CORTEXA
← Browse
arxivcs.LOcs.AI2026-07-23

Anti-Goal Reasoning: Rethinking the Theory of Goal Reasoning in Non-Axiomatic Logic

Bowen Xu

Goal reasoning in Non-Axiomatic Logic (NAL) explains how an adaptive system derives means for realizing desired events under insufficient knowledge and resources. However, the representation of avoidance is less clear. A common convention is to express ``avoid $G$'' as the goal sentence ``$\neg G!$'', but this notation conflates two different readings: pursuing the negated event $\neg G$, and avoiding the positive event $G$. This paper shows that the conflation can produce a paradoxical case in which an avoidance intention is converted into a positive goal to act merely because acting is usually followed by the absence of hurt. Starting from NAL's basic definition of goals, the framework is extended with a corresponding definition of anti-goals, so that avoidance can be represented without treating it as the pursuit of a negated event. Finally, a mental operation, $\op{prevent}$, is introduced to connect anti-goal reasoning with ordinary goal reasoning in cases of active prevention. Four minimal case studies check that the resulting rules distinguish pursuit, passive avoidance, active prevention, and withholding action to preserve a desired event.

View free PDFSource page

Related papers

arxivcs.AIcs.LO2026-07-23

Differentiable Logic Programming to Mitigate Reasoning Shortcuts in Neurosymbolic Systems

Akihiro Takemura, Katsumi Inoue

Neurosymbolic (NeSy) systems integrate neural networks with logical reasoning to achieve both generalization and interpretability, but recent work has shown they are susceptible to shortcut reasoning behaviors. We propose a novel method using matrix-based differentiable logic pro…

View free PDFSource page
arxivcs.CCcs.AIcs.DScs.LO2026-07-23

Representative Sets in Propositional Abduction

Johannes Schmidt, Mohamed Maizia, Victor Lagerkvist, Johannes K. Fichte

The propositional abduction problem is a well-known form of non-monotonic reasoning where we are asked to find an explanation of a given manifestation. Recently, there has been an influx of results asking more refined questions about the solution space rather than only individual…

View free PDFSource page
arxivcs.AIcs.CLcs.LO2026-07-11

Interventional Grounding Audits: Black-Box Premise-Dependency Tests for LLM Chain-of-Thought via Predicate Substitution

Hironao Nakamura

Large language models produce chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning that appears logically sound yet may not genuinely depend on its stated premises. We introduce interventional grounding audits, a black-box, step-level test of premise dependency: we intervene on a single premise by s…

View free PDFSource page
arxivcs.LOcs.AIcs.SE2026-07-23

Encoding Event-B Proof Rules in Prolog: An Interactive Sequent Prover for ProB

Katharina Engels, Jan Gruteser, Michael Leuschel

Event-B is a formal method rooted in predicate logic and set theory. We encoded over 600 proof rules in Prolog, enabling a systematic, comprehensible proof analysis and construction. By integrating the proof rules into the Prolog-based validation tool ProB, we obtain an interacti…

View free PDFSource page