Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Seminar

Lehrveranstaltung mit SWS 0/2/0 (Vorlesung/Übung/Praktikum) in SS 2019

Dozent

Steffen Hölldobler
Marcos Cramer

Umfang (SWS)

0/2/0

Module

Leistungskontrolle

Mündliche Prüfung
Referat

Information

Formal Argumentation Theory

Formal argumentation theory is a research area within Artificial Intelligence that studies argumentation using formal methods from logic and graph theory. It consists of two main parts: In abstract argumentation theory one studies the acceptability of arguments by abstracting away from their internal structure to focus on the relation of attacks between them, i.e. on the relation between a counterargument and the argument that it counters. In structured argumentation theory one models also the internal structure of arguments through a formal language in which arguments and counterarguments can be constructed. In this seminar, we will study the properties of multiple argumentation formalisms as well as their relation to logic programming and non-monotonic reasoning.

Schedule

the seminar will take place on Thursday, 14:50-16:20 (starting on 11.04.2019)
location: 2026

Format of the Seminar

Please note that this seminar will only take place if at least five students sign up for it.

Reading and Presenting

You will choose a topic, for which you will prepare a short report (5 to 10 pages) and give a talk (about 30 minutes). The report needs to be handed in one week before the talk.

You will pick a topic of your choice – generally "first come first served", but some topics might be split into two as well. Topics are not ordered by hardness, but for some topics it might be nice to hear one talk before another, so we should coordinate presentation dates.

One week before the talk, you will have to hand in a short report of about 5 to 10 pages about the topic. The talk itself should be about 30 minutes.

Topics

The topics are based on chapters from the Handbook of Formal Argumentation (2018, edited by P. Baroni, D. Gabbay, M. Giacomin and L. van der Torre).

Topic 1: Abstract Argumentation Frameworks and Their Semantics (chapter 4): This chapter gives an overview over abstract argumentation theory and the various semantics that can be applied to choose acceptable arguments from a given argumentation framework.

Topic 2: The structured argumentation framework ASPIC+ (chapter 6): This chapter presents one of the most important frameworks for structured rule-based argumentation as well as its relations to other argumentation formalisms.

Topic 3: Argumentation based on logic programming (chapter 8): This chapter presents Defeasible Logic Programming, a structured argumentation framework that blends concepts from the areas of logic programming and argumentation.

Topic 4: Rationality postulates for structured argumentation (chapter 15): This chapter analysis the properties of ASPIC-style structured argumentation frameworks with respect to rationality postulates for non-monontonic reasoning.

Topic 5: The Principle-Based Approach to Abstract Argumentation Semantics (chapter 16): This chapter compares the properties of various abstract argumentation semantics by studying which principles they satisfy.

Topic 6: Argumentation, Nonmonotonic Reasoning and Logic (chapter 19): This chapter studies the relationship between abstract argumentation, non-monotonic reasoning and four-valued logic.