Foundations of Rational Agency

Foundations of Rational Agency PDF Author: Michael Wooldridge
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401592047
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume represents an advanced, comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of the field of rational agency as it stands today. It covers the philosophical foundations of rational agency, logical and decision-theoretic approaches to rational agency, multi-agent aspects of rational agency and a number of approaches to programming rational agents. It will be of interest to researchers in logic, mainstream computer science, the philosophy of rational action and agency, and economics.

Foundations of Rational Agency

Foundations of Rational Agency PDF Author: Michael Wooldridge
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401592047
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume represents an advanced, comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of the field of rational agency as it stands today. It covers the philosophical foundations of rational agency, logical and decision-theoretic approaches to rational agency, multi-agent aspects of rational agency and a number of approaches to programming rational agents. It will be of interest to researchers in logic, mainstream computer science, the philosophy of rational action and agency, and economics.

Foundations of Rational Choice Under Risk

Foundations of Rational Choice Under Risk PDF Author: Paul Anand
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Get Book Here

Book Description
Describes and evaluates a number of existing criticisms of the formal theory of rationality and subjective expected utility theory. The author argues that rationality is not a behavioural entity, but rather has to do with the relation between an agent's preferences and his or her behaviour.

Agency in Action

Agency in Action PDF Author: S. Coval
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401124221
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Get Book Here

Book Description
This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information, and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal, or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and sociobiology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and to computer science. While primary emphasis will be placed upon theoretical, conceptual, and epistemological aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental, and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. Sam Coval and Peter Campbell provide a painstaking and distinctive analysis of the nature of action and agency. They introduce a conception of acts which encompasses the purposes that motivate them, the beliefs on the basis of which they are undertaken, and the effects that they bring about. They compare and contrast their account with ones advanced by Davidson, Brand, Searle, Danto, and other, while elaborating its consequences for understanding the nature of alibis, mistakes, accidents, inadvertence, and the like. The valuable diagrams and the discussion of the software program they have developed, which implements their theory, amply displays the potential of combining philosophy and AI with law and other disciplines focused upon agency. J.H.F.

Reasoning about Rational Agents

Reasoning about Rational Agents PDF Author: Michael Wooldridge
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262265027
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book focuses on the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model of rational agents, which recognizes the primacy of beliefs, desires, and intentions in rational action. One goal of modern computer science is to engineer computer programs that can act as autonomous, rational agents; software that can independently make good decisions about what actions to perform on our behalf and execute those actions. Applications range from small programs that intelligently search the Web buying and selling goods via electronic commerce, to autonomous space probes. This book focuses on the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model of rational agents, which recognizes the primacy of beliefs, desires, and intentions in rational action. The BDI model has three distinct strengths: an underlying philosophy based on practical reasoning in humans, a software architecture that is implementable in real systems, and a family of logics that support a formal theory of rational agency.The book introduces a BDI logic called LORA (Logic of Rational Agents). In addition to the BDI component, LORA contains a temporal component, which allows one to represent the dynamics of how agents and their environments change over time, and an action component, which allows one to represent the actions that agents perform and the effects of the actions. The book shows how LORA can be used to capture many components of a theory of rational agency, including such notions as communication and cooperation.

Rational Powers in Action

Rational Powers in Action PDF Author: Sergio Tenenbaum
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192592262
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
Human actions unfold over time, in pursuit of ends that are not fully specified in advance. Rational Powers in Action locates these features of the human condition at the heart of a new theory of instrumental rationality. Where many theories of rational agency focus on instantaneous choices between sharply defined outcomes, treating the temporally extended and partially open-ended character of action as an afterthought, this book argues that the deep structure of instrumental rationality can only be understood if we see how it governs the pursuit of long-term, indeterminate ends. These are ends that cannot be realized through a single momentary action, and whose content leaves partly open what counts as realizing the end. Sergio Tenenbaum argues that we need to focus on temporal duration and the indeterminacy of ends in intentional action, even to explain the rational governance of relatively simple actions. Theories of moment-by-moment preference maximization, or indeed any understanding of instrumental rationality on the basis of momentary mental items, cannot capture the fundamental structure of our instrumentally rational capacities. Tenenbaum provides a new theory of instrumental rationality as rationality in action.

The Works of Agency

The Works of Agency PDF Author: Hugh McCann
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801485831
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
In these essays, McCann develops a unified perspective on human action. Written over a period of 25 years, the essays provide a comprehensive survey of the major topics in contemporary action theory. In four sections, the book addresses the ontology of action; the foundations of action; intention, will and freedom; and practical rationality. McCann works out a compromise between competing perspectives on the individuation of action; explores the foundations of action and defends a volitional theory; argues for a libertarian view of both the formation and the execution of intention; and considers the question of consistency in rational intentions, as well as the relationship between practical and theoretical reasoning.

Rationality and Dynamic Choice

Rationality and Dynamic Choice PDF Author: Edward F. McClennen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521360470
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 42

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this major contribution to the theory of rational choice the author sets out the foundations of rational choice, and then sketches a dynamic choice framework in which principles of ordering and independence follow from a number of apparently plausible conditions. However there is potential conflict among these conditions, and when they are weakened to avoid it, the usual foundations of rational choice no longer prevail. The thrust of the argument is to suggest that the theory of rational choice is less determinate than many suppose.

Uncertainty, Rationality, and Agency

Uncertainty, Rationality, and Agency PDF Author: Wiebe van der Hoek
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402046316
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume concerns Rational Agents - humans, players in a game, software or institutions - which must decide the proper next action in an atmosphere of partial information and uncertainty. The book collects formal accounts of Uncertainty, Rationality and Agency, and also of their interaction. It will benefit researchers in artificial systems which must gather information, reason about it and then make a rational decision on which action to take.

Theoretical Foundations for Rational Agency in Third Generation Wargames

Theoretical Foundations for Rational Agency in Third Generation Wargames PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 11

Get Book Here

Book Description
Conflict between groups of armed men is as old as recorded history. Effective reasoning and decision-making are fundamental to the successful execution of military operations. These activities are of paramount importance given the high-stakes nature of conflict; most especially in this modern era of asymmetric threats and conventionally armed rogue states. Yet as high as the stakes are, there does not exist a sufficiently formal military theory of reasoning and decision-making that instantiates modern war-fighting doctrine. Large bodies of knowledge of reasoning and decision-making exist, but they are not integrated, and they (to author knowledge) have not been cast effectively into a military context. Herein, I describe a new theory of military rationality which fully captures the reasoning and decision-making processes of military personnel. The goal of the third generation wargaming effort as the Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate is to produce a high-fidelity simulation of conflict environments in order to facilitate a new brand of highly immersive training for warfighters. I shall briefly highlight the philosophical foundations for the construction of such entities, and the formal techniques by which they may be modeled and engineered.

Foundations for Moral Relativism

Foundations for Moral Relativism PDF Author: J. David Velleman
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783740329
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this new edition of Foundations for Moral Relativism a distinguished moral philosopher tames a bugbear of current debate about cultural difference. J. David Velleman shows that different communities can indeed be subject to incompatible moralities, because their local mores are rationally binding. At the same time, he explains why the mores of different communities, even when incompatible, are still variations on the same moral themes. The book thus maps out a universe of many moral worlds without, as Velleman puts it, "moral black holes”. The six self-standing chapters discuss such diverse topics as online avatars and virtual worlds, lying in Russian and truth-telling in Quechua, the pleasure of solitude and the fear of absurdity. Accessibly written, this book presupposes no prior training in philosophy.