Imagine the possibilities: information without overload

Logique Et Analyse 49 (196):345–371 (2006)
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Abstract

Information is often modelled as a set of relevant possibilities, treated as logically possible worlds. However, this has the unintuitive consequence that the logical consequences of an agent's information cannot be informative for that agent. There are many scenarios in which such consequences are clearly informative for the agent in question. Attempts to weaken the logic underlying each possible world are misguided. Instead, I provide a genuinely psychological notion of epistemic possibility and show how it can be captured in a formal model, which I call a fan. I then show how to use fans to build formal models of being informed, as well as knowledge, belief and information update.

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Mark Jago
Nottingham University

Citations of this work

The nature of epistemic space.David J. Chalmers - 2011 - In Andy Egan & Brian Weatherson (eds.), Epistemic Modality. Oxford University Press.
Impossible Worlds.Francesco Berto - 2013 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2013):en ligne.
Hintikka and Cresswell on Logical Omniscience.Mark Jago - 2006 - Logic and Logical Philosophy 15 (3):325-354.

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References found in this work

Studies in the way of words.Herbert Paul Grice - 1989 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Word and Object.Henry W. Johnstone - 1961 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22 (1):115-116.
On the reasons for indeterminacy of translation.W. V. Quine - 1970 - Journal of Philosophy 67 (6):178-183.
Impossible possible worlds vindicated.Jaakko Hintikka - 1975 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 4 (4):475 - 484.

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