The logic of KM belief update is contained in the logic of AGM belief revision

Giacomo Bonanno
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Giacomo Bonanno: Department of Economics, University of California Davis

No 376, Working Papers from University of California, Davis, Department of Economics

Abstract: For each axiom of KM belief update we provide a corresponding axiom in a modal logic containing three modal operators: a unimodal belief operator $B$, a bimodal conditional operator $>$ and the unimodal necessity operator $\square$. We then compare the resulting logic to the similar logic obtained from converting the AGM axioms of belief revision into modal axioms and show that the latter contains the former. Denoting the latter by L_{AGM} and the former by L_{KM} we show that every axiom of L_{KM} is a theorem of L_{AGM} . Thus AGM belief revision can be seen as a special case of KM belief update. For the strong version of KM belief update we show that the difference between L_{KM} and L_{AGM} can be narrowed down to a single axiom, which deals exclusively with unsurprising information, that is, with formulas that were not initially disbelieved.

Keywords: belief update; belief revision; conditional; Kripke relation; Lewis selection function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2026-02-25
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