Social Choice Theory
Many revision proposals involve orderings over models representing the relative plausibility of the possible alternatives. The problem of merging amounts to combine a set of orderings into a single one expressing the combined plausibility of the alternatives. This is similar with what is done in social choice theory, which is the study of how the preferences of a group of agents can be combined in a rational way. Belief revision and social choice theory are similar in that they combine a set of orderings into one. They differ on how these orderings are interpreted: preferences in social choice theory; plausibility in belief revision. Another difference is that the alternatives are explicitly enumerated in social choice theory, while they are the propositional models over a given alphabet in belief revision.
Read more about this topic: Belief Revision
Famous quotes containing the words social, choice and/or theory:
“Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man’s subordination.... The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence—that, is, the individual—pure and strong.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“I am a good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not make that use of my figure.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... the first reason for psychology’s failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychology’s failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.”
—Naomi Weisstein (b. 1939)