18 research outputs found
From preferences between arguments to preferences between explanations
In this ongoing work we present a new approach to the problem of argument evaluation. According to our view the notion of preference between deductive arguments is reducible to simpler notions. Departuring from this analysis we intend to apply it to the problem of hypothesis selection in explanatory practices.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
A formal analysis of the notion of preference between deductive arguments
In the last two decades, justification logic has addressed the problem of
including justifications into the field of epistemic logic. Nevertheless,
there is something that has not received enough attention yet: how
epistemic agents might prefer certain justifications to others, in order to
have better pieces of evidence to support a particular belief. In this
work, we study the notion of preference between a particular kind of
justifications: deductive arguments. For doing so, we have built a logic
using tools from epistemic logic, justification logic and logics for belief
dependence. According to our solution, the preferences of an epistemic
agent between different deductive arguments can be reduced to other notions
Arguments to believe and beliefs to argue. Epistemic logics for argumentation and its dynamics
Arguing and believing are two skills that have typically played a crucial role in the analysis of human cognition. Both notions have received notable attention from a broad range of disciplines, including linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and computer science. The main goal of this dissertation consists in studying from a logical perspective (that is, focused on reasoning) some of the existing relations between beliefs and argumentation.
From a methodological point of view, we propose to combine two well-known families of formalisms for knowledge representation that have been relatively disconnected (with some salient exceptions): epistemic logic (Fagin et al., 2004; Meyer and van der Hoek, 1995) together with its dynamic extensions (van Ditmarsch et al., 2007; van Benthem, 2011), on the one hand, and formal argumentation (Baroni et al., 2018; Gabbay et al., 2021), on the other hand. This choice is arguably natural. Epistemic logic provides well-known tools for qualitatively representing epistemic attitudes (belief, among them). Formal argumentation, on its side, is the broad research field where mathematical representations of argumentative phenomena are investigated. Moreover, the notion of awareness, as treated in the epistemic logic tradition since Fagin and Halpern (1987), can be used as a theoretical bridge among both areas.
This dissertation is presented as a collection of papers [compendio de publicaciones], meaning that its main contributions are contained in the reprint of six works that have been previously published, placed in Chapter 4. In chapter 1, we pursue a general introduction to the research problem. Chapter 2 is devoted to the presentation of the technical tools employed through the thesis. Chapter 3 explains how the contributions approach the research problem. Chapter 5 provides a general discussion of results, by analysing closely related work. We conclude in Chapter 6 with some remarks and open paths for future research
A Dynamic Epistemic Logic for Abstract Argumentation
This paper introduces a multi-agent dynamic epistemic logic for abstract argumenta-
tion. Its main motivation is to build a general framework for modelling the dynamics
of a debate, which entails reasoning about goals, beliefs, as well as policies of com-
munication and information update by the participants. After locating our proposal
and introducing the relevant tools from abstract argumentation, we proceed to build a
three-tiered logical approach. At the first level, we use the language of propositional
logic to encode states of a multi-agent debate. This language allows to specify which
arguments any agent is aware of, as well as their subjective justification status. We
then extend our language and semantics to that of epistemic logic, in order to model
individuals’ beliefs about the state of the debate, which includes uncertainty about the
information available to others. As a third step, we introduce a framework of dynamic
epistemic logic and its semantics, which is essentially based on so-called event models
with factual change. We provide completeness results for a number of systems and
show how existing formalisms for argumentation dynamics and unquantified uncerSynthese
tainty can be reduced to their semantics. The resulting framework allows reasoning
about subtle epistemic and argumentative updates—such as the effects of different
levels of trust in a source—and more in general about the epistemic dimensions of
strategic communication
An Abstract Look at Awareness Models and Their Dynamics
This work builds upon a well-established research tradition on modal logics
of awareness. One of its aims is to export tools and techniques to other areas
within modal logic. To this end, we illustrate a number of significant bridges
with abstract argumentation, justification logics, the epistemic logic of
knowing-what and deontic logic, where basic notions and definitional concepts
can be expressed in terms of the awareness operator combined with the box
modality. Furthermore, these conceptual links point to interesting properties
of awareness sets beyond those standardly assumed in awareness logics, i.e.
positive and negative introspection. We show that the properties we list are
characterised by corresponding canonical formulas, so as to obtain a series of
off-the-shelf axiomatisations for them. As a second focus, we investigate the
general dynamics of this framework by means of event models. Of specific
interest in this context is to know under which conditions, given a model that
satisfies some property, the update with an event model keeps it within the
intended class. This is known as the closure problem in general dynamic
epistemic logics. As a main contribution, we prove a number of closure theorems
providing sufficient conditions for the preservation of our properties. Again,
these results enable us to axiomatize our dynamic logics by means of reduction
axioms.Comment: In Proceedings TARK 2023, arXiv:2307.0400
Formal argumentation and epistemic logic: what can they do for each other?
Arguing and believing are two central cognitive dimensions of both human beings and artificial intelligent agents. The interrelation of these two notions (or groups of notions) is at the root of classic debates in epistemology and argumentation theory. During this
talk, we will critically review recent literature on combining two well-known families of formalisms that account respectively for argumentation and beliefs, these are, formal argumentation and epistemic logic. [...]Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
A multi-modal logic for Galois connections
Advances in Modal Logic 2022
(Rennes, August 22-25
Online Handbook of Argumentation for AI: Volume 2
Editors: Federico Castagna, Francesca Mosca, Jack Mumford, Stefan Sarkadi and Andreas Xydis.This volume contains revised versions of the papers selected for the second volume of the Online Handbook of Argumentation for AI (OHAAI). Previously, formal theories of argument and argument interaction have been proposed and studied, and this has led to the more recent study of computational models of argument. Argumentation, as a field within artificial intelligence (AI), is highly relevant for researchers interested in symbolic representations of knowledge and defeasible reasoning. The purpose of this handbook is to provide an open access and curated anthology for the argumentation research community. OHAAI is designed to serve as a research hub to keep track of the latest and upcoming PhD-driven research on the theory and application of argumentation in all areas related to AI
Abstract Argumentation with Qualitative Uncertainty: An Analysis in Dynamic Logic
International audienceWe extend the existing encoding of abstract argumentation frameworks in DL-PA (Dynamic Logic of Propositional Assignments) in order to capture different formalisms for arguing with qualitative forms of uncertainty. More in particular, we encode the main reasoning tasks of (rich) incomplete argumentation frameworks and control argumentation frameworks. After that, and inspired by our encoding, we define and study a new class of structures that are shown to be maximally expressive: constrained incomplete argumentation frameworks