Formal thought and narrative thought in knowledge acquisition

✍ Scribed by Jim Kornell

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1987
• Weight: 701 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7373
• DOI: 10.1016/s0020-7373(87)80091-3

✦ Synopsis

There are two different kinds of thought of interest to knowledge engineers. One is formal thought, as exemplified by logic and mathematics; the evaluation criterion for formal thought is truth. The second is narrative thought, as exemplified by metaphors, analogies, and gestalts; the evaluation criterion for narrative thought is verisimilitude. To build a knowledge system which operates in the realm of narrative thought, one must build a model of expert knowledge of the domain, and such a model must contain not only the facts and heuristics used by the expert, but also the patterns of reasoning and most importantly the kinds of reasoning used by the expert. Three representative knowledge acquisition tools---RuleMaster, MOLE, and Aquinas---are briefly reviewed. It is suggested that the tools discussed, and the members of the classes each represents, fail to effectively support identifying and acquiring the patterns of reasoning and especially the kinds of reasoning used by experts in narrative domains.