Abstract:
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The process of rational inquiry can be defined as the
evolution of the beliefs of a rational agent as a consequence
of its internal inference procedures and its interaction with the
environment. These beliefs can be modelled in a formal way
using doxastic logics.
The possible worlds model and its associated Kripke semantics
provide an intuitive semantics for these logics, but they seem to commit us to
model agents that are logically omniscient and
perfect reasoners. These problems can be avoided with a syntactic
view of possible worlds, defining them as arbitrary sets of sentences
in a propositional belief logic.
In this article this syntactic view of possible worlds is taken, and
a dynamic analysis of the agent's beliefs
is suggested in order to model the process of
rational inquiry in which the agent is permanently
engaged. One component of this analysis, the logical one, is
summarily described. This dimension of analysis is performed using a
modified version of the analytic tableaux method, and it models the
evolution of the beliefs due to the agent's inference power. It
is shown how non-perfect reasoning is achieved in two ways: on one
hand, the agent's deductive abilities
can be controlled by restricting the tautologies that it is
allowed to use in the course of this logical
analysis; on the other hand, the agent is not obliged to perform an
exhaustive analysis of the initial tableau. |