Hyperintensional Intention

Open Access
Authors
Publication date 27-11-2025
Journal Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science
Event 20th Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge, TARK 2025
Volume | Issue number 437
Pages (from-to) 48-64
Number of pages 17
Organisations
  • Interfacultary Research - Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC)
Abstract
Intentions are crucial for our practical reasoning. The rational intention obeys some simple logical principles, such as agglomeration and consistency, among others, motivating the search for a proper logic of intention. However, such a logic should be weak enough not to force the closure under entailment; otherwise, we cannot distinguish between intended consequences of agents' choices and their unintended side-effects. In this paper we argue that we should avoid not only the closure under entailment, but the weaker closure under equivalence as well. To achieve this, we develop a hyperintensional logic of intention, where what an agent intends is constrained by the agent's decision problem. The proposed system combines some elements of inquisitive and topic-sensitive theories of intensional modals. Along the way, we also show that the existing closest relatives of our framework overgenerate validities by validating some instances of closure under equivalence. Finally, we provide a sound and strongly complete axiomatization for this logic.
Document type Article
Note Proceedings Twentieth Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge, TARK 2025
Language English
Published at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2511.22371
Published at https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~eptcs/paper.cgi?TARK2025.8
Other links https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~eptcs/content.cgi?TARK2025
Downloads
2511.22371v1 (Final published version)
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