Belief revision

Belief revision is the process of changing beliefs to take into account a new piece of information. The logical formalization of belief revision is researched in philosophy, in databases, and in artificial intelligence for the design of rational agents. What makes belief revision non-trivial is that several different ways for performing this operation may be possible. For example, if the current knowledge includes the three facts " is true", " is true" and "if and are true then is true", the introduction of the new information " is false" can be done preserving consistency only by removing at least one of the three facts. In this case, there are at least three different ways for performing revision. In general, there may be several different ways for changing knowledge. Two kinds of changes are usually distinguished: update the new information is about the situation at present, while the old beliefs refer to the past; update is the operation of changing the old beliefs to take into account the change; revision both the old beliefs and the new information refer to the same situation; an inconsistency between the new and old information is explained by the possibility of old information being less reliable than the new one; revision is the process of inserting the new information into the set of old beliefs without generating an inconsistency. The main assumption of belief revision is that of minimal change: the knowledge before and after the change should be as similar as possible. In the case of update, this principle formalizes the assumption of inertia. In the case of revision, this principle enforces as much information as possible to be preserved by the change. The following classical example shows that the operations to perform in the two settings of update and revision are not the same. The example is based on two different interpretations of the set of beliefs and the new piece of information : update in this scenario, two satellites, Unit A and Unit B, orbit around Mars; the satellites are programmed to land while transmitting their status to Earth; and Earth has received a transmission from one of the satellites, communicating that it is still in orbit.

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Defeasible reasoning

In philosophy of logic, defeasible reasoning is a kind of provisional reasoning that is rationally compelling, though not deductively valid.cite web | url= | title="Defeasible Reasoning," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | access-date=1 July 2016 It usually occurs when a rule is given, but there may be specific exceptions to the rule, or subclasses that are subject to a different rule. Defeasibility is found in literatures that are concerned with argument and the process of argument, or heuristic reasoning.

Reason maintenance

Reason maintenance is a knowledge representation approach to efficient handling of inferred information that is explicitly stored. Reason maintenance distinguishes between base facts, which can be defeated, and derived facts. As such it differs from belief revision which, in its basic form, assumes that all facts are equally important. Reason maintenance was originally developed as a technique for implementing problem solvers.

Logic

Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It studies how conclusions follow from premises due to the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content. Informal logic is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. It examines arguments expressed in natural language while formal logic uses formal language.

Comparing two forms of concept map critique activities to support knowledge integration in biology education

Beat Adrian Schwendimann

Concept map activities often lack a subsequent revision step that facilitates knowledge integration. This study compares two kinds of concept map critique activities embedded in an evolution unit: Student dyads in one group compared their concept maps agai ...

2014

Anthropocentrism & Social Dominance in Environmental Psychology

Explores the shift in Environmental Psychology towards climate change issues and the historical development of human dominance over nature.