12/01/1990 09:00 AM
Computer Science
It is commonsense to conclude, in the absence of any statement to the contrary, that a particular instance of a certain class of objects is typical in that it has all the attributes of that class of objects. Later, one withdraws one\'s conclusion if one learns that the object in question varies from the typical in some way. Such reasoning, called *Nonmonotonic Reasoning*, is beyond the realm of classical logic. In this thesis we explore *Circumscription*, one of the formalisms of nonmonotonic reasoning.
