Irrevocable belief revision in dynamic doxastic logic (Q5937821)

The purpose of the article is to present a new modeling for belief revision, called irrevocable belief revision (IR), that is able to distinguish between actual belief revision and the belief revision based on the hypothetical reasoning met in dynamic doxastic logic, where inconsistent beliefs may be accepted just ``for the sake of argument''. The modeling proposed by Krister Segerberg is both of philosophical interest, since it captures some features of suppositional reasoning of doxastic commitments, and of technical interest as a new formalism closely connected to AGM (Alchourrón-Gärdenfors-Makinson) logic. One important difference between IR and the classical theory of belief revision in AGM is that IR specifically provides for iterated belief change. Apparently hard to be compared, because AGM is in effect a ``one-shot'' theory whereas IR is iterative, Krister Segerberg discusses also for the two approaches the interesting idea that irrevocable belief revision may be continued with many modelings of ``ordinary'' belief revision.