Statistical Reasoning - A Foundation for Semantic Web Reasoning

There has been considerable debate as to the merits and the applicability of probabilistic or statistical reasoning to Semantic Web. Much of this debate seems to have centered on the applicability of statistical methods in a supposedly deterministic setting. In this paper, we argue that statistical reasoning (“reasoning with uncertainty”) need not be a substitute for traditional Description Logic (DL) / First-Order Logic (FOL) reasoning, instead statistical methods can serve as a complement to logicbased reasoning systems in two ways: (i) Offer a meta-reasoning (or audit) mechanism to validate logical reasoning, and (ii) Act as a “filler” where Ontological information either does not exist, or is insufficient to reason conclusively.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: SEMWEB
• Authors: Shashi Kant, Evangelos Mamas
• Keywords: Logicbased Reasoning Systems, SEMWEB 2005, Statistical Methods, Statistical Reasoning