Belief and Counterfactuals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Huber
Keyword(s):  
Belief Revision ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Belief Change ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Conditional Belief ◽  
Ranking Theory ◽  
Technical Theory ◽  
Do So

This book is the first of two volumes on belief and counterfactuals. It consists of six of a total of eleven chapters. The first volume is concerned primarily with questions in epistemology and is expository in parts. Among other theories, it provides an accessible introduction to belief revision and ranking theory. Ranking theory specifies how conditional beliefs should behave. It does not tell us why they should do so nor what they are. This book fills these two gaps. The consistency argument tells us why conditional beliefs should obey the laws of ranking theory by showing them to be the means to attaining the end of holding true and informative beliefs. The conditional theory of conditional belief tells us what conditional beliefs are by specifying their nature in terms of non-conditional belief and counterfactuals. In addition, the book contains several novel arguments, accounts, and applications. These include an argument for the thesis that there are only hypothetical imperatives and no categorical imperatives; an account of the instrumentalist understanding of normativity, or rationality, according to which one ought to take the means to one’s ends; as well as solutions to the problems of conceptual belief change, logical learning, and learning conditionals. A distinctive feature of the book is its unifying methodological approach: means-end philosophy. Means-end philosophy takes serious that philosophy is a normative discipline, and that philosophical problems are entangled with each other. It also explains the importance of logic to philosophy, without being a technical theory itself.

scholarly journals A Qualitative Theory of Cognitive Attitudes and their Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
EMILIANO LORINI
Keyword(s):  
Belief Change ◽  
Qualitative Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Logical Framework ◽  
Basic Logic ◽  
Conditional Belief ◽  
Concepts Of Knowledge ◽  
Cognitive Attitudes ◽  
Qualitative Decision Theory ◽  
Qualitative Decision

Abstarct We present a general logical framework for reasoning about agents’ cognitive attitudes of both epistemic type and motivational type. We show that it allows us to express a variety of relevant concepts for qualitative decision theory including the concepts of knowledge, belief, strong belief, conditional belief, desire, conditional desire, strong desire, and preference. We also present two extensions of the logic, one by the notion of choice and the other by dynamic operators for belief change and desire change, and we apply the former to the analysis of single-stage games under incomplete information. We provide sound and complete axiomatizations for the basic logic and for its two extensions.

(DIS)BELIEF CHANGE AND ARGUED FEED-BACK DIALOG

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (05) ◽  
pp. 511-538
Author(s):  
LAURENT PERRUSSEL ◽  
JEAN-MARC THÉVENIN
Keyword(s):  
Belief Revision ◽  
Belief Change ◽  
Preference Relation ◽  
Belief State ◽  
Temporal Aspects ◽  
Incoming Information ◽  
Multi Agent

This paper focuses on the features of belief change in a multi-agent context where agents consider beliefs and disbeliefs. Disbeliefs represent explicit ignorance and are useful to prevent agents to entail conclusions due to their ignorance. Agents receive messages holding information from other agents and change their belief state accordingly. An agent may refuse to adopt incoming information if it prefers its own (dis)beliefs. For this, each agent maintains a preference relation over its own beliefs and disbeliefs in order to decide if it accepts or rejects incoming information whenever inconsistencies occur. This preference relation may be built by considering several criteria such as the reliability of the sender of statements or temporal aspects. This process leads to non-prioritized belief revision. In this context we first present the * and − operators which allow an agent to revise, respectively contract, its belief state in a non-prioritized way when it receives an incoming belief, respectively disbelief. We show that these operators behave properly. Based on this we then illustrate how the receiver and the sender may argue when the incoming (dis)belief is refused. We describe pieces of dialog where (i) the sender tries to convince the receiver by sending arguments in favor of the original (dis)belief and (ii) the receiver justifies its refusal by sending arguments against the original (dis)belief. We show that the notion of acceptability of these arguments can be represented in a simple way by using the non-prioritized change operators * and −. The advantage of argumentation dialogs is twofold. First whenever arguments are acceptable the sender or the receiver reconsider its belief state; the main result is an improvement of the reconsidered belief state. Second the sender may not be aware of some sets of rules which act as constraints to reach a specific conclusion and discover them through argumentation dialogs.

scholarly journals Sustainable Equilibrium Index (SEI): A Measure to Analyze the Systemic Dependences in Territorial Development

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 239
Author(s):  
Jonatan Paton ◽  
Jaime Del Castillo ◽  
Belen Barroeta
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Sustainable Growth ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Territorial Development ◽  
Environmental Aspects ◽  
Regional Gap ◽  
Sustainable Equilibrium ◽  
Do So

<p><em>Regional prosperity not only depends on economic issues but also in social and environmental aspects. Achieving a sustainable growth path in the long term implies “coherence” in the advancement of these three dimensions (avoiding potential imbalances threatening that path). Here the notion of “sustainable” competitiveness arises. In this context, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate, through a quantitative methodology, that the coherence of economic, social and environmental dimensions is in fact at the core of regional prosperity and regional gap. To do so, the paper analyses the systemic interdependencies between these three fields using a quantitative methodological approach: the Sustainable Equilibrium Index (SEI). The results include the overall estimates for the SEI in each Spanish region as well as a detailed decomposition of the index by economic, social and environmental fields. Finally, recommendations are made to consider SEI as a metric for the upcoming RIS3 strategies.</em></p>

scholarly journals Modeling Belief in Dynamic Systems, Part II: Revision and Update

1999 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 117-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Friedman ◽  
J. Y. Halpern
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Belief Revision ◽  
Dynamic Systems ◽  
Belief Change ◽  
Companion Paper ◽  
Minimal Change ◽  
Special Cases ◽  
Epistemic Modalities ◽  
Over Time ◽  
New Framework

The study of belief change has been an active area in philosophy and AI. In recent years two special cases of belief change, belief revision and belief update, have been studied in detail. In a companion paper (Friedman & Halpern, 1997), we introduce a new framework to model belief change. This framework combines temporal and epistemic modalities with a notion of plausibility, allowing us to examine the change of beliefs over time. In this paper, we show how belief revision and belief update can be captured in our framework. This allows us to compare the assumptions made by each method, and to better understand the principles underlying them. In particular, it shows that Katsuno and Mendelzon's notion of belief update (Katsuno & Mendelzon, 1991a) depends on several strong assumptions that may limit its applicability in artificial intelligence. Finally, our analysis allow us to identify a notion of minimal change that underlies a broad range of belief change operations including revision and update.

scholarly journals Educación y mecanismos de viaje de las remesas socioculturales. Un estudio con educadores de migrantes en la mixteca alta mexicana

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor Manuel Jacobo-García ◽  
Margarita Armenta-Beltrán ◽  
Enrique Ibarra-Aguirre
Keyword(s):  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Migrant Children ◽  
Educational Context ◽  
Educational Problem ◽  
Mixteca Alta ◽  
The Social ◽  
Educación Primaria ◽  
Do So

Introducción: El presente artículo describe los resultados de un estudio sobre migración con interés educativo; propone como objeto de reflexión a las remesas, no precisamente económicas, sino las socioculturales. Discute algunos de sus mecanismos de viaje para contribuir a la explicación del problema de la educación de los niños y niñas migrantes del campo agrícola mexicano y también para contribuir a la comprensión del sujeto educativo en circunstancia de migración.Método: El enfoque metodológico fue cualitativo-narrativo. En ese sentido, la composición de cartas, la escritura de diarios compartidos, y el registro de observación participante, fueron utilizados como recursos de investigación. En la muestra participaron 22 sujetos, integrando una comunidad de práctica para el aprendizaje de la profesión docente. 16 de ellos eran prácticos/as de la educación de migrantes que al mismo tiempo recibían su formación inicial como licenciados en educación primaria, y los otros seis eran acompañantes con estudios de posgrado en educación.Resultados: Los resultados confirman que algunas remesas socioculturales, pueden ser propagadas cubriendo exitosamente el tejido social de los pueblos y otras, no; lo que depende de la relación no arbitraria establecida entre el esquema interpretativo de los individuos o pueblos destinatarios y los contenidos socioculturales de la remesa que expresan los migrantes.Discusión y Conclusión: Con base en los resultados, se han propuesto los conceptos de resonancia sociocultural regenerativa y resonancia sociocultural disipativa para designar esa realidad como primer acercamiento a la comprensión de los mecanismos de viaje de las remesas socioculturales Introduction: This paper describes the results of a study about the educational context in the migration phenomenon. The study proposes as subject of reflection the remittances, not precisely the economic ones, but the socio-culturals. It discusses some of the spread mechanisms to contribute to the explanation of the educational problem of the migrant children in the Mexican agricultural fields and also, it contributes to the comprehension of the educative subject living the migration phenomenon.Method: The methodological approach of this study was qualitative-narrative. Letter composition, the writing of shared diaries and the participant observation records were used as investigation resources. A community of practice for the learning of the docent profession composed by 22 individuals was the sample of this study. 16 were in charge of the education of migrants and were receiving their initial formation as primary education teachers at the same time. The other six were doing post graduate studies.Results: The results confirm that some socio-cultural remittances are spread and successfully integrated in the social lifestyle of the population and some other cannot do so. This process depends on the non arbitrary relation between the interpretative scheme of the person or the destination population and the socio-cultural contents of the remittance expressed by the migrant population.Discussion and Conclusion: Based on the results, the regenerative and dissipative socio-cultural resonances are proposed concepts to designate this reality, representing the first approach to the comprehension of mechanisms of the socio-cultural remittances spread.

Conditional Belief

2021 ◽  
pp. 62-92
Author(s):  
Franz Huber
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Belief ◽  
Ranking Theory

This chapter first presents the static and dynamic rules of ranking theory. Then it shows how ranking theory solves the problem of iterated belief revisions.

scholarly journals Revising Probabilities and Full Beliefs

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 1005-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Ove Hansson
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Belief Change ◽  
Learning From Experience ◽  
Epistemic Agent ◽  
Set Operations ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Formal Properties ◽  
Belief States ◽  
Do So ◽  
Belief Set

Abstract A new formal model of belief dynamics is proposed, in which the epistemic agent has both probabilistic beliefs and full beliefs. The agent has full belief in a proposition if and only if she considers the probability that it is false to be so close to zero that she chooses to disregard that probability. She treats such a proposition as having the probability 1, but, importantly, she is still willing and able to revise that probability assignment if she receives information that gives her sufficient reasons to do so. Such a proposition is (presently) undoubted, but not undoubtable (incorrigible). In the formal model it is assigned a probability 1 − δ, where δ is an infinitesimal number. The proposed model employs probabilistic belief states that contain several underlying probability functions representing alternative probabilistic states of the world. Furthermore, a distinction is made between update and revision, in the same way as in the literature on (dichotomous) belief change. The formal properties of the model are investigated, including properties relevant for learning from experience. The set of propositions whose probabilities are infinitesimally close to 1 forms a (logically closed) belief set. Operations that change the probabilistic belief state give rise to changes in this belief set, which have much in common with traditional operations of belief change.

scholarly journals Selection Strategies for Inductive Reasoning From Conditional Belief Bases and for Belief Change Respecting the Principle of Conditional Preservation

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Beierle ◽  
Gabriele Kern-Isberner
Keyword(s):  
Belief Change ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
Conditional Belief ◽  
Belief Base ◽  
Belief Bases ◽  
Selection Strategies ◽  
Ranking Model

Given a belief base ∆ consisting of a set of conditionals,there are many different ways an agent may inductivelycomplete the knowledge represented by ∆ to a completeepistemic state; two well-known approaches are given by systemP and system Z, and also each ranking model of ∆ induces afull inference relation. C-representations are special rankingmodels that obey the principle of conditional indifference.Inductive reasoning using c-representations can be done withrespect to all c-representations, with respect to a subclass of,e.g., minimal c-representations, or with respect to singlec-representations. In this paper, we present and investigateselection strategies for determining single c-representations tobe used for inductive reasoning from belief bases. We developaxioms for specifying characteristics of selection strategies.We illustrate which desirable properties, like syntaxsplitting, are ensured by the axioms, and develop constructionsfor obtaining selection strategies satisfying the axioms.Furthermore, we also present and study the extension of selectionstrategies to c-revisions that follow the principle ofconditional preservation and that have been employed successfullyin various belief change settings.

scholarly journals COMPLETENESS FOR COUNTER-DOXA CONDITIONALS – USING RANKING SEMANTICS

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 861-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERIC RAIDL
Keyword(s):  
Belief Revision ◽  
Ranking Function ◽  
Conditional Belief ◽  
Image Position

AbstractStandard conditionals $\varphi > \psi$, by which I roughly mean variably strict conditionals à la Stalnaker and Lewis, are trivially true for impossible antecedents. This article investigates three modifications in a doxastic setting. For the neutral conditional, all impossible-antecedent conditionals are false, for the doxastic conditional they are only true if the consequent is absolutely necessary, and for the metaphysical conditional only if the consequent is ‘model-implied’ by the antecedent. I motivate these conditionals logically, and also doxastically by properties of conditional belief and belief revision. For this I show that the Lewisian hierarchy of conditional logics can be reproduced within ranking semantics, provided we slightly stretch the notion of a ranking function. Given this, acceptance of a conditional can be interpreted as a conditional belief. The epistemic and the neutral conditional deviate from Lewis’ weakest system $V$, in that ID ($\varphi > \varphi$) or even CN ($\varphi > \top$) are dropped, and new axioms appear. The logic of the metaphysical conditional is completely axiomatised by $V$ to which we add the known Kripke axioms T5 for the outer modality. Related completeness results for variations of the ranking semantics are obtained as corollaries.

Syntax Splitting = Relevance + Independence: New Postulates for Nonmonotonic Reasoning From Conditional Belief Bases

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Kern-Isberner ◽  
Christoph Beierle ◽  
Gerhard Brewka
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Belief Revision ◽  
Inductive Inference ◽  
Nonmonotonic Reasoning ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
P System ◽  
Conditional Belief ◽  
Conditional Knowledge ◽  
System P

Syntax splitting, first introduced by Parikh in 1999, is a natural and desirable property of KR systems. Syntax splitting combines two aspects: it requires that the outcome of a certain epistemic operation should only depend on relevant parts of the underlying knowledge base, where relevance is given a syntactic interpretation (relevance). It also requires that strengthening antecedents by irrelevant information should have no influence on the obtained conclusions (independence). In the context of belief revision the study of syntax splitting already proved useful and led to numerous new insights. In this paper we analyse syntax splitting in a different setting, namely nonmonotonic reasoning based on conditional knowledge bases. More precisely, we analyse inductive inference operators which, like system P, system Z, or the more recent c-inference, generate an inference relation from a conditional knowledge base. We axiomatize the two aforementioned aspects of syntax splitting, relevance and independence, as properties of such inductive inference operators. Our main results show that system P and system Z, whilst satisfying relevance, fail to satisfy independence. C-inference, in contrast, turns out to satisfy both relevance and independence and thus fully complies with syntax splitting.

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