A Joint Characterization of Belief Revision Rules

Dietrich, Franz and List, Christian and Bradley, Richard (2012): A Joint Characterization of Belief Revision Rules.

Abstract

This paper characterizes different belief revision rules in a unified framework: Bayesian revision upon learning some event, Jeffrey revision upon learning new probabilities of some events, Adams revision upon learning some new conditional probabilities, and `dual-Jeffrey' revision upon learning an entire new conditional probability function. Though seemingly different, these revision rules follow from the same two principles: responsiveness, which requires that revised beliefs be consistent with the learning experience, and conservativeness, which requires that those beliefs of the agent on which the learning experience is `silent' (in a technical sense) do not change. So, the four revision rules apply the same revision policy, yet to different kinds of learning experience.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Subjective probability, Bayes's rule, Jeffrey's rule, axiomatic foundations, unawareness
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C0 - General > C00 - General; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D83 - Search ; Learning ; Information and Knowledge ; Communication ; Belief ; Unawareness; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D80 - General; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D00 - General

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