# Rethinking Epistemic Logic with Belief Bases

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.07079 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07079/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 17 Dec 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Anticipating Responsibility in Multiagent Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16685/) (2023)
- [Base-based Model Checking for Multi-Agent Only Believing (long version)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.14893/) (2023)
- [Graded Distributed Belief](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.22381/) (2025)
- [A Simple Doxastic Deontic Logic for Norm-Guided Decision Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.00668/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce a new semantics for a logic of explicit and implicit beliefs based on the concept of multi-agent belief base. Differently from existing Kripke-style semantics for epistemic logic in which the notions of possible world and doxastic/epistemic alternative are primitive, in our semantics they are non-primitive but are defined from the concept of belief base. We provide a complete axiomatization and prove decidability for our logic via a finite model argument. We also provide a polynomial embedding of our logic into Fagin & Halpern's logic of general awareness and establish a complexity result for our logic via the embedding.