An algebraic approach to general aggregation theory: Propositional-attitude aggregators as MV-homomorphisms

Herzberg F. An algebraic approach to general aggregation theory: Propositional-attitude aggregators as MV-homomorphisms. Working Papers. Institute of Mathematical Economics. Vol 445. Bielefeld: Center for Mathematical Economics; 2011.This paper continues Dietrich and List's [2010] work on propositionalattitude aggregation theory, which is a generalised unication of the judgment-aggregation and probabilistic opinion-pooling literatures. We rst propose an algebraic framework for an analysis of (many-valued) propositional-attitude aggregation problems. Then we shall show that systematic propositional-attitude aggregators can be viewed as homomorphisms in the category of C.C. Chang's [1958] MV-algebras. Since the 2-element Boolean algebra as well as the real unit interval can be endowed with an MV-algebra structure, we obtain as natural corollaries two famous theorems: Arrow's theorem for judgment aggregation as well as McConway's [1981] characterisation of linear opinion pools

Power Matrices and Dunn--Belnap Semantics: Reflections on a Remark of Graham Priest

The plurivalent logics considered in Graham Priest's recent paper of that name can be thought of as logics determined by matrices (in the `logical matrix' sense) whose underlying algebras are power algebras (a.k.a. complex algebras, or `globals'), where the power algebra of a given algebra has as elements \textit{subsets} of the universe of the given algebra, and the power matrix of a given matrix has has the power algebra of the latter's algebra as its underlying algebra, with its designated elements being selected in a natural way on the basis of those of the given matrix. The present discussion stresses the continuity of Priest's work on the question of which matrices determine consequence relations (for propositional logics) which remain unaffected on passage to the consequence relation determined by the power matrix of the given matrix with the corresponding (long-settled) question in equational logic as to which identities holding in an algebra continue to hold in its power algebra. Both questions are sensitive to a decision as to whether or not to include the empty set as an element of the power algebra, and our main focus will be on the contrast, when it is included, between the power matrix semantics (derived from the two-element Boolean matrix) and the four-valued Dunn--Belnap semantics for first-degree entailment a la Anderson and Belnap) in terms of sets of classical values (subsets of {T, F}, that is), in which the empty set figures in a somewhat different way, as Priest had remarked his 1984 study, `Hyper-contradictions', in which what we are calling the power matrix construction first appeared