Schemes of inference, conflict, and preference in a computational model of argument

Argumentation demands that various non-deductive patterns of reasoning are accounted for from a strong theoretical foundation. The theory of argumentation schemes has provided such a theoretical foundation, and has led to a significant programme of research not only in epistemological and metaphysical philosophy but also in knowledge representation and multi-agent systems in artificial intelligence. More recently, work on computational models of argument has posited that not only inference, but also conflict, might be governed by more sophisticated relationships that just propositional negation. And finally, work on developing a standard computational ontology for handling argument has suggested that preference too demands such schematization. This paper shows how schematic templates can be designed to capture these stereotypical patterns of inferring, conflicting and preferring, and furthermore, demonstrates the strong representational and constitutive similarities between these apparently very different phenomena.