On support relations in abstract argumentation as abstractions of inferential relations

Abstract

Arguably the significance of an abstract model of argumentation depends on the range of realistic instantiations it allows. This paper therefore investigates for three frameworks for abstract argumentation with support relations whether they can be instantiated with the ASPIC+ framework for structured argumentation. Both evidential argumentation systems and a simple extension of Dung’s abstract frameworks with support relations proposed by Dung & Thang (2014) are shown to allow such an instantiation. However, for bipolar argumentation frameworks a positive result is only obtained for variants with only direct and secondary attacks; counterexamples are provided for variants with supported attacks, even for the special case of deductive support.