Research

Understanding the logical structure of "agency" has long been my main interest. I study rational behavior by looking at how information and inference combine with the logical structure of an agent's preferences, reasons for these, and their dynamic changes. I also believe that rationality unfolds at its most vivid in multi-agent settings, and so I study the formal properties of social relations and social influence as these affect agents' belief formation, changing and convergence of opinions. In particular, I am also fascinated by agents' strategic interactions, and study them in the context of various concrete games. Finally, I am excited about differences and similarities across cultures, comparing patterns of reasoning from a logical and historical point of view. Through my research, I have the privilege of collaborating with colleagues and students from philosophy, mathematics, linguistics, computer science and AI, game theory and economics.

Preference Logic

Main themes: developing a reason-based approach to preferences; exploring the dynamics of preference change through various events of changing information, evaluation, or goals.

Books
Selected Papers

Social Epistemic Logic

Main themes: introducing the role of social structure into philosophical logics of knowledge and action; the dynamics of belief formation over time in social networks; the interface of "high" and "low" rationality in social group processes.

Books
  • Fenrong Liu: Social Epistemic Logic, Tsinghua University Press, 2023 (in Chinese)

Selected Papers

Logics for Games and Social Interaction

Main themes: designing games and game logics in tandem; exploring logical and computational aspects of bounded agents in games.

Books
  • Johan van Benthem and Fenrong Liu: Graph Games and Logic Design, Recent Development and Future Directions, to appear, 2025.

Selected Papers

History of Logic in China

Main themes: bringing the open methodology of modern logic to bear on historical studies; opening up new ways of letting historical texts and authors speak for themselves; monotonicity reasoning in logical history and current formal semantics.

Books
  • Fenrong Liu, Jeremy Seligman and Jincheng Zhai, eds., Handbook of Logical Thought in China, to appear, Springer and China Social Sciences Press.

  • Fenrong Liu and Jeremy Seligman, eds., The History of Logic in China: 5 Questions, Copenhagen: Automatic Press, 2015.

Selected Papers
  • Fenrong Liu and Zhiqiang Sun: The Zhou Puzzle: A Peek into Quantification in Mohist logic, to appear 2025.

  • Zhiqiang Sun and Fenrong Liu: The Inference Pattern Mou in Mohist Logic - A monotonicity reasoning view. Roczniki Filozoficzne (Annals of Philosophy), No. 4, pp.105-117, 2020.

  • Johan van Benthem and Fenrong Liu: New Logical Perspectives on Monotonicity, in Deng, D., Liu, F., Liu, M., Westerståhl, D. (eds) Monotonicity in Logic and Language. TLLM 2020. LNCS, Vol 12564. pp.1-12. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2020.

  • Fenrong Liu, Jeremy Seligman and Johan van Benthem: Models of Reasoning in Ancient China. Studies in Logic, Special Issue on the History of Logic in China, 4(3): 57-81, 2011.

  • Fenrong Liu and Jeremy Seligman: Chinese Logic and Chinese Philosophy: Reconstruction or Integration? The IIAS Newsletter 58 Autumn 2011.

  • Fenrong Liu and Jialong Zhang: New Perspectives on Mohist Logic. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 37(4): 605-621, 2010.

  • Fenrong Liu and Wujin Yang: A Brief History of Chinese Logic, in Amitabha Gupta and Johan van Benthem eds., Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Special Issue on Logic and Philosophy Today, Volume. 27, No.1, pp. 101-126, 2010.




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