Deutsche Gesellschaft
für phänomenologische Forschung

Buch | Kapitel

189534

Reasoning about knowledge in philosophy

the paradigm of epistemic logic

Jaakko Hintikka

pp. 17-35

Abstrakt

The main vehicle of speaking and reasoning about knowledge in philosophy has recently been epistemic logic.1 Even though epistemic logic is not the only relevant language-game in town, it offers a useful perspective here, for certain other approaches can be thought of as improvements on epistemic logic. In its axiomatic-deductive forms, epistemic logic is normally considered a branch of modal logic, and its semantics is usually subsumed under the misleading heading of "possible-worlds semantics". I will not attempt here a survey of the existing literature on epistemic logic.2 Most of this literature is focused on syntactical (e.g., deductive and axiomatic) methods of dealing with knowledge representation and reasoning about knowledge. This is in my view a serious defect in much of the current work on epistemic logic. For typically the most interesting problems and solutions are found by considering the model-theoretical (semantical) situation. For this reason, I will not attempt here a survey of existing literature, but a review of some of the central conceptual problems arising in epistemic logic.

Publication details

Published in:

Hintikka Jaakko (1989) The logic of epistemology and the epistemology of logic: selected essays, ed. Provence Hintikka Merrill. Dordrecht, Springer.

Seiten: 17-35

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-2647-9_2

Referenz:

Hintikka Jaakko (1989) Reasoning about knowledge in philosophy: the paradigm of epistemic logic, In: The logic of epistemology and the epistemology of logic, Dordrecht, Springer, 17–35.