Properties of skeptical c-inference for conditional knowledge bases and its realization as a constraint satisfaction problem

Abstract

While the axiomatic system P is an important standard for plausible, nonmonotonic inferences from conditional knowledge bases, it is known to be too weak to solve benchmark problems like Irrelevance or Subclass Inheritance. Ordinal conditional functions provide a semantic base for system P and have often been used to design stronger inference relations, like Pearl’s system Z, or c-representations. While each c-representation shows excellent inference properties and handles particularly Irrelevance and Subclass Inheritance properly, it is still an open problem which c-representation is the best. In this paper, we consider the skeptical inference relation, called c-inference, that is obtained by taking all c-representations of a given knowledge base into account. We study properties of c-inference and show in particular that it preserves the properties of solving Irrelevance and Subclass Inheritance. Based on a characterization of c-representations as solutions of a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP), we also model skeptical c-inference as a CSP and prove soundness and completeness of the modelling, ensuring that constraint solvers can be used for implementing c-inference.