Logics for belief dependence

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the theoretical foundations of belief dependence in multiple agent environment, where agents may rely on someone else about their beliefs or knowledge. Several logics for belief dependence are introduced and studied. First of all, we try to formalize the problem of belief dependence in the framework of general epistemic logics, by which we will argue that general epistemic logic is not appropriate to formalize the problem of belief dependence. Then, based on an approach which is similar to Fagin and Halpern's general awareness logic, we present the second logic for belief dependence, which is called a syntactic approach. The third logic is an adapted possible world logic, where sub-beliefs are directly introduced in the models.