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Probability Logic of Finitely Additive Beliefs

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Abstract

Probability logics have been an active topic of investigation of beliefs in type spaces in game theoretical economics. Beliefs are expressed as subjective probability measures. Savage’s postulates in decision theory imply that subjective probability measures are not necessarily countably additive but finitely additive. In this paper, we formulate a probability logic Σ+ that is strongly complete with respect to this class of type spaces with finitely additive probability measures, i.e. a set of formulas is consistent in Σ+ iff it is satisfied in a finitely additive type space. Although we can characterize Σ+-theories satisfiable in the class as maximally consistent sets of formulas, we prove that any canonical model of maximally consistent sets is not universal in the class of type spaces with finitely additive measures, and, moreover, it is not a type space. At the end of this paper, we show that even a minimal use of probability indices causes the failure of compactness in probability logics.

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Correspondence to Chunlai Zhou.

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Zhou, C. Probability Logic of Finitely Additive Beliefs. J of Log Lang and Inf 19, 247–282 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10849-009-9100-2

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