Reasoning about minimal knowledge in nonmonotonic modal logics

Riccardo Rosati.
Journal of Logic, Language and Information, volume 8, number 2, pages 187-203, 1999.

 

Abstract:

We study the problem of embedding Halpern and Moses's modal logic of minimal knowledge states into two families of modal formalisms for nonmonotonic reasoning, McDermott and Doyle's nonmonotonic modal logics and ground nonmonotonic modal logics. First, we prove that Halpern and Moses's logic can be embedded into all ground logics; moreover, the translation employed allows for establishing a lower bound for the problem of skeptical reasoning in all ground logics. Then, we show a translation of Halpern and Moses's logic into a significant subset of McDermott and Doyle's formalisms. Such a translation both indicates the ability of Halpern and Moses's logic of expressing minimal knowledge states in a more compact way than McDermott and Doyle's logics, and allows for a comparison of the epistemological properties of such nonmonotonic modal formalisms.

Bibtex entry:

@String{JLLI = "Journal of Logic, Language and Information"}

@Article{Rosa99,
author = "Rosati, Riccardo",
title = "Reasoning about minimal knowledge in nonmonotonic modal logics",
journal = JLLI,
volume = 8,
number = 2,
pages = "187--203",
year = "1999",
}

Link to electronic version of published paper