Dialectic reasoning with inconsistent information

From an inconsistent database non-trivial arguments may be constructed both for a proposition, and for the contrary of that proposition. Therefore, inconsistency in a logical database causes uncertainty about which conclusions to accept. This kind of uncertainty is called logical uncertainty. We define a concept of "acceptability" , which in­ duces a means for differentiating arguments. The more acceptable an argument, the more confident we are in it. A specific interest is to use the acceptability classes to assign lin­ guistic qualifiers to propositions, such that the qualifier assigned to a propositions re­ flects its logical uncertainty. A more general interest is to understand how classes of ac­ ceptability can be defined for arguments con­ structed from an inconsistent database, and how this notion of acceptability can be de­ vised to reflect different criteria. Whilst con­ centrating on the aspects of assigning linguis­ tic qualifiers to propositions, we also indicate the more general significance of the notion of acceptability.