Elements of Argumentation (The MIT Press)

Background and techniques for formalizing deductive argumentation in a logic-based framework for artificial intelligence.

Logic-based formalizations of argumentation, which assume a set of formulae and then lay out arguments and counterarguments that can be obtained from these formulae, have been refined in recent years in an attempt to capture more closely real-world practical argumentation. In Elements of Argumentation, Philippe Besnard and Anthony Hunter introduce techniques for formalizing deductive argumentation in artificial intelligence, emphasizing emerging formalizations for practical argumentation. Besnard and Hunter discuss how arguments can be constructed, how key intrinsic and extrinsic factors can be identified, and how these analyses can be harnessed for formalizing argumentation for use in real-world problem analysis and decision making.

The book focuses on a monological approach to argumentation, in which there is a set of possibly conflicting pieces of information (each represented by a formula) that has been collated by an agent or a pool of agents. The role of argumentation is to construct a collection of arguments and counterarguments pertaining to some particular claim of interest to be used for analysis or presentation.

Elements of Argumentation is the first book to elucidate and formalize key elements of deductive argumentation. It will be a valuable reference for researchers in computer science and artificial intelligence and of interest to scholars in such fields as logic, philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science.

Philippe Besnard is CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) Research Director in the Logic, Interaction, Language, and Computation Group of the Institut de Recherche et Informatique Toulouse at Université Paul Sabatier.

Anthony Hunter is Reader in Intelligent Systems and Head of the Intelligent Systems Research Group in the Department of Computer Science at University College London.