Uncertainty Logics

Abstract

Abstract The formalization of ordinary deductive inference is not uncontroversial. There are questions of modality, many-valued truth functions, and the like. But there is a solid core of agreement underlying the variations. This is not true of uncertain inference. Much, if not most, of our ordinary reasoning is forced to take account of uncertainty. That is, in ordinary reasoning and argument, either our premises are less than incorrigibly certain, or the rule of inference that we follow is less than valid in the classical sense—it may be possible for our premises to be true and our conclusion false. But there is very little agreement, as yet, on the ways in which uncertainty should be represented, or on the forms that inference involving uncertainty should take, or on the logic characterizing uncertain inference.