# Thirty years of Epistemic Specifications

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.07669 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07669/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 67 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Aug 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [selp: A Single-Shot Epistemic Logic Program Solver](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.01089/) (2020)
- [eclingo: A solver for Epistemic Logic Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.02018/) (2020)
- [Structural Decompositions of Epistemic Logic Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.04219/) (2020)
- [Splitting Epistemic Logic Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08763/) (2018)
- [A Parallel Memory-efficient Epistemic Logic Program Solver: Harder, Better, Faster](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.06910/) (2016)
- [Founded World Views with Autoepistemic Equilibrium Logic](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.07741/) (2019)
- [A survey of advances in epistemic logic program solvers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.07141/) (2018)
- [Revisiting Explicit Negation in Answer Set Programming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.11467/) (2019)
- [ESmodels: An Epistemic Specification Solver](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.3486/) (2014)
- [Strong Equivalence for Epistemic Logic Programs Made Easy (Extended Version)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.04800/) (2018)
- [Founded (Auto)Epistemic Equilibrium Logic Satisfies Epistemic Splitting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.09247/) (2019)
- [On Uniform Equivalence of Epistemic Logic Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10925/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Epistemic Logic Programs: a study of some properties](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16344/) (2023)
- [Epistemic Logic Programs: Non-Ground and Counting Complexity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04731/) (2025)
- [Solving Epistemic Logic Programs using Generate-and-Test with Propagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22130/) (2024)
- [Counterfactual Explanations as Plans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09205/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The language of epistemic specifications and epistemic logic programs extends disjunctive logic programs under the stable model semantics with modal constructs called subjective literals. Using subjective literals, it is possible to check whether a regular literal is true in every or some stable models of the program, those models, in this context also called belief sets, being collected in a set called world view. This allows for representing, within the language, whether some proposition should be understood accordingly to the open or the closed world assumption. Several attempts for capturing the intuitions underlying the language by means of a formal semantics were given, resulting in a multitude of proposals that makes it difficult to understand the current state of the art. In this paper, we provide an overview of the inception of the field and the knowledge representation and reasoning tasks it is suitable for. We also provide a detailed analysis of properties of proposed semantics, and an outlook of challenges to be tackled by future research in the area. Under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP)