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Communication across Viewpoints

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Abstract

A case situation arising in a normal interaction among people is the baseline for discussing properties of the theory of viewpoints. In particular we consider how to ensure agreement on the meaning of certain utterances by agents who have different perspectives on the situation, while maintaning other knowledge as private. We argue that communication should be modeled as adding facts to the common knowledge of agents. We introduce the principle of ''referent sharing'' in communications and argue that common knowledge resulting from communication should only use constants whose referent is “manifest” to the parties involved.

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Attardi, G., Simi, M. Communication across Viewpoints. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 7, 53–75 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008211103003

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