An abstract framework for argumentation with structured arguments

Abstract

An abstract framework for structured arguments is presented that instantiates Dung's (1995) abstract argumentation frameworks. Arguments are defined as inference trees formed by applying two kinds of inference rules: strict and defeasible rules. This naturally leads to three ways of attacking an argument: attacking a premise, attacking a conclusion and attacking an inference. To resolve such attacks, preferences may be used, which leads to three corresponding kinds of defeat: undermining, rebutting and undercutting defeat. The nature of the inference rules, the structure of the logical language on which they operate and the origin of the preferences are, apart from some basic assumptions, left unspecified.The resulting framework integrates work of Pollock, Vreeswijk and others on the structure of arguments and the nature of defeat, and extends it in several respects. Various rationality postulates are proven to be satisfied by the framework, and several existing approaches are proven to be a special case of the framework, including assumption-based argumentation and DefLog.

On a Computational Argumentation Framework for Agent Societies

“…This differs from the contrariness relation declared in the ASPIC framework [35], which also captures negation as failure. However, our restricted view of the contrariness relation follows the way of reasoning that case-based reasoning systems have.…”

“…Therefore, the premises that describe the problem to solve can be considered as axiom premises as defined in the ASPIC framework [35,Definition 3.5]. Similarly, the extra premises can be considered as equivalent of the ordinary premises of the ASPIC framework and if the attacks on them result in defeats depend on the defeat relation specified below in Definition 4.8.…”

“…Most argumentation frameworks and their resulting argumentation systems produce arguments by applying a set of inference rules. This is the case of the recently proposed ASPIC framework [35], which is an abstract model of rule-based argumentation with structured arguments. Rule-based systems require to elicit a explicit model of the domain.…”

A Methodology for the Generation of Multi-agent Argumentation Dialogue Scenarios

“…Arguments in the deliberation dialogues are formed using a simple instantiation of the abstract ASPIC framework for argumentation with structured arguments [9], which is an instance of the Dung [2] abstract argumentation model. It allows agents to create structured arguments, modelled as inference trees of applied strict and defeasible rules.…”

Which style of reasoning to choose in the face of conflicting information?

“…However, there the sceptical consequences are presented as an alternative procedural approach to the one that results from intersecting the credulous extensions (see, for instance, [9] for details). In the context of both, inheritance networks and instantiated abstract argumentation, it is possible to distinguish between arguments that lie in the intersection of all extensions, and claims or formulas that can be derived from every extension (see, for instance, [9,17]). 3 For an introduction to adaptive logics, see, for instance [2].…”