Abstract
This chapter is devoted to the analysis of the concept of ‘knowledge’ both taken as an abstract notion and in its applications in Epistemic Logic. It starts with a review of the epistemological theories that have been developed since its inception. Afterwards it analyses the different interpretations that have been made of this concept in Epistemic Logic and its contemporary developments, highlighting the difference between ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ knowledge and the strategies for drawing this distinction. Finally, it offers a new understanding of these notions, which supports the correlation between human knowledge and ‘Explicit Aware Knowledge’ (EAK), the central notion of the theoretical framework: the EAK-Schema.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a general overview of Epistemology see the introductory Sect. 1.2.
- 2.
In https://www.lexico.com/definition/knowledge, accessed 02/20/2020.
- 3.
In https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knowledge, accessed 02/20/2020.
- 4.
I refrain from considering other standard or specialised dictionaries, since I do not intend to make a lexicographic point. The use of these dictionary definitions, here and in other sections of this book, helps me relate my arguments with the common sense intuitions I wish to take into account.
- 5.
In https://www.lexico.com/definition/belief, accessed 02/20/2020.
- 6.
A review of these views and a personal choice is provided in Sect. 1.2.
- 7.
Note that Konolige ’s critique might be applied to his own proposal, since the agents he describes reason on the basis of an incomplete set of inference rules (procedures) and, thus, are also “perfect reasoners” in some sense.
- 8.
They also correspond to authors from the same tradition. I could have chosen other papers for this review, but since part of my own research has been in collaboration with authors from this tradition, I preferred to take their work as paradigmatic examples of the concepts I am analysing.
References
Artemov, S. (2008). The logic of justification. The Review of Symbolic Logic, 1(4), 477–513.
Artemov, S., & Fitting, M. (2016). Justification logic. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, winter 2016 edition.
Baltag, A., Renne, B., & Smets, S. (2014). The logic of justified belief, explicit knowledge, and conclusive evidence. Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, 165(1), 49–81.
Chellas, B. F. (1980). Modal Logic: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fagin, R., & Halpern, J. Y. (1988). Belief, awareness, and limited reasoning. Artificial Intelligence, 34(1), 39–76.
Grossi, D., & Velázquez-Quesada, F. R. (2015). Syntactic awareness in logical dynamics. Synthese, 192(12), 4071–4105.
Heifetz, A., Meier, M., & Schipper, B. C. (2006). Interactive unawareness. Journal of Economic Theory, 130(1), 78–94.
Heyting, A. (1934). Mathematische Grundlagenforschung. Intuitionismus. Beweistheorie. Berlin: Springer.
Hintikka, J. (1962). Knowledge and Belief. Ithaca: Cornell U.P.
Kolmogorov, A. (1932). Zur Deutung der intuitionistischen Logik. Mathematische Zeitschrift, 35, 58–65.
Konolige, K. (1984). A Deduction Model of Belief and its Logics. Ph.D. thesis, Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Konolige, K. (1986). What awareness isn’t: A sentential view of implicit and explicit belief. In Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge, Monterey, CA, March 1986 (pp. 241–250).
Levesque, H. J. (1984). A logic of implicit and explicit belief. In R. J. Brachman (Ed.), Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Austin, TX, August 6–10, 1984 (pp. 198–202).
Modica, S., & Rustichini, A. (1999). Unawareness and partitional information structures. Games and Economic Behavior, 27(2), 265–298.
Pacuit, E. (2017). Neighborhood Semantics for Modal Logic. Berlin: Springer.
Plaza, J. (2007). Logics of public communications. Synthese, 158(2), 165–179.
Plaza, J. A. (1989). Logics of public communications. In M. L. Emrich, M. S. Pfeifer, M. Hadzikadic, & Z. W. Ras (Eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems, pp. 201–216. Tennessee: ORNL.
Renne, B. (2012). Multi-agent justification logic: Communication and evidence elimination. Synthese, 185(Suppl. 1), 43–82.
Rescher, N. (2003). Epistemology: An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. New York: State University of New York Press.
Sedlár, I. (2013). Justifications, awareness and epistemic dynamics. In S. N. Artëmov, & A. Nerode, (Eds.), Logical Foundations of Computer Science, International Symposium, LFCS 2013, San Diego, CA, USA, January 6–8, 2013. Proceedings, volume 7734 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 307–318). Berlin: Springer.
van Benthem, J., & Velázquez-Quesada, F. R. (2010). The Dynamics of Awareness. Synthese, 177(Suppl.-1), 5–27.
Velázquez-Quesada, F. R. (2013). Explicit and implicit knowledge in neighbourhood models. In D.Grossi, O.Roy, & H. Huang, (Eds.), Logic, Rationality, and Interaction—4th International Workshop, LORI 2013, Hangzhou, China, October 9–12, 2013, Proceedings, volume 8196 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 239–252). Berlin: Springer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fernández-Fernández, C. (2021). Knowledge as an Epistemological and Logical Concept. In: Awareness in Logic and Epistemology. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69606-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69606-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-69605-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-69606-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)