Sammendrag
The purpose of this thesis is to present an autoepistemic approach to
preference reasoning. The method controls the generation of extensions
by first linking doxastic representations in a hierarchy,
and then by ensuring the maintenance of integrity between the levels
in the hierarchy using so-called integrity constraints. This approach
is based on an encoding of ordered default theories into an ''only
knowing'' logic with confidence levels, and is the result of studying
several principles for default logic approaches to
preference, as well as a critique of the hierarchic autoepistemic
logic of Konolige with respect to these same principles. We show that
our approach is the first autoepistemic formalism that handles
preference according to all the principles mentioned above. Another
main result of our work is that the generation of preferred extensions
may be carried out entirely at the object level. Thus, as opposed to
approaches to preference using default logic, our approach provides a
constructive method for determining extensions of ordered default theories.