Karl Schlechta is a retired professor of computer science at Aix-Marseille University in France, and a member of the Laboratoire d’Informatique Fondamentale de Marseille. He works on nonmonotonic logics, theory revision, and related subjects, his main interest being the semantical side of these logics and in particular preferential structures and accompanying representation theorems. His books include Nonmonotonic Logics (1997), Coherent Systems (Elsevier 2004), Logical Tools for Handling Change in Agent-Based Systems (Springer 2009), Conditionals and Modularity in General Logics (Springer 2011), and A New Perspective on Nonmonotonic Logics (Springer 2016).
The two volumes in this advanced textbook present results, proof methods, and translations of motivational and philosophical considerations to formal constructions. In this Vol. I the author explains preferential structures and abstract size. In the associated Vol. II he presents chapters on theory revision and sums, defeasible inheritance theory, interpolation, neighbourhood semantics and deontic logic, abstract independence, and various aspects of nonmonotonic and other logics.
In both volumes the text contains many exercises and some solutions, and the author limits the discussion of motivation and general context throughout, offering this only when it aids understanding of the formal material, in particular to illustrate the path from intuition to formalisation. Together these books are a suitable compendium for graduate students and researchers in the area of computer science and mathematical logic.