Epistemic argumentation framework

Abstract

The paper introduces the notion of an epistemic argumentation framework (EAF) as a means to integrate the beliefs of a reasoner with argumentation. Intuitively, an EAF encodes the beliefs of an agent who reasons about arguments. Formally, an EAF is a pair of an argumentation framework and an epistemic constraint. The semantics of the EAF is defined by the notion of an (formula presented)-epistemic labelling set, where (formula presented) is complete, stable, grounded, or preferred, which is a set of (formula presented)-labellings that collectively satisfies the epistemic constraint of the EAF. The paper shows how EAF can represent different views of reasoners on the same argumentation framework. It also includes representing preferences in EAF and multi-agent argumentation. Finally, the paper discusses the complexity of the problem of determining whether or not an (formula presented)-epistemic labelling set exists.