A new approach to the BDI agent-based modeling

Author(s):  
Chang-Hyun Jo ◽  
Guobin Chen ◽  
James Choi
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti

This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the need for a new approach to modeling party competition. It then makes a case for the use of agent-based modeling to study multiparty competition in an evolving dynamic party system, given the analytical intractability of the decision-making environment, and the resulting need for real politicians to rely on informal decision rules. Agent-based models (ABMs) are “bottom-up” models that typically assume settings with a fairly large number of autonomous decision-making agents. Each agent uses some well-specified decision rule to choose actions, and there may be considerable diversity in the decision rules used by different agents. Given the analytical intractability of the decision-making environment, the decision rules that are specified and investigated in ABMs are typically based on adaptive learning rather than forward-looking strategic analysis, and agents are assumed to have bounded rather than perfect rationality. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.


Author(s):  
José Ferreirós

This book presents a new approach to the epistemology of mathematics by viewing mathematics as a human activity whose knowledge is intimately linked with practice. Charting an exciting new direction in the philosophy of mathematics, the book uses the crucial idea of a continuum to provide an account of the development of mathematical knowledge that reflects the actual experience of doing math and makes sense of the perceived objectivity of mathematical results. Describing a historically oriented, agent-based philosophy of mathematics, the book shows how the mathematical tradition evolved from Euclidean geometry to the real numbers and set-theoretic structures. It argues for the need to take into account a whole web of mathematical and other practices that are learned and linked by agents, and whose interplay acts as a constraint. It demonstrates how advanced mathematics, far from being a priori, is based on hypotheses, in contrast to elementary math, which has strong cognitive and practical roots and therefore enjoys certainty. Offering a wealth of philosophical and historical insights, the book challenges us to rethink some of our most basic assumptions about mathematics, its objectivity, and its relationship to culture and science.


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