Special issue arising from the Third International Workshop on Computational Models of Scientific Reasoning and Applications

This special issue of the Journal of Applied Logic contains a selection of the papers presented at the Third International Workshop on Computational Models of Scientific Reasoning and Applications (III CMSRA), which was held on 14—15 September 2003 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, chaired by Claudio Delrieux. The CMSRA workshop series has provided an annual forum for bringing together practitioners in several fields involved in the computational models of scientific reasoning (Logic, KR&R, Cognitive Sciences, Epistemology and Theory of Science, among others), in order to exchange the results of their ongoing research, share their experiences and speculate about their impact on the new information technologies. Of the 21 papers appearing in the proceedings, 11 were invited to participate in this issue with extended versions, for a second round of reviewing. Of those that accepted the invitation 6 were selected for publication. The papers included here illustrate several trends that may be of interest to those working in the computational models of scientific reasoning, and provide a good sample of the different multidisciplinary approaches and interests, yet unified by the common aim of applying Science to study Science itself. This volume starts with Pierangelo Dell’Acqua and Lúıs Moniz Pereira’s contribution Common-sense reasoning as proto-scientific agent activity. The authors model common-sense reasoning in situations where it contains some of the ingredients typical of proto-scientific reasoning. For this, the authors employ an integrative formal computational machinery for rational cooperative epistemic agents, where agents can update their own and each other’s theories, which are comprised of knowledge, active rules, integrity constraints, queries, abducibles, and preferences; they can engage in abductive reasoning involving updatable preferences; set each other queries; react to circumstances; plan and carry out actions; and revise their theories and preferences by means of concurrent updates on self and others. The application of proto-scientific reasoning in common-sense examples, modelled by collections of rational agents, is worth pursuing as a model of collaborative scientific theory development and refinement. The second paper, Abductive inference in defeasible reasoning: a model for research programmes, by Claudio Delrieux, develops a formal treatment for em-