Abstract

We present a method of compiling arbitrary defeasible (inheritance) networks to general logic programs. We show a one-to-one correspondence between the credulous extensions of a defeasible network and the stable models of the translated logic program. This result leads to the discovery that an elegant query answering procedure for Horty's credulous extensions had long existed: the abductive proof procedure formulated by Eshghi and Kowalski for general logic programs is sound and complete for acyclic defeasible networks under the proposed translation. Since the translation is faithful to the commonly accepted notion of specicity, it leads to a novel transformational approach: any semantics dened for general logic programs yields an extension semantics for networks, and any query answering procedure developed for general logic programs can be used to answer queries for networks under the same semantics. This approach also yields new insights into the diculties confronting path-based fo...