Factual argumentation—a core model for assertions making

Abstract

Modeling human argumentation should shed light on how knowledge described in information systems could be better accessed, structured, and used for real life research purposes. Current argumentation models are either not analytical enough or restricted to formal logic. For that purpose, we seek a model of human argumentation in which reasoning may not only consist of falsification or verification but more generally of strengthening or weakening hypotheses, and a way to connect this model to an ontology of the domain of discourse. We have studied examples of factual argumentation in empirical research in archaeology. Based on this and other empirical material, we propose an innovative integrated model of factual argumentation that includes evolution, composition, and revision of arguments. It makes explicit both the processes of argument-making and the states of belief at a particular point in time in a composite inference, and connects explicitly to a domain ontology, free of tacit background knowledge. We have implemented the model in a more restricted form and tested it with published archaeological examples. Future work may generalize the model to other kinds of argumentation.