Goal-Based Reasoning for Argumentation

This book provides an argumentation model for means end-reasoning, a distinctive type of reasoning used for problem-solving and decision-making. Means end-reasoning is modelled as goal-directed argumentation from an agent's goals and known circumstances, and from an action selected as a means, to a decision to carry out the action. Goal-based Reasoning for Argumentation provides an argumentation model of this kind of reasoning showing how it is employed in settings of intelligent deliberation where agents try to collectively arrive at a conclusion on what they should do to move forward in a set of circumstances. The book explains how this argumentation model can help build more realistic computational systems of deliberation and decision-making, and shows how such systems can be applied to solve problems posed by goal-based reasoning in numerous fields, from social psychology and sociology, to law, political science, anthropology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, and robotics.1. Introduction to practical reasoning; 2. Practical reasoning in health product ads; 3. Formal and computational systems of practical reasoning; 4. Practical reasoning in arguments and explanations; 5. Explanations, motives, and intentions; 6. Practical argumentation in deliberation dialogue; 7. Goal-based argumentation in different types of dialogue; 8. Practical rationality.