Studies on brutal contraction and severe withdrawal (Q526736)

The AGM account of the logic of belief change was originally formulated with belief states taken as sets of classical formulae closed under consequence; but it quickly led to a study of analogous operations on belief bases, that is, sets of formulae not necessarily so closed. Among the constructions devised for belief bases have been several that make use of \textit{M.-A. Williams}' concept of ``ensconcement'', which she introduced in her doctoral thesis and in the paper [Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 838, 86--105 (1994; Zbl 0988.03512)]. The paper under review studies the relationship of one of these constructions, namely for the ``brutal contractions'' of Williams [loc. cit.], to the ``severe withdrawals'' of \textit{H. Rott} and \textit{M. Pagnucco} [J. Philos. Log. 28, No. 5, 501--547 (1999; Zbl 0934.03024)], the latter considered in its versions for both belief sets and belief bases