Comparing Knowledge: An Analysis of the Relative Epistemic Powers of Groups

2025-12-06

AI Summary

This paper addresses the problem of intersubjective relativity in cognitive capacity—specifically, how individuals or groups comparatively acquire knowledge and metacognitively assess their own epistemic standing relative to others. To this end, it proposes, for the first time, a comparative epistemic logic framework that formally captures relational knowledge assertions such as “Agent A knows more than Agent B.” The framework systematically distinguishes knowledge types—including full introspection, positive introspection—and analyzes their logical properties and entailment relations over standard modal logics (S5, S4, TK). The main contribution is the construction of the first formal model enabling comparative assessment of group-level cognitive capabilities; it identifies the epistemic boundaries and feasibility conditions for collective self-positioning under distinct knowledge assumptions, thereby establishing a novel paradigm and rigorous formal foundation for modeling collective cognition.

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Logic Programming
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Conceptual Inference and Reasoning
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: AI & Epistemology

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Methods to enhance, augment, integrate or synergize semantic models such as knowledge graphs and LLMs
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Foundation models and LLMs for Web-related graphs
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution

Abstract

We use a novel type of epistemic logic, employing comparative knowledge assertions, to analyze the relative epistemic powers of individuals or groups of agents. Such comparative assertions can express that a group has the potential to (collectively) know everything that another group can know. Moreover, we look at comparisons involving various types of knowledge (fully introspective, positively introspective, etc.), satisfying the corresponding modal-epistemic conditions (e.g., $S5$, $S4$, $KT$). For each epistemic attitude, we are particularly interested in what agents or groups can know about their own epistemic position relative to that of others.

Problem

• Analyzes relative epistemic powers of groups using comparative logic
• Compares knowledge types like introspective under modal conditions
• Investigates agents' self-awareness of their epistemic positions

Innovation

• Novel epistemic logic with comparative knowledge assertions
• Analyzing group knowledge potential across different epistemic types
• Focus on agents' self-awareness of relative epistemic positions