Interactive Epistemology

Formal Interactive Epistemology deals with the logic of knowledge and belief when there is more than one agent or "player." One is interested not only in each person's knowledge about substantive matters, but also in his knowledge about the others' knowledge. This paper examines two parallel approaches to the subject. The first is the semantic approach, in which knowledge is represented by a space of states of the world, together with partitions of the state space for each player i; the atom of i's partition containing a given state of the world represents i's knowledge at that state - the set of those other states that i cannot distinguish from that state. The second is the syntactic approach, in which knowledge is embodied in sentences constructed according to certain syntactic rules. This paper examines the relation between the two approaches, and shows that they are in a sense equivalent.

With this volume of the series Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science edited by S. Rahman et al. a challenging dialogue is being continued. The series’ first volume argued that one way to recover the connections between logic, philosophy of sciences, and sciences is to acknowledge the host of alternative logics which are currently being developed. The present volume focuses on four key themes. First of all, several chapters unpack the connection between knowledge and epistemology with particular focus on the notion of knowledge as resulting from interaction. Secondly, new epistemological perspectives on linguistics, the foundations of mathematics and logic, physics, biology and law are a subject of analysis. Thirdly, several chapters are dedicated to a discussion of Constructive Type Theory and more generally of the proof-theoretical notion of meaning.Finally, the book brings together studies on the epistemic role of abduction and argumentation theory, both linked to non-monotonic approaches to the dynamics of knowledge.

Robert J Aumann has received numerous prizes, including the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for 2005.With his 1976 paper, 'Agreeing to Disagree', Robert Aumann pioneered the subject of interactive epistemology: the study of what people know, and what they know about what others know. Since then, the discipline has burgeoned enormously. This book documents Aumann's work leading to the 1976 paper and his subsequent contributions to the discipline. The scientific controversies emanating from his work are also included.

This book provides an analysis of the meeting point between mainstream and formal theories of knowledge.

This volume presents 38 classic texts in formal epistemology, and strengthens the ties between research into this area of philosophy and its neighbouring intellectual disciplines. The editors provide introductions to five subsections: Bayesian Epistemology, Belief Change, Decision Theory, Interactive Epistemology and Epistemic Logic. 'Formal epistemology' is a term coined in the late 1990s for a new constellation of interests in philosophy, the origins of which are found in earlier works of epistemologists, philosophers of science and logicians. It addresses a growing agenda of problems concerning knowledge, belief, certainty, rationality, deliberation, decision, strategy, action and agent interaction – and it does so using methods from logic, probability, computability, decision and game theory. The volume also includes a thorough index and suggestions for further reading, and thus offers a complete teaching and research package for students as well as research scholars of formal epistemology, philosophy, logic, computer science, theoretical economics and cognitive psychology.

This book presents comparisons of recent accounts in the formalization of natural language (dynamic logics and formal semantics) with informal conceptions of interaction (dialogue, natural logic and attribution of rationality) that have been developed in both psychology and epistemology. There are four parts which explore: historical and systematic studies; the formalization of context in epistemology; the formalization of reasoning in interactive contexts in psychology; the formalization of pathological conversations. Part one discusses the Erlangen School, which proposed a logical analysis of science as well as an operational reconstruction of psychological concepts. These first chapters provide epistemological and psychological insights into a conceptual reassessment of rational reconstruction from a pragmatic point of view. The second focus is on formal epistemology, where there has recently been a vigorous contribution from experts in epistemic and doxatic logics and an attempt to account for a more realistic, cognitively plausible conception of knowledge. The third part of this book examines the meeting point between logic and the human and social sciences and the fourth part focuses on research at the intersection between linguistics and psychology. Internationally renowned scholars have contributed to this volume, building on the findings and themes relevant to an interdisciplinary scientific project called DiaRaFor (“Dialogue, Rationality, Formalisms”) which was hosted by the MSH Lorraine (Lorraine Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities) from 2007 to 2011.

This volume is a collation of original contributions from the key actors of a new trend in the contemporary theory of knowledge and belief, that we call “dynamic epistemology”. It brings the works of these researchers under a single umbrella by highlighting the coherence of their current themes, and by establishing connections between topics that, up until now, have been investigated independently. It also illustrates how the new analytical toolbox unveils questions about the theory of knowledge, belief, preference, action, and rationality, in a number of central axes in dynamic epistemology: temporal, social, probabilistic and even deontic dynamics.

Edited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information, this book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Logic, Rationality, and Interaction, LORI 2011, held in Guangzhou, China, in October 2011. The 25 revised full papers presented together with 12 posters were carefully reviewed and selected from 52 submissions. Among the topics covered are semantic models for knowledge, for belief, and for uncertainty; dynamic logics of knowledge, information flow, and action; logical analysis of the structure of games; belief revision, belief merging; logics and preferences, compact preference representation; logics of intentions, plans, and goals; logics of probability and uncertainty; logical approaches to decision making and planning; argument systems and their role in interaction; norms, normative interaction, and normative multiagent systems; and logical and computational approaches to social choice.