Kettle logic in abstract argumentation

Abstract

Kettle logic is a colloquial term that describes an agent’s advancement of inconsistent arguments in order to defeat a particular claim. Intuitively, a consistent subset of the advanced arguments should exist that is at least as successful at refuting the claim as the advancement of the set of inconsistent arguments. In this paper, we formalize this intuition and provide a formal analysis of kettle logic in abstract argumentation, a fundamental approach to computational argumentation, showing that all of the analysed abstract argumentation semantics (inference functions)—with the exception of naive semantics, which is considered a mere simplistic helper for the construction of other semantics—suffer from kettle logic. We also provide an approach to mitigating kettle logic under some circumstances. The key findings presented in this paper highlight that agents that apply the inference functions of abstract argumentation, are—similarly to humans—receptive to persuasion by agents who deliberately advance inconsistent and intuitively ‘illogical’ claims. As abstract argumentation can be considered one of the most basic models of computational argumentation, this raises the question to what extent and under what circumstances kettle logic-free argumentation can and should be enforced by computational means.