Abstract
We consider the issue of what an agent or a processor needs to know in order to know that its messages are true. This may be viewed as a first step to a general theory of cooperative communication in distributed systems. An honest message is one that is known to be true when it is sent (or said). If every message that is sent is honest, then of course every message that is sent is true. Various weaker considerations than honesty are investigated with the property that provided every message sent satisfies the condition, then every message sent is true.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
M. Chandy and J. Misra, ‘How processes learn’, Distributed Computing 1(1), 1986, pp. 40–52.
C. Dwork and Y. Moses, ‘Knowledge and common knowledge in a Byzantine environment I: Crash failures’, Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge: Proc. of the 1986 Conference (ed. J. Y. Halpern), Morgan Kaufmann, 1986, pp. 149–169.
R. Fagin and J. Y. Halpern, ‘Belief, awareness, and limited reasoning’ Artificial Intelligence 34, 1988, pp. 39–76.
A. Gupta, ‘Truth and paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 11, 1982, pp. 1–60. Reprinted in Recent Essays on Truth and the Liar Paradox (ed. R. L. Martin), Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 175–235.
J. Y. Halpern, ‘Using reasoning about knowledge to analyze distributed systems’, Annual Review of Computer Science, Vol. 2 (ed. J. Traub et al.), Annual Reviews Inc., 1987, pp. 37–68.
J. Y. Halpern and R. Fagin, ‘A formal model of knowledge, action, and communication in distributed systems’, Proceedings of the 4th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, 1985, pp. 224–236.
J. Y. Halpern and Y. O. Moses, ‘Knowledge and common knowledge in a distributed environment’, Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, 1984, pp. 50–61; a revised version appeared as IBM Research Report RJ 4421, 1986.
J. Y. Halpern, Y. O. Moses, and M. Tuttle, ‘A knowledge-based analysis of zero knowledge’, Proceedings of the 20th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 1988, pp. 132–147.
J. Hintikka, Knowledge and Belief, Cornell University Press, 1962.
S. A.Kripke, ‘Outline of a theory of truth’, Journal of Philosophy 72, 1975, pp. 640–716. Reprinted in Recent Essays on Truth and the Liar Paradox (ed. R. L. Martin), 1984, Oxford University Press.
H. J. Levesque, ‘A logic of implicit and explicit belief’, Proc. National Conf. on Artificial Intelligence, 1984, pp. 198–202; a revised and expanded version appears as Fairchild Lab. Technical Report FLAIR #32, 1984.
D. Lewis, Convention, A Philosophical Study, Harvard University Press, 1969.
Y. Moses, ‘Resource-bounded knowledge’, Proceedings of the Second Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge (ed. M. Y. Vardi), Morgan Kaufmann, 1988, pp. 261–295.
Y. Moses and M. Tuttle, ‘Programming simultaneous actions using common knowledge’, Algorithmica 3, 1988, pp. 121–169.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This is an expanded version of a paper that appears in the Proceedings of the Second IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, 1987.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fagin, R., Halpern, J.Y. I'm OK if you're OK: On the notion of trusting communication. J Philos Logic 17, 329–354 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00297510
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00297510