The Surprise Examination Paradox in Dynamic Epistemic Logic

Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Johan van Benthem and Sonja Smets. They have been excellent guides both through the technical intricacies and the philosophical subtleties that I encountered during my research. I would particularly like to thank Johan for badgering me to always keep in mind the big picture and to Sonja for her day-today supervision and careful scrutiny of my every argument. Together, they offered me the impetus and the support I needed in order to successfully complete this project, while leaving me enough space to develop in my own direction. Thank you! I wish to express my gratitude to the members of the committee for the time they invested in reading this thesis and then in devising questions and in stimulating me to think deeper about the problems that it addresses. I wish to express my gratitude to the ILLC for offering the perfect environment for studying logic. It is through the mix of classes and conferences organized here that I first got acquainted with dynamic epistemic logic and gained the necessary skills for completing this thesis. I wish to thank my teachers for all they have taught me and, of course, Tanja, who is the ILLC's " invisible hand ". This thesis would have looked very different had it not been for the project on dynamic epistemic logic organized by Johan and Davide Grossi. During that project I had my first go at weaving together dynamic epistemic logic and philosophy and Johan and Davide joyfully guided these first steps. Also, I had a lot to gain from the kind invitation of Johan and Eric Pacuit to present an early version of my thesis during the Workshop on Logic, Rationality and Interaction at ESSLLI 2010. I wish to thank the audience for all their questions and particularly Alexandru Baltag whose challenging comments helped me tune my arguments better. I wish to express my gratitude to my friends from Amsterdam who, through their kindness and humor made my stay here an unforgettable experience: to Fernando for his contagious optimism; to Kian for the stimulating conversations (philosophical or otherwise) and for the movie nights that we enjoyed together; to Lorenz, for the seminar we organized together and for listening and helping me sharpen many of the ideas that are now in this thesis; to Lucian and Roxana for their kindness to have me over so …