Description
An Introduction to Logic
Van Benthem’s “Logical Dynamics of Information and Interaction” (2011) represents a unified account of a wide range of informational processes. Using the framework of dynamic epistemic logic as a vehicle, the book shows how a variety of different insights coming from Computer Science, AI, Philosophy and Cognitive Science can be successfully combined. The book starts by providing formal representations of different epistemic attitudes an agent might have towards information (e.g., several kinds of knowledge, different forms of beliefs) as well as the different actions that can affect them (e.g., the already mentioned inference, observations and different forms of belief revision). From these basics, the book follows different directions that connect logic with concerns in different fields. The study of what these informational actions can achieve connects not only with concerns in Philosophy; but also with issues in Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Economics. To use Johan van Benthem’s own elegant formulation, “my program of Logical Dynamics calls for identification of a wide array of informational processes, and their explicit incorporation into logical theory, not as didactic background stories for the usual concepts and results, but as first-class citizens.”