Information, Interaction, and Agency : 9781402036002

Contemporary epistemological and cognitive studies, as well as recent trends in computer science and game theory have revealed an increasingly important and intimate relationship between Information, Interaction, and Agency. Agents perform actions based on the available information and in the presence of other interacting agents. From this perspective Information, Interaction, and Agency neatly ties together classical themes like rationality, decision-making and belief revision with games, strategies and learning in a multi-agent setting. Unified by the central notions Information, Interaction, and Agency, the essays in this volume provide refreshing methodological perspectives on belief revision, dynamic epistemic logic, von Neumann games, and evolutionary game theory; all of which in turn are central approaches to understanding our own rationality and that of other agents. Reprinted from Synthese, 139:2 and 142:2 (2004), Special Section Knowledge, Rationality, and Action.

This book collects the first two issues of KRA. Its index shows that these first two issues indeed address its ‘core business’: all the chaptes refer explicitly to knowledge, for instance, and rationality is represented by the many contributions that address games, or reasoning with or about strategies. Actions are present in many chapters in this book: whether they are epistemic programs, or choices by a coalition of agents, or moves in a game, or votes by the members of a jury. All in all, there is an emphasis on Information and a notion of Agency.