Definition
First-order predicate logic – first-order logic for short – is the logic of properties of, and relations between, objects and their parts. Like any logic, it consists of three parts: syntax governs the formation of well-formed formulae, semantics ascribes meaning to well-formed formulae and formalizes the notion of deductive consequence, and proof procedures allow the inference of deductive consequences by syntactic means. A number of variants of first-order logic exist, mainly differing in their syntax and proof systems. In machine learning, the main use of first-order logic is in learning from structured data, inductive logic programming and relational data mining.
Motivation and Background
The interest in logic arises from a desire to formalize human, mathematical and scientific reasoning, and goes back to at least the Greek philosophers. Aristotle devised...
Recommended Reading
Bratko, I. (2001). Prolog programming for artificial intelligence (3rd ed.). Boston: Addison Wesley.
Flach, P. (1994). Simply logical: Intelligent reasoning by example. New York: Wiley.
Genesereth, M., & Nilsson, N. (1987). Logical foundations of artificial intelligence. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.
Kowalski, R. (1979). Logic for problem solving. New York: North-Holland.
Robinson, J. A. (1965). A machine-oriented logic based on the resolution principle. Journal of the ACM, 12(1), 23–41.
Turner, R. (1984). Logics for artificial intelligence. Chichester: Ellis Horwood.
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Flach, P.A. (2011). First-Order Logic. In: Sammut, C., Webb, G.I. (eds) Encyclopedia of Machine Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30164-8_311
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30164-8_311
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