English

Implicit Knowledge in Unawareness Structures

Logic in Computer Science 2024-05-21 v2 Computer Science and Game Theory

Abstract

Awareness structures by Fagin and Halpern (1988) (FH) feature a syntactic awareness correspondence and accessibility relations modeling implicit knowledge. They are a flexible model of unawareness, and best interpreted from a outside modeler's perspective. Unawareness structures by Heifetz, Meier, and Schipper (2006, 2008) (HMS) model awareness by a lattice of state spaces and explicit knowledge via possibility correspondences. Sublattices thereof can be interpreted as subjective views of agents. Open questions include (1) how implicit knowledge can be defined in HMS structures, and (2) in which way FH structures can be extended to model the agents' subjective views. In this paper, we address (1) by defining implicit knowledge such that it is consistent with explicit knowledge in HMS models. We also introduce a variant of HMS models that instead of explicit knowledge, takes implicit knowledge and awareness as primitives. Further, we address (2) by introducing a category of FH models that are modally equivalent relative to sublanguages and can be interpreted as agents' subjective views depending on their awareness. These constructions allow us to show an equivalence between HMS and FH models. As a corollary, we obtain soundness and completeness of HMS models with respect to the Logic of Propositional Awareness, based on a language featuring both implicit and explicit knowledge.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2311.03608,
  title  = {Implicit Knowledge in Unawareness Structures},
  author = {Gaia Belardinelli and Burkhard C. Schipper},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.03608},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

46 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2307.05041 author note: This is the full version of the arXiv:2307.05041

R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:13:25.448Z