Abstract argumentation and explanation applied to scientific debates

Abstract

argumentation has been shown to be a powerful tool within many fields such as artificial intelligence, logic and legal reasoning. In this paper we enhance Dung's well-known abstract argumentation framework with explanatory capabilities. We show that an explanatory argumentation framework (EAF) obtained in this way is a useful tool for the modeling of scientific debates. On the one hand, EAFs allow for the representation of explanatory and justificatory arguments constituting rivaling scientific views. On the other hand, different procedures for selecting arguments, corresponding to different methodological and epistemic requirements of theory evaluation, can be formulated in view of our framework.

An integrated theory of causal stories and evidential arguments

“…The interplay between stories and arguments and causal and evidential rules is, however, not directly captured by these frameworks. Another relevant argumentation-theoretic approach -though one that stays exclusively at the level of abstract argumentation -is proposed by [19], who combine explanatory reasoning with argumentation. An interesting avenue for future research would be to investigate how their formal account of the explanatory power of arguments relates to the arguments and positions in the integrated theory.…”

Abduction in Argumentation Frameworks and Its Use in Debate Games

“…However, the goal of negotiation is slightly different from debate-the goal of negotiation is to reach an agreement among players, while the goal of debate is to defeat the opponent player. Sešelja and Straßer [28] integrate abduction and argumentation in their explanatory argumentation framework (EAF). An EAF is defined as a tuple A, χ, →, , ∼ where A, → is an AF, χ is a set of explananda, is the explanatory relation over A×(A∪χ), and ∼ is the incompatible relation over A×A.…”

“…The framework has been later extended to assumption-based argumentation [9]. Dung also introduces formal argumentation [14] as an abstract framework for argumentative reasoning, and the framework has been extended in various ways to incorporate explanatory reasoning [5,20,28,29]. This paper studies an abductive framework based on Dung's abstract argumentation.…”

An Argumentative Agent-Based Model of Scientific Inquiry

“…In contrast to most other ABMs of science, our model is based on the idea that an essential component of scientific inquiry is an argumentative dynamics between scientists. To this end, we employ abstract argumentation frameworks as one of the design features of our ABM (previously shown fruitful for the modeling of scientific debates in [22] and employed in an ABM of social behavior in [7]).…”