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Prof. J. B. Paris
Department of Mathematics
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom

Dear Professor Paris:

	As you may know, artificial intelligence research has led
since about 1977 to formal theories of non-monotonic reasoning.
Some of these theories are formalizations of default reasoning,
where something is to be assumed unless there is evidence to the
contrary.  Others, including my proposal of circumscription and
its extensions and generalizations by myself and others, involve
minimizing logical expressions with certain predicates, functions,
wffs and terms
taken as variable and subject to constraints expressed by axioms.
Some of these may be regarded as formalizations of Ockham's razor.

Inductive reasoning sometimes falls under this heading when it
is regarded as forming the simplest theory compatible with the
facts being taken into account.  It seems to me that even a
determined Bayesian has to do non-monotonic reasoning of some kind
in order to formulate theories to which he will later assign
probabilities.

Enclosed is a recent paper of mine and another by a colleague.
%Applications of circumscription ...
%Vladimir's causality paper
I have also sent a message to Donald Perlis of the University of
Maryland asking him to send you a copy of his bibliography on
non-monotonic reasoning.

I certainly hope that mathematical logicians will become interested
in non-monotonic reasoning, because I believe it presents many
mathematical logical problems whose solutions will be mathematically
interesting and practically useful.

There is to be a workshop on non-monotonic reasoning in Munich
July 13-15, 1988.  It is being organized by

MICHAEL REINFRANK
ZT ZTI INF 31
SIEMENS AG
OTTO-HAHN-RING 6
8000 Muenchen 83
WEST GERMANY

Sincerely,