LogiCIC mini-workshop on The Dynamics of Information States

***Please note that the workshop is planned after Ben Rodenhäuser’s PhD defense, which will take place at 10am in the  Agnietenkapel, Oudezijds Voorburgwal 231, in the city center too. More information here. ***

On Thursday, June 19, we will have a LogiCIC mini-workshop on The Dynamics of Information States  in the city center (Bungehuis, Spuistraat 210).

Everyone is cordially invited!

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Title of the Workshop: The Dynamics of Information States
Date: June 19, 2014
Time: 15:00 — 18:00
Location: room K.06Bungehuis, Spuistraat 210, Amsterdam  https://rooster.uva.nl/locationinfo/908K06

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15:00 Ben Rodenhäuser (University of Amsterdam): Intro

15:10 Branden Fitelson (Rutgers University) : Knowledge from Non-Knowledge
First, I will review some historical examples that appear to be cases of knowledge obtained via (rational) inference from premises (some of) which are not known. Then, I will discuss a popular strategy for responding to such cases. Finally, I will pose a dilemma for this popular strategy.

16:00 Break

16:10 Wesley H. Holliday (UC Berkeley): Knowledge, Time, and Paradox: Introducing Sequential Epistemic Logic
In this talk, I will introduce Sequential Epistemic Logic (SEL), a generalization of Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) aimed at describing the full temporal sequence of agents’ epistemic states, including agents’ changing knowledge of their own and others’ past and future epistemic states, in terms of the kinds of epistemic transformations studied in DEL. I will focus on the SEL analogue of Public Announcement Logic. After discussing some objections to DEL analyses of epistemic paradoxes (in particular, the Knowability Paradox and Surprise Exam Paradox), I will show how SEL overcomes these objections and provides new distinctions related to the phenomenon of “unsuccessful” information updates.

17:00 Break

17:10 Hans Rott (Universität Regensburg): Imperfect Discrimination and the Vagueness of Belief
The classical theory of theory change due to Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson (“AGM”) has been widely known as being characterised by two packages of postulates. The basic package consists of six postulates and is very weak, the full package adds two further postulates and is very strong. Tracing the ideas of imperfect discrimination of the plausibilities of possible worlds, and of imperfect discrimination of the entrenchments of beliefs, I argue that for the interest in two distinct weakenings of the full AGM theory (which are still a lot stronger than the basic theory). The notion of imperfect discrimination raises the question regarding its relation to the notion of vagueness, here: the vagueness of the concept of belief. I try to give an answer.

18:00 End of Workshop