Towards a Formal Theory of Intentions

Intentions are an important concept in several subfields of Artificial Intelligence. We present a formal theory of intentions and beliefs based on Discourse Representation Theory that captures many of the important logical aspects of the functional roles of intentions and beliefs, and of relationships among intentions, and between intentions and beliefs. Unlike possible worlds approaches, this theory does not assume that agents are perfect reasoners, and gives a realistic view of their internal architecture; unlike most representational approaches, it has an objective semantics, and does not rely on an ad hoc labeling of the internal states of agents. We then describe a minimal logic for intentions and beliefs. We close with several additional inferences, and the constraints on the model that correspond to them.

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