Approximate reasoning and conflict resolution Original Research Article

Our focus in this work is to provide mechanisms to enable the fuzzy set based approximate reasoning (AR) system to deal with conflicts in knowledge. The basic concepts of the theory of AR are introduced. The issue of conflict is raised and some of its bizarre effects are described. We then turn to some modifications of the basic AR mechanisms to ameliorate these effects. Two approaches strong and weak entailment are investigated. Next we consider some approaches to avoid conflict. Here again two approaches are considered. The first is a weighting of knowledge with respect to our belief in the certainty of its content. The second is a prioritization of the knowledge.