The Logical Development of Pretense Imagination
Aybüke Özgün, Tom Schoonen

Abstract:
We propose a logic of imagination, based on simulated belief revision, that intends
to uncover the logical patterns governing the development of imagination
in pretense. Our system complements the currently prominent logics of imagination in that ours in particular formalises (1) the algorithm that specifies what goes on in between receiving a certain input for an imaginative episode and what is imagined in the resulting imagination, as well as (2) the goal-orientedness of imagination, by allowing the context to determine, what we call, the overall topic
of the imaginative episode. To achieve this, we employ well-developed tools and
techniques from dynamic epistemic logic and belief revision theory, enriched with
a topicality component which has been exploited in the recent literature. As
a result, our logic models a great number of cognitive theories of pretense and
imagination (cf. Currie & Ravenscroft 2002; Nichols & Stich 2003; Byrne 2005;
Williamson 2007; Langland-Hassan 2012, 2016).