A Nonmonotonic Disputation-Based Semantics and Proof Procedure for Logic Programs

Logic programs with nonmonotonic negation are embedded in a general, abstract disputation-based framework for nonmonotonic logics. This formalization induces a particular semantics, which is proved to extend well-founded semantics and whose expanded expressiveness is illustrated by different examples involving reasoning by cases. Moreover, we develop a formal proof procedure for skeptical reasoning in the general disputation framework. Its adaption to the logic programming context provides a goal-oriented and local proof procedure for the induced semantics.