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My beliefs about your beliefs: a case study in theory of mind and epistemic logic

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Abstract

We model three examples of beliefs that agents may have about other agents’ beliefs, and provide motivation for this conceptualization from the theory of mind literature. We assume a modal logical framework for modelling degrees of belief by partially ordered preference relations. In this setting, we describe that agents believe that other agents do not distinguish among their beliefs (‘no preferences’), that agents believe that the beliefs of other agents are in part as their own (‘my preferences’), and the special case that agents believe that the beliefs of other agents are exactly as their own (‘preference refinement’). This multi-agent belief interaction is frame characterizable. We provide examples for introspective agents. We investigate which of these forms of belief interaction are preserved under three common forms of belief revision.

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  1. University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Hans van Ditmarsch & Willem Labuschagne

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  1. Hans van Ditmarsch
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  2. Willem Labuschagne
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Correspondence to Hans van Ditmarsch.

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van Ditmarsch, H., Labuschagne, W. My beliefs about your beliefs: a case study in theory of mind and epistemic logic. Synthese 155, 191–209 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9144-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9144-7

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