Iterated Belief Revision

This is a discussion of the problem of extending the basic AGM belief revision theory to iterated belief revision: the problem of formulating rules, not only for revising a basic belief state in response to potential new information, but also for revising one’s revision rules in response to potentia...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Stalnaker, Robert
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Springer Netherlands 2009
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/49853
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8503-8662
Description
Summary:This is a discussion of the problem of extending the basic AGM belief revision theory to iterated belief revision: the problem of formulating rules, not only for revising a basic belief state in response to potential new information, but also for revising one’s revision rules in response to potential new information. The emphasis in the paper is on foundational questions about the nature of and motivation for various constraints, and about the methodology of the evaluation of putative counterexamples to proposed constraints. Some specific constraints that have been proposed are criticized. The paper emphasizes the importance of meta-information—information about one’s sources of information—and argues that little of substance can be said about constraints on iterated belief revision at a level of abstraction that lacks the resources for explicit representation of meta-information.