Publications
No fulltext in DiVA
Author:
Cantwell, John (Uppsala University, Department of Philosophy)
Title:
Non-linear belief revision: Foundations and applications : by John Cantwell
Department:
Uppsala University, Humanistisk-samhällsvetenskapliga vetenskapsområdet, Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy
Publication type:
Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Language:
English
Place of publ.:
Uppsala
Publisher:
Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis
Pages:
85
Series:
Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Arts, ISSN 1102-2043; 3
Year of publ.:
2000
URI:
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-540
Permanent link:
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-540
ISBN:
91-554-4866-6
Subject category:
Philosophy subjects
Research subject:
Theoretical Philosophy
Keywords(en) :
Philosophy, Belief revision, iterated belief revision, non-linear belief revision, epistemic entrenchment, plausibility relations, possibility relations, preferential relations, sources of information, contradictory information, non-prioritised belief revision, AGM
Keywords(sv) :
Filosofi
Abstract(en) :

Three structures for belief revision: plausability relations on states, relations of epistemic entrenchment on propositions and systems of spheres (hypertheories), are generalised to the non-linear (non-connected) case. The further generalisation to the case of sets of such structures is also investigated. A formal language with dynamic and doxastic (belief) modal operators (DDL) is used to establish interdefinability properties between the structures and complete axiomatisations are given.

The problem of iterated belief revision on non-linear structures is considered. The ideas and results of Darwiche & Pearl (1997) for iterated belief revision on linear structures are generalised to the non-linear case and axiomatisations in DDL are given.

The structures and results are used to investigate a particular application: the problem when there are multiple, possibly unreliable and possibly contradictory sources of information. A trustworthiness relation on sources of information together with the information supplied by the sources is used to generate a non-linear plausibility relation on states and forms the basis for a decision procedure about what to believe. A DDL-style language with multiple non-prioritised revision operators is used to investigate the resulting structures and complete axiomatisations are given.

Public defence:
2000-12-08, Dekansalen, Dekanhuset, Uppsala, 10:15
Degree:
degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Available from:
2000-11-17
Created:
2006-03-19
Statistics:
16 hits