Making the right exceptions
ABSTRACT: Default rules play an important role in our daily lives, as they help us to take decisions in circumstances where the facts of the matter are only partly known. Conflicts among default rules are ubiquitous, and often questions of priority arise. In this talk I will supply a principled account to deal with them. I will do so in two ways: semantically, within a circumscriptive theory, and syntactically by supplying an algorithm for inheritance networks. The latter is sound and complete with respect to the first. I will try my best to underline the philosophical import of the topic.
Timeļ¼3:00-5:00 pm, 20 May 2009
Place: Xinzhai Room 346, Tsinghua University