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Revocable Belief Revision

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Abstract

Krister Segerberg proposed irrevocable belief revision, to be contrasted with standard belief revision, in a setting wherein belief of propositional formulas is modelled explicitly. This suggests that in standard belief revision is revocable: one should be able to unmake (‘revoke’) the fresh belief in the revision formula, given yet further information that contradicts it. In a dynamic epistemic logical setting for belief revision, for multiple agents, we investigate what the requirements are for revocable belief revision. By this we not merely mean recovering belief in non-modal propositions, as in the recovery principle for belief contraction, but recovering belief in modal propositions: beliefs about beliefs. These requirements are almost never met, a surprising result.

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  1. LORIA, CNRS – Université de Lorraine, Vanduvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Hans van Ditmarsch

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  1. Hans van Ditmarsch
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Correspondence to Hans van Ditmarsch.

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This article is a revised and expanded version of [45].

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van Ditmarsch, H. Revocable Belief Revision. Stud Logica 101, 1185–1214 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-013-9529-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-013-9529-9

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