English

Belief, knowledge and evidence

Logic in Computer Science 2023-04-05 v1 Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

We present a logical system that combines the well-known classical epistemic concepts of belief and knowledge with a concept of evidence such that the intuitive principle \textit{`evidence yields belief and knowledge'} is satisfied. Our approach relies on previous works of the first author \cite{lewjlc2, lewigpl, lewapal} who introduced a modal system containing S5S5-style principles for the reasoning about intutionistic truth (i.e. \textit{proof}) and, inspired by \cite{artpro}, combined that system with concepts of \textit{intuitionistic} belief and knowledge. We consider that combined system and replace the constructive concept of \textit{proof} with a classical notion of \textit{evidence}. This results in a logic that combines modal system S5S5 with classical epistemic principles where φ\square\varphi reads as `φ\varphi is evident' in an epistemic sense. Inspired by \cite{lewapal}, and in contrast to the usual possible worlds semantics found in the literature, we propose here a relational, frame-based semantics where belief and knowledge are not modeled via accessibility relations but directly as sets of propositions (sets of sets of worlds).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2304.01283,
  title  = {Belief, knowledge and evidence},
  author = {Steffen Lewitzka and Vinícius Pinto},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.01283},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

15 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T09:47:37.140Z