Contraction: On the decision-theoretical origins of minimal change and entrenchment (Q857687)

In a series of publications since 1983, Isaac Levi has sought to articulate the notion of the information value of a belief or set of beliefs. The most recent attempt appeared in his recent book [Mild contraction: evaluating the loss of information due to loss of belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2004)]. The paper under review briefly recalls the basic definitions employed there, and goes on to relate the contraction functions engendered by Levi's ``standard operators of information value'' to those resulting from other approaches to the logic of belief change in the literature. Levi's contractions differ from the familiar AGM ones; in particular, they satisfy a principle of antitony but fail recovery. The authors show that they are, however, characterized by syntactic conditions that were proposed by \textit{H. Rott} and \textit{M. Pagnucco} for a quite different conceptualization of contraction that does not appeal to measures of information [``Severe withdrawal (and recovery)'', J. Philos. Log. 28, 501--547 (1999; Zbl 0934.03024)]. Reviewer's comments: (1) Among the basic definitions taken from Levi's book, that of an ultimate partition (page 134) is rather over-compressed. As it stands, there is no guarantee that the set as defined is unique, or even exists. To ensure this, one needs to assume (as Levi did in the book presentation) that K is the intersection of some subset of the basic partition. (2) Some of the general epistemological issues involved are discussed in a companion paper by the first of the two authors [``Rationality and value: the epistemological role of indeterminate and agent-dependent values'', Philos. Stud. 128, 7--48 (2006)].