1994 Program and Call for AAAI Workshop with T. Gordon, J. Moore, K. Sycara COMPUTATIONAL DIALECTICS Dialectic is an idea that simply will not disappear. It is the idea of structured linguistic interactions proceeding according to a largely adversarial protocol. Beginning with the ancients, dialectic appears to many to be synonymous with rationality. Today, computation informs the study and use of such structured dialogues. Substantial contributions are now possible from artificial intelligence researchers. The term "Computational Dialectics" is meant to describe an area of activity in AI, which considers the language and protocol of systems that mediate the flow of messages between agents constructing judgement, agreement, or other social choice, to recognize or achieve an outcome in a fair and effective way. The study of communal standards for acquiring knowledge and making decisions has always been interesting as a basis for computational models of deliberation. The study of argument and negotiation in naturally occurring dialogues has been the focus of work in language processing and explanation generation. The study of analogy and case-based reasoning has produced dialectical models that have been successfully applied in the domain of conflict resolution, negotiation and legal argument. The implementation of non-monotonic reasoning systems and the semantics of logic programming has also converged on dialectic. Philosophers' formalization of defeasible reasoning has produced new understanding of why dialectic is not merely roundabout proof. Researchers of HCI and CSCW have had occasion to study how the interplay of argument, counterargument, and rebuttal affects design, clarifies presentation, and improves interaction. The rediscovery of pro and con recalls AI's early foundations upon max and min. Goals The primary goal of this workshop is to identify areas where computationally motivated language games can contribute new scholarship or interesting software technology. Historical and rhetorical aspects of dialectic will be considered only to the extent that they advance the models of computer scientists. We are interested more in what computer scientists will have to say to the dialecticians than vice versa. Computational Dialectics Workshop AAAI-94 Sunday July 31 1994 Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle Seattle, Washington, USA PRELIMINARY PROGRAM ------------------- 9:00 A Reconstruction of Rescher's Theory of Formal Disputation Gerhard Brewka GMD, Germany 9:45 Bargaining Game Models for Issue-Based Dialogue Arthur Marin University of Stuttgart, Germany 10:30 BREAK 10:45 Introducing Dialogical Reason-Based Logic Jaap Hage University of Limburg, The Netherlands 11:30 Vagueness, Open Texture and Computational Dialectics Pierre St-Vincent University of Montreal, Canada 12:15 LUNCH 1:45 How to Buy a Porsche: An Approach to Defeasible Decision Making Gerhard Brewka and Thomas Gordon GMD, Germany 2:30 Belvedere: An Environment for Practicing Scientific Argumentation Violetta Cavalli-Sforza and Daniel D. Suthers University of Pittsburg, USA 3:15 BREAK 3:30 Developing Heuristics for the Argument-Based Explanation of Negation in Logic Programs T.J.M. Bench-Capon and P.H. Leng University of Liverpool, U.K. 4:15 An Argument and Arbitration Game R. Loui, W. Chen, D. Saff, M. Foltz, D. Weisberger, and V. Reddy Washington Univ., UC Berkeley, Amherst, and Harvard Univ., USA 5:00 PANEL DISCUSSION LIST OF PARTICIPANTS Vincent Aleven James Allen Kevin Ashley Trevor Bench-Capon Gerhard Brewka Sandra Carberry Violetta Cavalli-Sforza Jennifer Chu Toby Donaldson Jon Doyle George Ferguson K. Freeman Anne Gardner Hector Geffner Thomas Gordon Jaap Hage Roger Hurwitz P.H. Leng Ronald Loui L. Thorne McCarty Arthur Merin Johanna Moore Daniel Poulin Henry Prakken Jeff Rosenschein Pierre St-Vincent Daniel Suthers Katia Sycara Jeremy Wertheimer Committee: Gordon, Loui, Moore, Sycara.