Perspectives on Contexts

Most human thinking is thoroughly informed by context, but until very recently theories of reasoning have concentrated on very abstract and general rules that make no reference to context. For instance, the accounts of reasoning that are presented in logic textbooks and that are studied by logicians provide many insights into mathematical proof, but are difficult to apply to common sense reasoning. The task of formulating workable, useful definitions of context and explanations of its role in reasoning has proved to be remarkably challenging. But a great deal of progress has been made recently in many different disciplines. This book provides a picture of this recent work, by leading authors belonging to all the fields that have contributed to this renaissance in thinking about context.

Paolo Bouquet is associate professor of computer science at the University of Trento, Italy. Luciano Serafini conducts research at the Institute for Scientific and Technological Research in Trento, Italy. Richmond H. Thomason is the Nelson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan.

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July 2008