16 November 2023, The Utrecht Logic in Progress Series (TULIPS), Wessel Kroon

Abstract: In standard epistemic logic, knowledge is equated with information possession. A growing body of literature, however, posits that knowledge encompasses more than undirected information. Following this line of research, we take inquiry to be fundamental in knowledge acquisition and put forth a notion of knowledge as information that is relevant with respect to an agent's issues. We argue that a framework based on this notion leaves room for the goal-directed nature of epistemic processes. As a consequence, contentious epistemic principles such as closure under deduction and positive introspection are restricted in a principled manner. We draw on Minica's issue-epistemic models in order to formally capture knowledge and issue-relevance. Several logics dealing with information, issue-relevance and knowledge are axiomatized and proven to be sound and complete with respect to these models. Finally, we show that the static framework can be enhanced in order to accommodate a dynamic logic that cannot only model information change, but also the process of gaining or losing interest in issues.