Advanced logic

The course aims to provide students with an overview of the most important formal systems for practical reasoning that have been put forward as extensions of classical logic. Those have a long-standing interest which has been much revived owin to the problem of endowing artificial intelligence agents with the ability to represent knowledge and reason with it.

More specifically, students will acquire a basic knowledge of the following topics:

- the agent-based view of logical consequence

- advanced classical logical tools

- qualitative representation of information and uncertanty

- non monotonic reasoning

The acquired knowledge will be fruitfully employed in teaching, and in all activities requiring a variety of reasoning tools that are more powerful than elementary logic. In addition the acquired knowledge will be very useful in understanding the core problems arising in the representation of knowledge and reasoning in artificial intelligence.

Knowledge and understanding:
- knowledge of the foundations of non-monotonic reasoning;
- knowledge of the main extensions of, and alternatives to classical logic.
- knowledge of the most recent investigations into the relationship between logic and information.
Ability to apply knowledge and understanding

At the end of the course students are expected to be able to apply the acquired knowledge in order to:
- read and understand original scientific contributions in the field of logic;
- analyze and solve scientific, philosophical and practical problems that do not admit of natural solutions in terms of standard logic.