Defeasible Logic

Abstract

Abstract Like all reasoning, defeasible reasoning involves inference. One makes an inference when one comes to have some belief on account of other beliefs that one has. The kind of relationship I intend by ‘on account of’ is one in which a person who makes an inference does or would put forward the beliefs on account of which she comes to have the new belief as reasons for accepting the new belief. This is very rough, but my main goal is not to explain inference. What I am concerned to do is to determine how the inferences made in defeasible reasoning, which I will call defeasible inferences, are different from other inferences..