A paper accepted by the Fifth International Workshop on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ArgMAS 2008)
Abstract
We propose a representation of imperatives in computational systems,
and a multi-agent dialogue protocol to argue over these. Our representation treats
a command as a presumptive argument for an action to be executed by a designated
agent, together with a set of associated critical questions whose answers
may defeat the presumption. The critical questions enable the identification of
attacks on the uttered command, and so can be used to specify a dialogue game
protocol for participants to argue over the command. We present a formal syntax
for part of the protocol, called CDP, and outline denotational semantics for both
commands and for the protocol.