(Photo taken in 1995)

John Bell

Department of Computer Science
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road
London E1 4NS
United Kingdom

jb@dcs.qmul.ac.uk

Research

I am interested in the logical formalization of context-dependent reasoning, or, as I prefer to call it, pragmatic reasoning. Reasoning of this kind is particularly interesting and distinctive when the context is incompletely or incorrectly specified, as it then involves inferring an appropriate context (or contexts if there is ambiguity) when interpreting the given. Pragmatic reasoning is ubiquitous, and its analysis and formalization has been undertaken in linguistics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, and in the formalization of common sense reasoning in artificial intelligence. My work in this area to-date is summarized under the following headings:


Teaching

In the academic year 2004/05 I am teaching an introductory course on Artificial Intelligence in the first semester and am on sabbatical in the second semester.

Last updated: 23 June 2004