A Model-Theoretic Analysis Of Knowledge: Preliminary Report

  • Authors:
  • R. Fagin;J. Y. Halpern;M. Y. Vardi

  • Affiliations:
  • IBM Research Laboratory;-;-

  • Venue:
  • SFCS '84 Proceedings of the 25th Annual Symposium onFoundations of Computer Science, 1984
  • Year:
  • 1984

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Abstract

Understanding knowledge is a fundamental issue in many disciplines. In computer science, knowledge arises not only in the obvious contexts (such as knowledge-based systems), but also in distributed systems (where the goal is to have each processor "know" something, as in Byzantine agreement). A general semantic model of knowledge is introduced, to allow reasoning about statements such as "He knows that I know whether or not she knows whether or not it is raining." This approach more naturally models a state of knowledge than previous proposals (including Kripke structures). Using this notion of model, a model theory for knowledge is developed. This theory enables one to interpret such notions as a "finite amount of information" and "common knowledge" in different contexts.