[Attempto] RACE thinks if Chicago and Detroit are cities, then every city is Chicago

[Tanner Swett]

Hi everyone,

I've noticed that RACE can make some questionable inferences given axioms
containing proper names.

I tried the following using the RACE client at
http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/race/:

Input:
Axioms: Chicago is a city. Detroit is a city.
Theorems: Every city is Chicago.

Output: True.

Both axioms need to be present in order for RACE to conclude that the
theorems follow; "Chicago is a city." alone is not enough for RACE to
conclude that every city is Chicago. The axioms "Chicago is a city. Chicago
is a city." also don't suffice, but if I give it "Chicago is a city. A city
is Chicago.", that *is* enough for it to conclude that every city is
Chicago.

A similar problem occurs if I mention multiple different types of objects:

Input:
Axioms: Chicago is a city. France is a country
Theorems: France is a city.

Output: True.

All of these counterintuitive theorems are said to be true because of
"Prolog Axiom transcompadj2: Transitivity of comparative adjectives."

Am I misunderstanding what proper names mean to RACE, or is this a bug?

Tanner Swett
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ifi.uzh.ch/pipermail/attempto/attachments/20191115/4a2a1f3f/attachment.html>