Did He Jump or Was He Pushed? Abductive Practical Reasoning

In this paper we present an approach to abductive reasoning in law by examining it in the context of an argumentation scheme for practical reasoning. We present a particular scheme, based on an established scheme for practical reasoning, that can be used to reason abductively about how an agent might have acted to reach a particular scenario, and the motivations for doing so. Plausibility here depends on a satisfactory explanation of why this particular agent followed these motivations in the particular situation. The scheme is given a formal grounding in terms of Actionbased Alternating Transition Systems and we illustrate the approach with a running legal example. Keywords. Argumentation Schemes, Abductive Reasoning, Practical Reasoning

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: JURIX
• Authors: Floris Bex, Trevor J. M. Bench-Capon, Katie Atkinson
• Keywords: Abductive Reasoning, Argumentation Schemes, Information Technology, JURIX 2008, Practical Reasoning