[The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.]
Nonmonotonic reasoning and uncertain reasoning have been active research areas in artificial intelligence since the 1970’s. Volume 3 of the Handbook of Logic in Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming surveys the most influential and well-known approaches in this area. The volume consists of nine chapters written by internationally recognized researchers in their respective fields. For each chapter there is a second reader whose role has been to review the chapter together with the editors. (Second readers for each chapter are given in parentheses.) M. Ginsberg: AI and nonmonotonic reasoning (M. Fitting and Y. Shoham), D. Makinson: General patterns in nonmonotonic reasoning (D. Lehmann), J. Horty: Some direct theories of nonmonotonic inheritance (M. Ginsberg), D. Poole: Default logic (K. Eshghi and D. Makinson), K. Konolige: Autoepistemic logic (H. Levesque and D. Perlis), V. Lifschitz: Circumscription (D. Perlis and Y. Shoham), D. Nute: Defeasible logic (J. Hoepleman and J. Pollock), H. Kyburg: Uncertainty logics (R. Gumb), D. Dubois, J. Lang, and H. Prade: Possibility logic (L. Farinas del Cerro and A. Herzig).
The volume summarizes a considerable amount of research and results which are to a large extent available only as journal articles and conference papers. The intended audience is graduate students and researchers in the areas of computing and logic and the volume assumes as background basic knowledge of logic and some mathematical sophistication. The field of nonmonotonic and uncertain reasoning is still an active research area, where new approaches and results constantly emerge. The volume is a valuable source which provides a framework for understanding novel developments and offers a firm basis for pursuing research in this area.