Talk given at Logics for Dynamics of Information and Preferences Working sessions (ILLC, Amsterdam).

Abstract. Adaptive logics (a family of nonmonotonic logics introduced by Batens, and further developed by his co-workers) are often suggestively described as "logics which adapt themselves to the specific premise-sets they are applied to." Therefore, their functioning is fleshed out in terms of a dynamic proof-theory which allows for defeasible inference-steps. Notwithstanding the fact that this is an accurate description of what adaptive logics do, this is not always the best way to introduce them. The obvious alternative is to explain some of the basic insights of adaptive logics in terms of its preferential semantics. Admittedly, this is not the adaptive logician's preferred starting point (for it is all about the dynamic proof-theory), but from a present-day semantical perspective on logical dynamics it is undoubtedly the most familiar one.

In this presentation I want to do two things. First, and most importantly, to reformulate the model-theory of adaptive logics in a modal-epistemic framework. This move requires us to interpret the preferential semantics relative to a box-operator with a contextually restricted range. Secondly, and largely as an illustration of the former, to describe how this framework can be applied to elucidate how information loss due to equivocal communication could be reduced.