This festschrift is in honour of a leading philosopher of argumentation. His theories of argument structure, whilst rooted in Aristotelian philosophy, have been influential in computer science and artificial intelligence. His theories have a strong empirical side and cover much of how argument and debate is conducted. They examine how the process of exploring disagreement and reaching consensus can be structured, and how the 'nuts and bolts' of reasoning in communication are put together. His theories are increasingly finding application in computer science, where his approach to commitment...

In this book, Georgios N. Yannopoulos appropriately relates the developing field of knowledge based systems in law with the basis in classic philosophy, explicating relations which too often are not properly understood. The decision model developed by the author is important, as it integrates and explains arguments which often have been seen as imcompatible. The use of the theoretical foundation in describing and in giving a critical analysis of the construction of real knowledge bases systems becomes therefore very valuable.and#8217; Jon Bing, Norwegian Research Center for...