Argumentation as a General Framework for Uncertain Reasoning

Argumentation is the process of constructing arguments about propositions, and the assign­ ment of statements of confidence to those propo­ sitions based on the nature and relative strength of their supporting arguments. The process is modelled as a labelled deductive system, in which propositions are doubly labelled with the grounds on which they are based and a represen­ tation of the confidence attached to the argument. Argument construction is captured by a general­ ised argument consequence relation based on the A, �-fragment of minimal logic. Arguments can be aggregated by a variety of numeric and sym­ bolic flattening functions. This approach appears to shed light on the common logical structure of a variety of quantitative, qualitative and defeasible uncertainty calculi.