Reasoning about Preference Dynamics

Fenrong Liu

ISBN 10: 9400713436 / ISBN 13: 9789400713437

Published by Springer Netherlands Jun 2011, 2011

About this Item

This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Rational behaviour of agents is driven by their information about the world, but equally importantly, by their preferences between actions or outcomes of actions. Thus a logic of preference should be a necessary part of any successful logical account of rational agency. But agents do not just reason with fixed preferences, they are subject to a constant stream of new information which affects their knowledge and belief, and likewise, to a stream of preference changing events which affect their goals and desires. This book is the first to investigate in a systematic manner, what logical systems must look like to deal with both information dynamics and preference change in an integrated manner. Its purpose in doing so is finding a perspective that does justice to all aspects of reasoning about agency, while providing a coherent framework that can absorb insights from many fields. The methods used in this study combine several ingredients: existing logics of belief and preference, new dynamic-epistemic logics of information flow based on triggering events , and theories of structured preference based on underlying priority orders among properties of objects or worlds. The result is a systematic family of complete logical systems, which greatly extends the existing literature on preference logic, while clarifying a number of philosophical issues concerning agency. In line with its unifying ambition, the book also considers a wide variety of concrete examples, drawn from deontic logic, game theory, linguistic optimality theory, social choice theory, and other areas. 220 pp. Englisch.

Seller Inventory # 9789400713437

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Reasoning about Preference Dynamics
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands Jun 2011
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9400713436
• ISBN 13: 9789400713437
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 241W x 160H x 16D millimeters 241 millimeters width by 160 millimeters height by 16 millimeters depth
• Weight: 500 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Our preferences determine how we act and think, but exactly what the mechanics are and how they work is a central cause of concern in many disciplines. This book uses techniques from modern logics of information flow and action to develop a unified new theory of what preference is and how it changes. The theory emphasizes reasons for preference, as well as its entanglement with our beliefs. Moreover, the book provides dynamic logical systems which describe the explicit triggers driving preference change, including new information, suggestions, and commands. In sum, the book creates new bridges between many fields, from philosophy and computer science to economics, linguistics, and psychology. For the experienced scholar access to a large body of recent literature is provided and the novice gets a thorough introduction to the action and techniques of dynamic logic.

About the Author

Fenrong Liu is an associate professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, one of the most prestigious universities in China. She received her first Ph.D degree in Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2001 on default reasoning, a topic linking philosophy with Artificial Intelligence. From 2003-2008, she worked at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) at the University of Amsterdam, where she obtained a second Ph.D degree in Science on dynamic logics of preference. She has published some  40 papers, and has organized many events, including a new Chinese conferences series on Logic,
Rationality, and Intelligent Interaction (LORI). Her research is aimed at understanding how information changes guide rational agency in terms of beliefs and preference, and in modelling similarities and differences between agents, making room for agent diversity in logic. In addition, she pursues an active program in Chinese Ancient Logic, reading Chinese old texts by modern logical theories.