In search of a “true” logic of knowledge: the nonmonotonic perspective

Abstract

Modal logics are currently widely accepted as a suitable tool of knowledge representation, and the question what logics are better suited for representing knowledge is of particular importance. Usually, some axiom list is given, and arguments are presented justifying that suggested axioms agree with intuition. The question why the suggested axioms describe all the desired properties of knowledge remains answered only partially, by showing that the most obvious and popular additional axioms would violate the intuition. We suggest the general paradigm of maximal logics and demonstrate how it can work for nonmonotonic modal logics. Technically, we prove that each of the modal logics KD45, SW5, S4F and S4.2 is the strongest modal logic among the logics generating the same nonmonotonic logic. These logics have already found important applications in knowledge representation, and the obtained results contribute to the explanation of this fact.