independent abnormality predicate, and each
is therefore treated with the same priority. It is possible to add
special rules for the prioritizing of circumscription, but these are,
of necessity, ad hoc and exogenous, rather than a natural result of
the definition of the consequence relation.



Circumscription does have the capacity of representing the existence
of *undercutting defeaters*. Suppose that satisfying predicate
\(F\) provides a prima facie reason for supposing something to be
a \(G\), and suppose that we use the abnormality predicate
\(ab\_1\) in representing this default rule. We can
state that the predicate \(H\) provides an undercutting defeater
to this inference by simply adding the rule: \(\forall x
(H(x) \rightarrow ab\_1 (x))\),
stating that all \(H\)s are abnormal in respect number 1.


### 5.6 Preferential Logics



Circumscription is a special case of a wider class of defeasible
logics, the *preferential* logics (Shoham 1987). In
preferential logics, \(\Gamma \dproves p\) iff \(p\) is true in all of the *most
preferred* models of \(\Gamma\). In the case of circumscription, the
most preferred models are those that minimize the extension of certain
predicates, but many other kinds of preference relations can be used
instead, so long as the preference relations are transitive and
irreflexive (a strict partial order). A structure consisting of a set
of models of a propositional or first-order language, together with a
preference order on those models, is called a *preferential
structure*. The symbol \(\prec\) shall represent the preference
relation. \(M \prec M'\) means that \(M\)
is strictly preferred to \(M'\). A most preferred model is
one that is *minimal* in the ordering.



In order to give rise to a cumulative logic (one that satisfies Cut
and Cautious Monotony), we must add an additional condition to the
preferential structures, a Limit Assumption (also known as the
condition of *stopperedness* or *smoothness*:



**Limit Assumption**: Given a theory \(T\), and
\(M\), a non-minimal model of \(T\), there exists a model
\(M'\) which is preferred to \(M\) and which is a
minimal model of \(T\).



The Limit Assumption is satisfied if the preferential structure does
not contain any infinite descending chains of more and more preferred
models, with no minimal member. This is a difficult condition to
motivate as natural, but without it, we can find preferential
structures that give rise to nonmonotonic consequence relations that
fail to be cumulative.



Once we have added the Limit Assumption, it is easy to show that any
consequence relation based upon a preferential model is not only
cumulative but also supraclassical, strongly absorptive, and
distributive. Let's call such logics *preferential*. In
fact, Kraus, Lehmann, and Magidor (Kraus, Lehmann, and Magidor 1990;
Makinson 1994, 77; Makinson 2005, PAGE) proved the following
representation theorem for preferential logics:



**Representation Theorem for Preferential Logics**: if
\(\dproves\) is a cumulative, supraclassical, strongly absorptive, and
distributive consequence relation (i.e., a preferential relation) then
there is a preferential structure \(\mathcal{M}\) satisfying the Limit
Assumption such that for all *finite* theories \(T\), the set
of \(\dproves\) -consequences of \(T\) is exactly the set of formulas
true in every preferred model of \(T\)
 in M.[3]



There are preferential logics that fail to satisfy consistency
preservation, as well as disjunctive rationality and rational
monotony:



**Disjunctive Rationality**:  

If \(\Gamma \cup \{p\} \notdproves r\), and \(\Gamma \cup \{q\}
\notdproves r\), then \(\Gamma \cup \{(p \vee q)\} \notdproves
r\).



**Rational Monotony**:   

If \(\Gamma \dproves p\), then either \(\Gamma \cup \{q\} \dproves p\)
or \(\Gamma \dproves \neg q\).



A very natural condition has been found by Kraus, Lehmann, and Magidor
that corresponds to Rational Monotony: that of *ranked models*.
(No condition on preference structures has been found that ensures
disjunctive rationality without also ensuring rational monotony.) A
preferential structure \(\mathcal{M}\) satisfies the
Ranked Models condition just in case there is a function \(r\)
that assigns an ordinal number to each model in such a way that
\(M \prec M'\) iff \(r(M) \lt r(M')\). Let's say that a preferential
consequence relation is a *rational* relation just in case it
satisfies Rational Monotony, and that a preferential structure is a
*rational* structure just in case it satisfies the ranked
models condition. Kraus, Lehmann, and Magidor (Kraus, Lehmann, and
Magidor 1990; Makinson 1994, 71-81) also proved the following
representation theorem:



**Representation Theorem for Rational Logics**: if
\(\dproves\) is a rational consequence relation (i.e., a preferential
relation that satisfies Rational Monotony) then there is a
preferential structure \(\mathcal{M}\) satisfying the Limit Assumption
and the Ranked Models Assumption such that for all finite theories
\(T\), the set of \(\dproves\) -consequences of \(T\) is exactly the
set of formulas true in every preferred model of \(T\) in
\(\mathcal{M}\).



Freund proved an analogous representation result for preferential
logics that satisfy *disjunctive rationality*, replacing the
ranking condition with a weaker condition of *filtered models*:
a filtered model is one such that, for every formula, if two worlds
non-minimally satisfy the formula, then there is a world less than
both of them that also satisfies the formula (Freund 1993).


### 5.7 Logics of Extreme Probabilities



Lehmann and Magidor (Lehmann and Magidor 1992) noticed an interesting
coincidence: the metalogical conditions for preferential consequence
relations correspond exactly to the axioms for a logic of conditionals
developed by Ernest W. Adams (Adams
1975).[4]
Adams's logic was based on a conditional, \(\Rightarrow\),
intended to represent a relation of very high conditional probability:
\((p \Rightarrow q)\) means that the conditional probability
\(Pr(q/p)\) is extremely close to 1. Adams used the standard
delta-epsilon definition of the calculus to make this idea
precise. Let us suppose that a theory \(T\) consists of a set of
conditional-free formulas (the facts) and a set of probabilistic
conditionals. A conclusion \(p\) follows defeasibly from \(T\) if and
only if every probability function satisfies the following
condition:



For every \(\delta\), there is an \(\varepsilon\) such that, if the probability
of every fact in \(T\) is assigned a probability at least as high
as \(1 - \varepsilon\), and every conditional in \(T\) is
assigned a conditional probability at least as high as \(1 -
\varepsilon\), then the probability of the conclusion \(p\) is at
least \(1 - \delta\).



The resulting defeasible consequence relation is a preferential
relation. (It need not, however, be consistency-preserving.) This
consequence relation also corresponds to a relation, 0-entailment,
defined by Judea Pearl (Pearl 1990), as the common core to all
defeasible consequence relations.



Lehmann and Magidor (1992) proposed a variation on Adams's idea.
Instead of using the delta-epsilon construction, they made use of
nonstandard measure theory, that is, a theory of probability functions
that can take values that are *infinitesimals* (infinitely
small numbers). In addition, instead of defining the consequence
relation by quantifying over *all* probability functions,
Lehmann and Magidor assume that we can select a single probability
function (representing something like the ideally rational, or
objective probability). On their construction, a conclusion \(p\)
follows from \(T\) just in case the probability of \(p\) is
infinitely close to 1, on the assumption that the probabilities
assigned to members of \(T\) are infinitely close to 1. Lehmann
and Magidor proved that the resulting consequence relation is always
not only preferential: it is also *rational*. The logic defined
by Lehmann and Magidor also corresponds exactly to the theory of
Popper functions, another extension of probability theory designed to
handle cases of conditioning on propositions with infinitesimal
probability (see Harper 1976; van Fraassen 1995; Hawthorne 1998). For
a brief discussion of Popper functions, see the following
supplementary document:



Popper Functions




Arlo Costa and Parikh, using van Fraassen's account (van
Fraassen, 1995) of primitive conditional probabilities (a variant of
Popper functions), proved a representation result for both finite and
infinite languages (Arlo Costa and Parikh, 2005). For infinite
languages, they assumed an axiom of countable additivity for
probabilities.



Kraus, Lehmann, and Magidor proved that, for every preferential
consequence relation \(\dproves\) that is probabilistically
 admissible,[5]
 there is a unique rational consequence relation \(\dproves^\*\) that
minimally extends it (that is, that the intersection of all the
rational consequence relations extending \(\dproves\) is also a
rational consequence relation). This relation, \(\dproves^\*\), is
called the *rational closure* of \(\dproves\). To find the
rational closure of a preferential relation, one can perform the
following operation on a preferential structure that supports that
relation: assign to each model in the structure the smallest number
possible, respecting the preference relation. Judea Pearl also
proposed the very same idea under the name
*1-entailment* or *System \(Z\)* (Pearl 1990).



A critical advantage to the Lehmann-Magidor-Pearl 1-entailment system
over Adams's epsilon-entailment lies in the way in which
1-entailment handles irrelevant information. Suppose, for example,
that we know that birds fly \((B \Rightarrow F)\), Tweety is
a bird \((B)\), and Nemo is a whale \((W)\). These premises
do not epsilon-entail \(F\) (that Tweety flies), since there is
no guarantee that a probability function assign a high probability to
\(F\), given the *conjunction* of \(B\) and
\(W\). In contrast, 1-entailment does give us the conclusion
\(F\).



Moreover, 1-entailment satisfies a condition of *weak independence
of defaults*: conditionals with logically unrelated antecedents
can "fire" independently of each other: one can warrant a
conclusion even though we are given an explicit exception to the
other. Consider, for example, the following case: birds fly \((B
\Rightarrow F)\), Tweety is a bird that doesn't fly \((B \amp
\neg F)\), whales are large \((W \Rightarrow L)\), and Nemo is a whale
\((W)\). These premises 1-entail that Nemo is large \((L)\). In
addition, 1-entailment automatically satisfies the principle of
Specificity: conditionals with more specific antecedents are always
given priority over those with less specific antecedents.



There is another form of independence, *strong independence*,
that even 1-entailment fails to satisfy. If we are given one exception
to a rule involving a given antecedent, then we are unable to use any
conditional with the same antecedent to derive any conclusion
whatsoever. Suppose, for example, that we know that birds fly \((B
\Rightarrow F)\), Tweety is a bird that doesn't fly \((B \amp
\neg F)\), and birds lay eggs \((B \Rightarrow E)\). Even under
1-entailment, the conclusion that Tweety lays eggs \((E)\) fails to
follow. This failure to satisfy Strong Independence is also known
as *the Drowning Problem* (since all conditionals with the same
antecedent are "drowned" by a single exception).



A consensus is growing that the Drowning Problem should not be
"solved" (see Pelletier and Elio 1994; Wobcke 1995, 85;
Bonevac, 2003, 461-462). Consider the following variant on the
problem: birds fly, Tweety is a bird that doesn't fly, and birds
have strong forelimb muscles. Here it seems we should refrain from
concluding that Tweety has strong forelimb muscles, since there is
reason to doubt that the strength of wing muscles is causally (and
hence, probabilistically) independent of capacity for flight. Once we
know that Tweety is an exceptional bird, we should refrain from
applying other conditionals with *Tweety is a bird* as their
antecedents, unless we know that these conditionals are independent of
flight, that is, unless we know that the conditional with the stronger
antecedent, *Tweety is a non-flying bird*, is also true.



Nonetheless, several proposals have been made for securing strong
independence and solving the Drowning Problem. Geffner and Pearl
(Geffner and Pearl 1992) proposed a system of *conditional
entailment*, a variant of circumscription, in which the preference
relation on models is defined in terms of the sets of defaults that
are satisfied. This enables Geffner and Pearl to satisfy both the
Specificity principle and Strong Independence. Another proposal is the
maximum entropy approach (Pearl 1988, 490-496; Goldszmidt,
Morris and Pearl, 1993; Pearl 1990). A theory \(T\), consisting
of defaults \(\Delta\) and facts \(F\), entails \(p\) just in
case the probability of \(p\), conditional on \(F\),
approaches 1 as the probabilities associated with \(\Delta\) approach 1,
using the
 entropy-maximizing[6]
 probability function that respects the defaults in \(\Delta\). The
maximum-entropy approaches satisfies both Specificity and Strong
Independence.



Every attempt to solve the drowning problem (including conditional
entailment and the maximum-entropy approach) comes at the cost of
sacrificing cumulativity. Securing strong independence makes the
systems very sensitive to the exact *form* in which the default
information is stored. Consider, for example the following case:
Swedes are (normally) fair, Swedes are (normally) tall, Jon is a short
Swede. Conditional entailment and maximum-entropy entailment would
permit the conclusion that Jon is fair in this case. However, if we
replace the first two default conditionals by the single default,
*Swedes are normally both tall and fair*, then the conclusion
no longer follows, despite the fact that the new conditional is
logically equivalent to the conjunction of the two original
conditionals.



Applying the logic of extreme probabilities to real-world defeasible
reasoning generates an obvious problem, however. We know perfectly
well that, in the case of the default rules we actually use, the
conditional probability of the conclusion on the premises is nowhere
near 1. For example, the probability that an arbitrary bird can fly is
certainly not infinitely close to 1. This problem resembles that of
using idealizations in science, such as frictionless planes and ideal
gases. It seems reasonable to think that, in deploying the machinery
of defeasible logic, we indulge in the degree of make-believe
necessary to make the formal models applicable. Nonetheless, this is
clearly a problem warranting further attention.


### 5.8 Fully Expressive Languages: Conditional Logics and Higher-Order Probabilities



With relatively few exceptions, the logical approaches to defeasible
reasoning developed so far put severe restrictions on the logical form
of propositions included in a set of premises. In particular, they
require the default conditional operator, \(\Rightarrow\), to have
wide scope in every formula in which it appears. Default conditionals
are not allowed to be nested within other default conditionals, or
within the scope of the usual Boolean operators of propositional logic
(negation, conjunction, disjunction, material conditional). This is a
very severe restriction and one that is quite difficult to defend. For
example, in representing *undercutting defeaters*, it would be
very natural to use a negated default conditional of the form
\(\neg((p \amp q) \Rightarrow r)\) to signify that \(q\) defeats \(p\)
as a prima facie reason for \(r\). In addition, it seems plausible
that one might come gain
*disjunctive* default information: for example, that either
customers are gullible or salesman are wily.



Asher and Pelletier (Asher and Pelletier 1997) have argued that, when
translating generic sentences in natural language, it is essential
that we be allowed to nest default conditionals. For example, consider
the following English sentences:




Close friends are (normally) people who (normally) trust one
another.



People who (normally) rise early (normally) go to bed early.




In the first case, a conditional is nested within the consequent of
another conditional:



\(\forall x \forall y (\textit{Friend}(x,y) \Rightarrow \forall z
(\textit{Time}(z) \Rightarrow \textit{Trust}(x,y,z)))\)



In the second case, we seem to have conditionals nested within both
the antecedent and the consequent of a third conditional, something
like:




\(\forall x (\textit{Person}(x) \rightarrow\)  
 \(\ \ (\forall
 y(\textit{Day}(y) \Rightarrow \textit{Rise-early}(x,y)) \Rightarrow
 \forall z (\textit{Day}(z) \Rightarrow
 \textit{Bed-early}(x,z))))\)



This nesting of conditionals can be made possible by borrowing and
modifying the semantics of the subjunctive or counterfactual
conditional, developed by Robert Stalnaker and David K. Lewis (Lewis
1973). For an axiomatization of Lewis's conditional logic, see
the following supplementary document:



David Lewis's Conditional Logic




The only modification that is essential is to drop the condition of
Centering (both strong and weak), a condition that makes modus ponens
(affirming the antecedent) logically valid. If the conditional \(\Rightarrow\)
is to represent a default conditional, we do not want modus ponens to
be valid: we do not want \((p \Rightarrow q)\) and \(p\)
to entail \(q\) classically (i.e., monotonically). If Centering
is dropped, the resulting logic can be made to correspond exactly to
either a preferential or a rational defeasible entailment relation.
For example, the condition of Rational Monotony is the exact
counterpart of the CV axiom of Lewis's logic:



**CV**:  
 
\((p \Rightarrow q) \rightarrow [((p \amp r) \Rightarrow q) \vee(p
\Rightarrow \neg r )]\)




Something like this was proposed first by James Delgrande (Delgrande
1987), and the idea has been most thoroughly developed by Nicholas
Asher and his collaborators (Asher and Morreau 1991; Asher 1995; Asher
and Bonevac 1996; Asher and Mao 2001) under the name *Commonsense
 Entailment*.[7]
 Commonsense Entailment is a preferential (although not a rational)
consequence relation, and it automatically satisfies the Specificity
principle. It permits the arbitrary nesting of default conditionals
within other logical operators, and it can be used to represent
undercutting defeaters, through the use of negated defaults (Asher and
Mao 2001).



The models of Commonsense Entailment differ significantly from those
of preferential logic and the logic of extreme probabilities. Instead
of having structures that contain sets of *models* of a
standard, default-free language, a model of the language of
Commonsense Entailment includes a set of *possible worlds*,
together with a function that assigns standard interpretation (a model
of the default-free language) to each world. In addition, to each pair
consisting of a world \(w\) and a set of worlds (proposition) \(A\),
there is a function \(\*\) that assigns a set of worlds \({\*}(w,A)\) to
the pair. The set \({\*}(w,A)\) is the set of most normal \(A\)-worlds,
from the perspective of \(w\). A default conditional \((p \Rightarrow
q)\) is true in a world \(w\) (in such a model) just in case all of
the most normal \(p\) worlds (from \(w\)'s perspective) are
worlds in which \(q\) is also true. Since we can assign
truth-conditions to each such conditional, we can define the truth of
nested conditionals, whether the conditionals are nested within
Boolean operators or within other conditionals. Moreover, we can
define both a classical, monotonic consequence relation for this class
of models and a defeasible, nonmonotonic relation (in fact, the
nonmonotonic consequence relation can be defined in a variety of
ways). We can then distinguish between a default conditional's
following *with logical necessity* from a default theory and
its following *defeasibly* from that same theory.
Contraposition, for example -- inferring \((\neg q \Rightarrow
\neg p)\) from \((p \Rightarrow q)\) -- is not logically valid
for default conditionals, but it might be a defeasibly correct
 inference.[8]



The one critical drawback to Commonsense Entailment, when compared to
the logic of extreme probabilities, is that it lacks a single, clear
standard of normativity. The truth-conditions of the default
conditional and the definition of nonmonotonic consequence can be
fine-tuned to match many of our intuitions, but in the end of the day,
the theory of Commonsense Entailment offers no simple answer to the
question of what its conditional or its consequence relation are
supposed (ideally) to represent.



Logics of extreme probability (beginning with the work of Ernest
Adams) did not permit the nesting of default conditionals for this
reason: the conditionals were supposed to represent something like
subjective conditional probabilities of the agent, to which the agent
was supposed to have perfect introspective access. Consequently, it
made no sense to nest this conditionals within disjunctions (as though
the agent couldn't tell which disjunct represented his actual
probability assignment) or within other conditionals (since the
subjective probability of a subjective probability is always trivial
-- either exactly 1 or exactly 0). However, there is no reason
why the logic of extreme probabilities couldn't be given a
different interpretation, with \((p \Rightarrow q)\)
representing something like *the objective probability of
\(q\), conditional on \(p\), is infinitely close to 1*.
In this case, it makes perfect sense to nest such statements of
objective conditional probability within Boolean operators (either the
probability of \(q\) on \(p\) is close to 1, or the
probability of \(r\) on \(s\) is close to 1), or within
operators of objective probability (the objective probability that the
objective probability of \(p\) is close to 1 is itself close to
1). What is required in the latter case is a theory of
*higher-order probabilities*.



Fortunately, such a theory of higher-order probabilities is available
(see Skyrms 1980; Gaifman 1988). The central principle of this theory
is Miller's principle. For a description of the models of the
logic of extreme, higher-order probability, see the following
supplementary document:



Models of Higher-Order Probability




The following proposition is logically valid in this logic,
representing the presence of a defeasible modus ponens rule:



\(((p \amp(p \Rightarrow q)) \Rightarrow q)\)




This system can be the basis for a family of rational nonmonotonic
consequence relations that include the Adams \(\varepsilon\)-entailment
system as a proper part (see Koons 2000, 298-319).


### 5.9 Objections to Nonmonotonic Logic


#### 5.9.1 Confusing Logic and Epistemology?



In an early paper (Israel 1980), David Israel raised a number of
objections to the very idea of *nonmonotonic logic*. First, he
pointed out that the nonmonotonic consequences of a finite theory are
typically not semi-decidable (recursively enumerable). This remains
true of most current systems, but it is also true of second-order
logic, infinitary logic, and a number of other systems that are now
accepted as logical in nature.



Secondly, and more to the point, Israel argued that the concept of
*nonmonotonic logic* evinces a confusion between the rules of
logic and rules of inference. In other words, Israel accused defenders
of nonmonotonic logic of confusing a theory of defeasible inference (a
branch of epistemology) with a theory of genuine consequence relations
(a branch of logic). Inference is nonmonotonic, but logic (according
to Israel) is essentially monotonic.



The best response to Israel is to point out that, like deductive
logic, a theory of nonmonotonic or defeasible consequence has a number
of applications besides that of guiding actual inference. Defeasible
logic can be used as part of a theory of scientific explanation, and
it can be used in hypothetical reasoning, as in planning. It can be
used to interpret implicit features of stories, even fantastic ones,
so long as it is clear which actual default rules to suspend. Thus,
defeasible logic extends far beyond the boundaries of the theory of
epistemic justification. Moreover, as we have seen, nonmonotonic
consequence relations (especially the preferential ones) share a
number of very significant formal properties with classical
consequence, warranting the inclusion of them all in a larger family
of logics. From this perspective, classical deductive logic is simply
a special case: the study of indefeasible consequence.


#### 5.9.2 Problems with the Deduction Theorem



In a recent paper, Charles Morgan (Morgan 2000) has argued that
nonmonotonic logic is impossible. Morgan offers a series of
impossibility proofs. All of Morgan's proofs turn on the fact
that nonmonotonic logics cannot support a generalized deduction
theorem, i.e., something of the following form:



\(\Gamma \cup \{p\} \dproves q\) iff \(\Gamma \dproves
(p \Rightarrow q)\)




Morgan is certainly right about this.



However, there are good grounds for thinking that a system of
nonmonotonic logic *should* fail to include a generalized
deduction theorem. The very nature of defeasible consequence ensures
that it must be so. Consider, for example, the left-to-right
direction: suppose that \(\Gamma \cup \{p\} \dproves q\). Should it
follow that \(\Gamma \dproves (p \Rightarrow q)\)? Not at all. It may
be that, normally, if \(p\) then \(\neg q\), but \(\Gamma\) may
contain defaults and information that defeat and override this
inference. For instance, it might contain the fact \(r\) and the
default \(((r \amp p) \Rightarrow q)\). Similarly, consider the
right-to-left direction: suppose that \(\Gamma \dproves (p \Rightarrow
q)\). Should it follow that \(\Gamma \cup \{p\} \dproves q\)? Again,
clearly not. \(\Gamma\) might contain both \(r\) and a default \(((p
\amp r) \Rightarrow \neg q)\), in which case \(\Gamma \cup \{p\}
\dproves \neg q\).



It would be reasonable, however, to demand that a system of
nonmonotonic logic satisfy the following *special deduction
theorem*:



\(\{p\} \dproves q\) iff \(\varnothing \dproves (p \Rightarrow q)\)




This is certainly possible. The special deduction theorem holds
trivially; if we define\(\{p\} \dproves q\) as \(\varnothing \vDash(p
\Rightarrow q)\); that is, \(\{p\}\) defeasibly entails \(q\) if and
only if (by definition) \((p \Rightarrow q)\) is a theorem of the
classical conditional
 logic.[9]


## 6. Causation and Defeasible Reasoning


### 6.1 The Need for Explicit Causal Information



Hanks and McDermott, computer scientists at Yale, demonstrated that
the existing systems of nonmonotonic logic were unable to give the
right solution to a simple problem about predicting the course of
events (Hanks and McDermott 1987). The problem became known as *the
Yale shooting problem*. Hanks and McDermott assume that some sort
of *law of inertia* can be assumed: that normally properties of
things do not change. In the Yale shooting problem, there are two
relevant properties: being loaded (a property of a gun) and being
alive (a property of the intended victim of the shooting). Let's
assume that in the initial situation, \(s\_0\), the gun
is loaded and the victim is alive,
*Loaded*\((s\_0)\) and
*Alive*\((s\_0)\), and that two actions are
performed in sequence: *Wait* and *Shoot*. Let's
call the situation that results from a moment of waiting
\(s\_1\), and the situation that follows both waiting
and then shooting \(s\_2\). There are then three
instances of the law of inertia that are relevant:


* *Alive*\((s\_0) \Rightarrow\)
*Alive*\((s\_1)\)
* *Loaded*\((s\_0) \Rightarrow\)
*Loaded*\((s\_1)\)
* *Alive*\((s\_1) \Rightarrow\)
*Alive*\((s\_2)\)



We need to make one final assumption: that shooting the victim with a
loaded gun results in death (not being alive):


* ((*Alive*\((s\_1)\) &
*Loaded*\((s\_1)) \rightarrow \neg\)*Alive*\((s\_2)\)



Intuitively, we should be able to derive the defeasible conclusion
that the victim is still alive after waiting, but dead after waiting
and shooting: *Alive*\((s\_1) \amp
\neg\)*Alive*\((s\_2)\). However, none of the nonmonotonic
logics described above give us this result, since each of the three
instances of the law of inertia can be violated: by the victim's
inexplicably dying while we are waiting, by the gun's
miraculously becoming unloaded while we are waiting, or by the
victim's dying as a result of the shooting. Nothing introduced
into nonmonotonic logic up to this point provides us with a basis for
preferring the second exception to the law of inertia to the first or
third. What's missing is a recognition of the importance of
causal structure to defeasible
consequence.[10]



There are several even simpler examples that illustrate the need to
include explicitly causal information in the input to defeasible
reasoning. Consider, for instance, this problem of Judea Pearl's
(Pearl 1988): if the sprinkler is on, then normally the sidewalk is
wet, and, if the sidewalk is wet, then normally it is raining.
However, we should not infer that it is raining from the fact that the
sprinkler is on. (See Lifschitz 1990 and Lin and Reiter 1994 for
additional examples of this kind.) Similarly, if we also know that if
the sidewalk is wet, then it is slippery, we should be able to infer
that the sidewalk is slippery if the sprinkler is on and it is
*not* raining.



The distinction between causal and evidential rules has been used in
the argumentative-narrative model of reasoning with evidence developed
by Floris Bex and his colleagues (Bex et al. 2010; Bex 2011).


### 6.2 Causally Grounded Independence Relations



Hans Reichenbach, in his analysis of the interaction of causality and
probability (Reichenbach 1956), observed that the immediate causes of
an event probabilistically *screen off* from that event any
other event that is not causally posterior to it. This means that,
given the immediate causal antecedents of an event, the occurrence of
that event is rendered probabilistically independent of any
information about non-posterior events. When this insight is applied
to the nonmonotonic logic of extreme probabilities, we can use causal
information to identify which defaults function independently of
others: that is, we can decide when the fact that one default
conditional has an exception is irrelevant to the question of whether
a second conditional is also violated (see Koons 2000, 320-323).
In effect, we have a selective version of Independence of Defaults
that is grounded in causal information, enabling us to dissolve the
Drowning Problem.



For example, in the case of Pearl's sprinkler, since rain is
causally prior to the sidewalk's being wet, the causal structure
of the situation does not ensure that the rain is probabilistically
independent of whether the sprinkler is on, given the fact that the
sidewalk is wet. That is, we have no grounds for thinking that the
probability of rain, conditional on the sidewalk's being wet, is
identical to the probability of rain, conditional on the
sidewalk's being wet and the sprinkler's being on
(presumably, the former is higher than the latter). This failure of
independence prevents us from using the (*Wet* \(\Rightarrow\)
*Rain*) default, in the presence of the additional fact that
the sprinkler is on. 



In the case of the Yale shooting problem, the state of the gun's
being loaded in the aftermath of waiting,
*Loaded*\((s\_1)\), has at its only causal
antecedent the fact that the gun is loaded in \(s\_0\).
The fact of *Loaded*\((s\_0)\) screens off the
fact that the victim is alive in \(s\_0\) from the
conclusion *Loaded*\((s\_1)\). Similarly, the
fact that the victim is alive in \(s\_0\) screens off
the fact that the gun is loaded in \(s\_0\) from the
conclusion that the victim is still alive in \(s\_1\).
In contrast, the fact that the victim is alive at
\(s\_1\) does *not* screen off the fact that the
gun is loaded at \(s\_1\) from the conclusion that the
victim is still alive at \(s\_2\). Thus, we can assign
higher priority to the law of inertia with respect to both
*Load* and *Alive* at \(s\_0\), and we can
conclude that the victim is alive and the gun is loaded at
\(s\_1\). The causal law for shooting then gives us the
desired conclusion, namely, that the victim is dead at
\(s\_2\).


### 6.3 Causal Circumscription



Our knowledge of causal relatedness is itself very partial. In
particular, it is difficult for us to verify conclusively that any two
randomly selected facts are or are not causally related. It seems that
in practice we apply something like Occam's razor, assuming that
two randomly selected facts are not causally related unless we have
positive reason for thinking otherwise. This invites the use of
something like circumscription, minimizing the extension of the
predicate *causes*. (This is in fact exactly what Fangzhen Lin
does in his 1995 papers [Lin 1995].)



Once we have a set of tentative conclusions about the causal structure
of the world, we can use Reichenbach's insight to enable us to
localize the problem of reasoning by default in the presence of known
abnormality. If a known abnormality is screened off from a
default's rule's consequent by constituent of its
antecedent, then the rule may legitimately be deployed. 



Since circumscription is itself a nonmonotonic logical system, there
are at least two independent sources of nonmonotonicity, or
defeasibility: the minimization or circumscription of causal
relevance, and the application of defeasible causal laws and laws of
inertia.



A number of researchers in artificial intelligence have recently
deployed one version of circumscription (namely, the *stable
models* of Gelfond and Lifschitz [1988]) to problems of causal
reasoning, building on an idea of Norman McCain and Hudson
Turner's [McCain and Turner 1997]. McCain and Turner employ
causal rules that specify when an atomic fact is adequately caused and
when it is exogenous and not in need of causal explanation. They then
assume a principle of *universal causation*, permitting only
those models that provide adequate causal explanations for all
non-exempt atomic facts, while in effect circumscribing the extension
of the causally explained. This approach has been extended and applied
by Giunchiglia, Lee, Lifschitz, McCain and Turner [2004], Ferraris
[2007], and Ferraris, Lee, Lierler, Lifschitz and Yang [2012]. Joohyung
Lee and Yi Wang (Lee and Wang 2016) have focused on introducing
relative weights to the rules.


## 7. Implementations and Applications


### 7.1 Applications to Law



Prakken (1997) book provides an extensive treatment of the
contributions of techniques from nonmonotonic logic to the formal
modeling of legal reasoning. See also Prakken and Sartor (1996, 1998),
Hage et al. (1993), Hage (1997), Lodder (1999), and Bench-Capon et
al. (2004, 2009). Kevin Ashley's HYPO system (Ashley 1990) employs
defeasible reasoning in the study of case-based reasoning in the
law.


### 7.2 Reasoning about Probabilities



Sections 5.7
and 5.8 above
discussed probabilistic semantics for defeasible logics. It is also
possible to reason defeasibly about propositions
that *explicitly* involve numerical probabilities. We can
reason defeasibly about propositions that assign specific
probabilities to the other propositions or that assert numerical
relations (identity, inequalities) between such propositions.



Chitta Baral, Michael Gelfond, and Nelson Rushton (Baral et al. 2009)
have developed a declarative language P-Log, which combines defeasible
logic with Bayesian probability nets. They use Answer Set Prolog to
provide the logical foundations. They make use of a version of the
principle of indifference. Belief revision occurs by means of Bayesian
conditioning. Baral et al. demonstrate that P-log can reason correctly
about the Monty Hall problem and Simpson's paradox. See Gelfond and
Kahl 2014, pp. 235-270 for the syntax and semantics of P-log.



Joohyung Lee and Yi Wang (Lee and Wang 2016) take a somewhat different
approach, using the log-linear models of Markov Logic (Richardson and
Domingos 2006), which they argue is a natural way to add probabilistic
information to stable semantics for logic programming languages. A
Markov Logic network is a way of finding the probability distribution
to a Markov chain that is *stationary*, i.e., stable with
respect to updating. Their approach incorporates the ProbLog model of
Fierens et al. 2015 as a special case.



Anthony Hunter has developed a strategy for using argumentation theory
to reason with incomplete and even inconsistent information about
probabilities (Hunter 2020). Once inconsistencies have been eliminated
by belief contraction, Hunter relies on the maximum entropy
distribution that is consistent with the remaining constraints to
define the optimal probability function.


### 7.3 Software Implementations



*ArguMed* by Verheij (Verheij 2005) computes a version of
stable semantics. Chris Reed and Glenn Rowe (Reed and Rowe 2004) have
developed *Araucaria*, an application for analyzing and
diagramming legal arguments. Prakken's *ASPIC+* system (Prakken
2010) can be used in analyzing formal argumentative structures.



Michael Gelfond and Yulia Kahl (Gelfond and Kahl 2014, 131-151)
discuss how to develop algorithms for efficiently computing answer
sets for logic programming. They describe inference engines that can
act as answer-set programming solvers.


### 7.4 Efficiency in Updating



An important practical problem that arises from applying formal models
of defeasible reasoning is that of updating in light of new or
retracted information. Must we re-compute the nonmonotonic
consequences from scratch each time updating is required?



Beishui Liao and his collaborators (Liao et al. 2011) addressed the
issue of the computational dynamics of argument systems by
investigating under which conditions an argument system can be divided
into modules, so that the implications of new information can be
efficiently computed by updating only the affected module. They
discovered that such modularity is possible for any semantics that has
the property of *directionality*. A semantics is directional if
and only if, for every argument structure *AS*, the
intersection of any extension prescribed for *AS* with an
unattacked set /(U/) is identical to one of the extensions prescribed
for the restriction of *AS* to \(U\), and vice versa. See also
Baroni et al. 2018.