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Mutual knowledge (logic)

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Mutual knowledge is a fundamental concept about information in game theory, (epistemic) logic, and epistemology. An event is mutual knowledge if all agents know that the event occurred.[1]: 73  However, mutual knowledge by itself implies nothing about what agents know about other agents' knowledge: i.e. it is possible that an event is mutual knowledge but that each agent is unaware that the other agents know it has occurred.[2] Common knowledge is a related but stronger notion; any event that is common knowledge is also mutual knowledge.

The philosopher Stephen Schiffer, in his book Meaning, developed a notion he called "mutual knowledge" which functions quite similarly to David K. Lewis's "common knowledge".[3]

See also

  • Steven Pinker. "The Stuff of Thought: Language as a window into human nature". RSA.

References

  1. ^ Osborne, Martin J., and Ariel Rubinstein. A Course in Game Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1994. Print.
  2. ^ Peter Vanderschraaf, Giacomo Sillari (2007). Common Knowledge. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed 18 November 2011.
  3. ^ Stephen Schiffer, Meaning, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 1988. The first edition was published by OUP in 1972. Also, David Lewis, Convention, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969. For a discussion of both Lewis's and Schiffer's notions, see Russell Dale, The Theory of Meaning (1996).