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Epistemic Conditionals, Snakes and Stars

Horácio Costa-1995-11-30
18

TL;DRAbstract

Abstract A new epistemic semantics that implements a formulation of the Ramsey test compatible with the Alchourrón-Gärdenfors-Makinson (AGM) is presented. We adopt a notion of positive validity according to which a sentence is considered valid in a system of belief sets if it is accepted in all belief sets of the system. We call epistemic any conditional system positively validated by the epistemic model together with a notion of change (at least) compatible with AGM. Our ‘official’ axiomatization of (non-nested) epistemic conditionals is the system CJF which contains the formulas positively validated by AGM. Our models are able to reconstruct epistemically the non-nested fragment of some of the conditional systems proposed by the possible-worlds semantic, like Stalnaker’s system C2. Nevertheless we show that Lewis’s ‘official axiomatization’ of conditionals, the system VC, is not an epistemic system.

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Abstract A new epistemic semantics that implements a formulation of the Ramsey test compatible with the Alchourrón-Gärdenfors-Makinson (AGM) is presented. We adopt a notion of positive validity according to which a sentence is considered valid in a system of belief sets if it is accepted in all belief sets of the system. We call epistemic any conditional system positively validated by the epistemic model together with a notion of change (at least) compatible with AGM. Our ‘official’ axiomatization of (non-nested) epistemic conditionals is the system CJF which contains the formulas positively validated by AGM. Our models are able to reconstruct epistemically the non-nested fragment of some of the conditional systems proposed by the possible-worlds semantic, like Stalnaker’s system C2. Nevertheless we show that Lewis’s ‘official axiomatization’ of conditionals, the system VC, is not an epistemic system.

Keywords

Fragment (logic)EpistemologySemantics (computer science)SentencePossible worldMathematicsPhilosophyComputer science

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