A proof procedure for normal default theories

Abstract

Recent research by Delgrande [6] and Geffner and Pearl [10] suggests two different semantic interpretations for normal defaults with one single representation as conditional sentences. However, they both need additional formal mechanisms for handling irrelevant information when their approaches are applied to formalising default reasoning. Delgrande in [5, 6] suggests two meta-strategies which he considers to be adequately strong to handle the orderings of defaults, and he claims they are equivalent. Furthermore, each of Delgrande's strategies is defined in terms of all sentences of the object language. In this paper, we shall prove that Delgrande's claim that his meta-strategies are equivalent is incorrect and that one of his meta-strategies can be reformulated within the framework of First Order Predicate Calculus (FOPC) and without having to consider every sentence of the object language. One advantage of such a reformalisation is its computational simplicity: to give an extension of a default theory there is only a need to consider those sentences which occur in the default theory under consideration rather than every sentence in the object language; furthermore, to provide a proof procedure for Delgrande's system as based on the meta-strategy we have formalised, one need only employ a FOPC proof procedure, rather than a conditional one.