From Standard Logic to Logic Programming: Introducing a Logic Based Approach to Artificial Intelligence

This is an important book underpinning the study of artificial intelligence with a thorough examination of the role of logic. It covers the whole field from the most theoretical aspects of logic to the most practical techniques of logic programming. Introducing propositional and predicate logics, and giving a brief statement of first-order theories, the authors then go on to describe how logic can be used for representing - and reasoning about - knowledge. Rules are stated for transforming logical representations into graphical and object representation. A thorough coverage of the logics that have been developed for formalizing 'commonsense reasoning' is given and includes: modal logics of knowledge and of belief; non-monotone logics; default logics, autoepistemic logics etc. Finally the reader is introduced to grammars as a new representation formalism, and shown how logics and grammars lead to logic programming languages. Particular emphasis is placed on Prolog as the forerunning and most popular language for logic programming. This is the first volume of a complete work on how logics are applied to artificial intelligence for use on logic programming and artificial intelligence courses.