Reasoning about Preference Dynamics
Our preferences determine how we act and think, but exactly what the mechanics are and how they work is a central cause of concern in many disciplines. This book uses techniques from modern logics of information flow and action to develop a unified new th
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SYNTHESE LIBRARY
STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editors-in-Chief : VINCENT F. HENDRICKS, University of Copenhagen, Denmark JOHN SYMONS, University of Texas at El Paso, U.S.A.
Honorary Editor: JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University, U.S.A.
Editors: DIRK VAN DALEN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands THEO A.F. KUIPERS, University of Groningen, The Netherlands TEDDY SEIDENFELD, Carnegie Mellon University, U.S.A. PATRICK SUPPES, Stanford University, California, U.S.A. ´ JAN WOLENSKI, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
VOLUME 354 For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/6607
Reasoning about Preference Dynamics
by
Fenrong Liu Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
123
Assoc. Prof. Fenrong Liu Tsinghua University Department of Philosophy 100084 Beijing Haidian District China PRC [email protected]
ISBN 978-94-007-1343-7 e-ISBN 978-94-007-1344-4 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1344-4 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2011928291 c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
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Preface
Studies of rational agency have become a major theme in many disciplines, making logic meet with philosophy, computer science, game theory, cognitive science, and other fields. So far, logical theories have mostly described the information that agents have about relevant situations, how it flows, and brings about knowledge update and belief revision. But typically, human beings act on their goals. To fully understand their behavior, we need to take both information and evaluation, the two main driving forces of rational agency, into account. The aim of this book is to provide a clearer picture of how these two crucial forces show analogous static and dynamic logical structure, and also, how they can live in harmony, entangled in many ways. To achieve this aim, the present book proposes a uniform logical theory of preference, drawing together ideas from several areas: modal logics of betterness relations, dynamic epistemic logics of information change, and priority-based systems for representing structured preference relations. We develop a two-level view of preference that fits well with realistic architectures of agency, closer to cognitive reality. But perhaps the key idea underlying this book is dynamics, the systematic logical study of acts and events that change information, or agents’ evaluation of the world, changing their preferences eventually. The result of our study is a formal framework that has interesting the
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