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Argumentation Framework — Phan Minh Dung

1995 AD · Transmission: Silenced
AISystemSoutheast Asian

Phan Minh Dung published in 1995 in the journal Artificial Intelligence the paper 'On the Acceptability of Arguments and its Fundamental Role in Nonmonotonic Reasoning, Logic Programming and n-Person Games', introducing the argumentation framework (AF): a formal model for representing arguments as nodes and attacks between arguments as edges of a directed graph. The system defines four argumentation semantics (grounded, stable, preferred, complete) to determine which sets of arguments are 'acceptable' in the presence of conflict — without requiring global consistency. Dung's AF provides the mathematical foundation for non-monotonic reasoning in AI: systems that can revise their conclusions in light of new contradictory information without collapsing. It is the formal basis of modern argumentative AI, automated legal reasoning, multi-agent systems, and explainability mechanisms in deep learning. Its connection to paraconsistent logic is documented: Dung's AF operates as an implicit paraconsistent system, allowing locally inconsistent sets of arguments without global trivialization.

InstitutionAsian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand
Historical regionBangkok, Thailand (author of Vietnamese origin)
Primary sourceDung, P.M., 'On the Acceptability of Arguments and its Fundamental Role in Nonmonotonic Reasoning, Logic Programming and n-Person Games', Artificial Intelligence, 77(2), 321–358, 1995. DOI: 10.1016/0004-3702(94)00041-X
Secondary sourceBench-Capon, T. & Dunne, P.E., 'Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence', Artificial Intelligence, 171(1), 2007; Grooters, D. & Prakken, H., 'Combining paraconsistent logic with argumentation', COMMA 2014
Original languageEnglish
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