Special issue on argumentation in multi-agent systems

Different agents within a multiagent system (MAS) potentially have access to different information and different capabilities (including reasoning capabilities), different beliefs about the world, different preferences, constraints, and desires, and different goals. A key aspect of the scientific and engineering study of multiagent systems, therefore, has been the development of methods and procedures for identifying, assessing, reconciling, arbitrating between, managing, and mitigating such differences. Market mechanisms and voting procedures are two classes of methods for dealing with such differences. Argumentation is another, and it has long been recognised1 that argumentation can be helpful in this context. Argumentation can be understood as the formal interaction of different arguments for and against some conclusion, for example, a proposition, a preference, or an intention to underake some action. An agent may use argumentation techniques to perform individual reasoning itself, alone, in order to resolve conflicting evidence, or to decide between conflicting goals it may have. Two or more agents may also jointly use dialectical argumentation to identify, express, and reconcile differences between themselves, by means of interactions such as negotiation, persuasion, inquiry and joint deliberation. By 2004, argumentation was well established as an important technology within the field of multiagent systems, particularly within the area of agent communication, and much work on dialectical forms of argumentation was published in this context. However, while papers on argumentation were well represented at more general conferences such as the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) and AI & Law, there was no specialist meeting on computational