We are delighted to be hosting a visit from Martin Caminada who has recently joined the University of Aberdeen. He will be here on 12 December to deliver a seminar in Wolfson entitled,

Argumentation as Inference versus Argumentation as Dialogue —
reconciling two lines of research

Abstract:
In the formal argumentation community, one can distinguish two main lines of research: argumentation as inference and argumentation as dialogue. The first line of research, going back to the work of Pollock, Vreeswijk and Simari & Loui, is focused in argumentation as a way of performing non-monotonic entailment. That is, it is focused on the *outcome* of argumentation. The second line of research, going back to the work of Hamblin, Mackenzie and Walton & Krabbe, is focused on argumentation as dialectics, involving various actors. That is, it is focused on the *process* of argumentation.
In our recent work, we aim to reconcile these two lines of research.
That is, we aim to express argument-based entailment as the ability to
win a discussion. In particular, we are able to show that:
(1) grounded semantics can be interpreted in terms of a persuasion dialogue
(2) (credulous) preferred semantics can be interpreted in terms of Socratic dialogue
(3) ideal and stable semantics can both be interpreted as specific sub-forms of Socratic dialogue
Apart from abstract argumentation, we also examine the possibilities of redefining ASPIC-style entailment in terms of structured dialogue. In general, we think that argument-based inference is not so much about what is true, but about what can be defended in rational discussion.

We are delighted to be hosting a visit from Prof. Tom Gordon from Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communications Systems (FOKUS) and  Institute of Computer Science of the University of Potsdam. Tom is here to work with us on interactions between the EPSRC-funded DAM project and the EU FP7 IMPACT project, and to explore in detail connections between the AIF and LKIF (used in Tom’s Carneades system) in particular. Tom is also giving a seminar here, on Wednesday, 28 September at 12 noon in Wolfson, entitled,

The IMPACT Argumentation Toolbox for Policy Deliberations

Abstract. IMPACT is a European Framework 7 research and development project on the theme of information and communications technology for governance and policy modeling. IMPACT is conducting original research to develop and integrate formal, computational models of policy and arguments about policy, to facilitate deliberations about policy at a conceptual, language-independent level. These models will be used to develop and evaluate a prototype of an innovative argumentation toolbox for supporting open, inclusive and transparent deliberations about public policy on the World-Wide-Web. Four integrated web applications are being developed for the IMPACT toolbox: 1. Argument Reconstruction Tool; 2. Structured Consultation Tool; 3. Policy Modelling Tool; and 4. Argument Visualisation and Tracking Tool. All four tools are based on the same underlying computational model of argument and exchange arguments using the Legal Knowledge Interchange Format (LKIF), an XML format for argumentation schemes and arguments inspired in part by the Argument Interchange Format (AIF) developed partly at the University of Dundee’s School of Computing.