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Complexity Classifications for Logic-Based Argumentation

Published: 04 August 2014 Publication History

Abstract

We consider logic-based argumentation in which an argument is a pair (Φ, α), where the support Φ is a minimal consistent set of formulae taken from a given knowledge base (usually denoted by Δ) that entails the claim α (a formula). We study the complexity of three central problems in argumentation: the existence of a support Φ⊆Δ, the verification of a support, and the relevance problem (given ψ, is there a support Φ such that ψ ∈ Φ?). When arguments are given in the full language of propositional logic, these problems are computationally costly tasks: the verification problem is DP-complete; the others are Σp2-complete. We study these problems in Schaefer's famous framework where the considered propositional formulae are in generalized conjunctive normal form. This means that formulae are conjunctions of constraints built upon a fixed finite set of Boolean relations Γ (the constraint language). We show that according to the properties of this language Γ, deciding whether there exists a support for a claim in a given knowledge base is either polynomial, NP-complete, coNP-complete, or Σp2-complete. We present a dichotomous classification, P or DP-complete, for the verification problem and a trichotomous classification for the relevance problem into either polynomial, NP-complete, or Σp2-complete. These last two classifications are obtained by means of algebraic tools.

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Cited By

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  • (2023)Complexity of reasoning with cardinality minimality conditionsProceedings of the Thirty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Thirty-Fifth Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Thirteenth Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence10.1609/aaai.v37i4.25507(3932-3940)Online publication date: 7-Feb-2023
  • (2023)Parameterized Complexity of Logic-based Argumentation in Schaefer’s FrameworkACM Transactions on Computational Logic10.1145/358249924:3(1-25)Online publication date: 31-Jan-2023
  • (2021)Fine-Grained Time Complexity of Constraint Satisfaction ProblemsACM Transactions on Computation Theory10.1145/343438713:1(1-32)Online publication date: 21-Jan-2021
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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Computational Logic
ACM Transactions on Computational Logic  Volume 15, Issue 3
July 2014
250 pages
ISSN:1529-3785
EISSN:1557-945X
DOI:10.1145/2648783
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 04 August 2014
Accepted: 01 January 2014
Revised: 01 December 2013
Received: 01 April 2013
Published in TOCL Volume 15, Issue 3

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Author Tags

  1. Computational complexity
  2. Schaefer
  3. generalized satisfiability
  4. logic-based argumentation

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Cited By

View all
  • (2023)Complexity of reasoning with cardinality minimality conditionsProceedings of the Thirty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Thirty-Fifth Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Thirteenth Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence10.1609/aaai.v37i4.25507(3932-3940)Online publication date: 7-Feb-2023
  • (2023)Parameterized Complexity of Logic-based Argumentation in Schaefer’s FrameworkACM Transactions on Computational Logic10.1145/358249924:3(1-25)Online publication date: 31-Jan-2023
  • (2021)Fine-Grained Time Complexity of Constraint Satisfaction ProblemsACM Transactions on Computation Theory10.1145/343438713:1(1-32)Online publication date: 21-Jan-2021
  • (2020)Parameterized complexity of abduction in Schaefer’s frameworkJournal of Logic and Computation10.1093/logcom/exaa079Online publication date: 29-Dec-2020

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