# Epistemic Logic Programs: a study of some properties

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.16344 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16344/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 27 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Sep 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Splitting Epistemic Logic Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08763/) (2018)
- [Thirty years of Epistemic Specifications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07669/) (2021)
- [Constraint Monotonicity, Epistemic Splitting and Foundedness Could in General Be Too Strong in Answer Set Programming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.00191/) (2020)
- [Refining the Semantics of Epistemic Specifications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08289/) (2021)
- [About epistemic negation and world views in Epistemic Logic Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.09867/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Explainable Belief Harmonization under Dynamic Epistemic Partitions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21210/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Epistemic Logic Programs (ELPs), extend Answer Set Programming (ASP) with epistemic operators. The semantics of such programs is provided in terms of world views, which are sets of belief sets, i.e., syntactically, sets of sets of atoms. Different semantic approaches propose different characterizations of world views. Recent work has introduced semantic properties that should be met by any semantics for ELPs, like the Epistemic Splitting Property, that, if satisfied, allows to modularly compute world views in a bottom-up fashion, analogously to ``traditional'' ASP. We analyze the possibility of changing the perspective, shifting from a bottom-up to a top-down approach to splitting. We propose a basic top-down approach, which we prove to be equivalent to the bottom-up one. We then propose an extended approach, where our new definition: (i) is provably applicable to many of the existing semantics; (ii) operates similarly to ``traditional'' ASP; (iii) provably coincides under any semantics with the bottom-up notion of splitting at least on the class of Epistemically Stratified Programs (which are, intuitively, those where the use of epistemic operators is stratified); (iv) better adheres to common ASP programming methodology.