A computational approach for argumentative discourse in multi-agent decision making environments

This paper describes a Group Decision Support System for cooperative or non-cooperative argumentative discourses. The system provides agents means of expressing and weighing their individual arguments and preferences, in order to argue for or against the selection of a certain choice. It supports defeasible and qualitative reasoning in the presence of illstructured information. Argumentation is performed through a set of discourse acts which call a variety of procedures for the propagation of information in the corresponding discussion graph. The system incorporates Case Based Reasoning to resolve current issues by using previous similar situations. Cases are not mere representations of past data, but flexible entities associated with the underlying viewpoint of an agent and the evolution of the corresponding discussion. The paper provides an object-oriented description of the elements involved, and illustrates their dependencies through a comprehensive example.