9th Workshop on Advances in Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence

AI³ 2025

13 September 2025

at Rende, Italy

THE WORKSHOP

Argumentation is the study of the processes and activities involving the production and exchange of arguments, where arguments are attempts to persuade someone or something by giving reasons for accepting a particular conclusion as evident. As such, argumentation provides procedures for making and explaining decisions and is able to capture diverse kinds of reasoning and dialogue activities in a formal but still intuitive way, enabling the integration of different specific techniques and the development of trustable applications.

For these reasons, over the last two decades formal argumentation has become a main research topic in AI. A variety of theoretical models at different levels of abstraction have been extensively studied, ranging from purely abstract models to concrete implemented systems, argumentation solvers have been developed to identify the justification status for arguments according to different semantics, and a variety of applications of argumentation have been proposed for several fields, ranging from modeling dialogues in social networks to law and medicine.

Given that the study of argumentation is inherently interdisciplinary, the goal of the workshop, co-located with the 41st International Conference on Logic Programming (ICLP 2025), is to stimulate discussions and promote scientific collaboration among researchers not only directly involved in argumentation, but also from research fields indirectly related to argumentation. In this respect, at least two directions can be envisaged:

Cross-fertilization with different fields (including non-monotonic reasoning, logic programming, linguistics, natural language processing, philosophy and psychology, just to mention a few of them) is needed to update and extend foundations in Argumentation Theory, as well as tackling a number of open issues that are currently debated in the area.
Inter-disciplinary collaborations are necessary to foster the adoption of argumentation as a viable AI paradigm with a wide range of applications.

In Italy, several research groups from different universities and institutions have been involved in argumentation in recent years. One of the aims of the workshop is also to bring together researchers working in argumentation to foster collaboration and the development of a specific national research community.

PROCEEDINGS

We aim at publishing our proceedings with CEUR-WS.org. Meanwhile, we advertise our latest volume "Resurgence of Datalog in Academia and Industry 2024" (freely available at https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3801/)

The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.

PROGRAM

Location: DEMACS, Cubo 30B, Room MT10

15:00 -16:30 Session 1: Argumentation and advanced models
- Invited Talk: Learning and Contesting Assumption-based Argumentation Frameworks (30 min)
  Emanuele De Angelis (IASI - CNR)
- Agentified Argumentative Learning (20 min)
  Emanuele De Angelis (IASI - CNR), Maurizio Proietti (IASI - CNR), Francesca Toni (Imperial)
- Early Insights into Argumentation-Guided Causal Evaluation with the Help of LLMs (20 min)
  Pietro Baroni (University of Brescia), Federico Cerutti (University of Brescia), Massimiliano Giacomin (University of Brescia), Gian Franco Lamperti (University of Brescia), Marina Zanella (University of Brescia)
- Conditionals and Temporal Conditionals for Gradual Argumentation (20 min)
  Mario Alviano (Università della Calabria), Laura Giordano (Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale), Daniele Theseider Dupré (Università del Piemonte Orientale)
16:30 -17:00 - Coffee break
17:00 - 19:30 - Session 2: Argumentation and Public Interest Communication
- Empowering Public Interest Communication with Argumentation - Project Report (10 min)
  Pietro Baroni (University of Brescia), Stefano Bistarelli (University of Perugia), Bettina Fazzinga (University of Calabria), Giulio Fellin (University of Brescia), Sergio Flesca (University of Calabria), Filippo Furfaro (University of Calabria), Massimiliano Giacomin (University of Brescia), Francesco Parisi (University of Calabria), Carlo Proietti (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche), Irene Russo (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche), Francesco Santini (University of Perugia), Carlo Taticchi (University of Perugia), Paola Vernillo (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche)
- On the Featured Argumentation Framework (20 min)
  Gianvincenzo Alfano (University of Calabria), Sergio Greco (University of Calabria), Francesco Parisi (University of Calabria), Irina Trubitsyna (University of Calabria)
- On Polymorphic Attacks in the ASPIC+ and ASPICR Formalisms (20 min)
  Pietro Baroni (University of Brescia), Federico Cerutti (University of Brescia), Massimiliano Giacomin (University of Brescia)
- AVAPla: A Tool for Planning and Supporting Public Interest Communication via Computational Argumentation (20 min)
  Irene Russo (Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale “Antonio Zampolli”, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche), Carlo Taticchi (University of Perugia), Paola Vernillo (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)
- On Monotonic and Nonmonotonic Effects of Arguments in Public Interest Communication (20 min)
  Pietro Baroni (University of Brescia), Giulio Fellin (University of Brescia), Massimiliano Giacomin (University of Brescia), Carlo Proietti (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche)
- A NetLogo Tool for Exploring Value-Based Argumentation in Public Interest Communication (20 min)
  Giulio Fellin (Università degli Studi di Brescia), Pietro Baroni (Università degli Studi di Brescia), Massimiliano Giacomin (Università degli Studi di Brescia), Carlo Proietti (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche)

TOPICS

We invite submissions of the latest research results concerning applications and theory of computational argumentation. Topics include, but are not limited to:

Explainable AI with Argumentation
Persuasion systems
Formal, semi-formal and informal models for argumentation
Properties and evaluation of formal models of argumentation
Computational properties of argumentation
Traditional and ranking-based semantics
Instantiations of abstract argumentation frameworks
Implementation of argumentation systems
Relationships amongst different argumentation frameworks
Philosophical theories of argumentation
Argument mining
Argumentation in agent and multi-agent systems
Dialogue based on argumentation
Strategies in argumentation
Decision making based on argumentation
Argumentation-based negotiation
Argumentation, trust and reputation
Argumentation for coordination and coalition formation
Argumentation and other Artificial Intelligence techniques
Argumentation and game theory
Argumentation and probability
Argumentation and fuzzy-logic
Argumentation and narrative
Argumentation and computational linguistics
Argumentation and human-computer interaction
Reasoning about action and time with argumentation
Tools for supporting argumentation
Practical applications of formal models of argumentation
Systems for learning through argument
Argument-based machine learning
Validation and evaluation of applications of argumentation

SUBMISSIONS

The workshop invites three types of submissions:

Full papers (15 pages), possibly already submitted to other conferences or journals, and
Short papers (5 pages), which are particularly suitable for presenting work in progress, software prototypes, extended abstracts of doctoral theses, or general overviews of research projects.
Overviews of research projects (3 pages), possibly moved to a poster session.

All papers will be peer-reviewed and final copies of papers for inclusion to the conference proceedings will be published on CEUR in the AI*IA Series (Scopus indexed).

Manuscripts should be formatted using the 1-column CEUR-ART Style. You can access the Overleaf template (select Copy Project in the Menu) or download an offline version with the style files.

Papers must be submitted through Microsoft CMT at the link https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/AI32025.

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper registration: June 27
Paper submission: July 1
Notification: July 15
Final versions due: September 1

REGISTRATION

https://iclp25.demacs.unical.it/registration

INVITED SPEAKER

Emanuele De Angelis

Learning and Contesting Assumption-based Argumentation Frameworks

Assumption-based Argumentation (ABA) is advocated as a unifying formalism for various forms of non-monotonic reasoning, including logic programming.

It allows representing defeasible knowledge, subject to argumentative debate, where arguments are deductions built from rules and supported by assumptions.

In this talk, I’ll give an overview of ABA Learn, a recent approach to symbolic machine learning, which makes use of transformation rules (such as rote learning, folding and assumption introduction) to draw ABA frameworks from a background knowledge (also in the form of an ABA framework) and positive and negative examples.

We’ll see how ABA Learn can be implemented using answer set programming to learn ABA frameworks for brave and cautious reasoning under stable extensions.

Finally, we’ll see how to deal with contestability, a highly desirable property for human-centric AI, ensuring that the outcomes of an AI system (in our case, a learnt ABA framework) can be challenged, and possibly changed, when interacting with humans and/or other AI systems.

Short BIO

Emanuele De Angelis (https://emanuele-deangelis.github.io/) is a researcher at the Institute for System Analysis and Computer Science "Antonio Ruberti" of the National Research Council of Italy (IASI-CNR), and member of the Software and Knowledge-based Systems (SaKS) research group.

He received a Ph.D. from the University “G. d'Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, Italy.

His Ph.D. thesis won the 2014 award for the best PhD thesis in the field of Computational Logic, sponsored by the Italian Association for Logic Programming (GULP).

His research interests are in the fields of Computational Argumentation for Explainable Al; Symbolic and Neuro-symbolic machine learning; Formal Methods for Software Engineering, with a focus on logic-based methods for software verification, program synthesis and transformation.

VENUE

ICLP - Venues - Google My MapsICLP - Venues

University of Calabria

The University area amounts to around 200 hectares, and is organized in 14 departments and 13 interdepartmental centers, with around 170 classrooms frequented by more than 14,500 persons. The University provides 77 degree courses and 2 specialization schools, and owns the largest library in Southern Italy, with more than 390,000 volumes and 660 workstations. The Residential Center of the University has around 3,000 beds and 1,300 canteen seats, and serves more than 3,500 meals per day. The Art Music Entertainment Center organizes more than 30 events per year, including concerts, film festivals, and theater. The Sport Center offers more than 25 courses. Other structures in the University are the Museum of Natural History of Calabria and Botanical Garden, the Paleontology Museum, the Museum for the Environment Rimuseum, the Zoology Museum, and the Linguistic University Center.

ORGANIZATION

PROGRAM CHAIRS

Mario Alviano, University of Calabria, Italy

Bettina Fazzinga, University of Calabria, Italy

PUBLICITY CHAIR

Manuel Alejandro Borroto Santana, University of Calabria, Italy

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Gianvincenzo Alfano (University of Calabria)

Pietro Baroni (University of Brescia)

Stefano Bistarelli (University of Perugia)

Sergio Flesca (DIMES - UNICAL)

Massimiliano Giacomin (University of Brescia)

Daniele Porello (University of Genoa)

Carlo Proietti (CNR, ILC)

Francesco Santini (University of Perugia)

Carlo Taticchi (University of Perugia)

Alice Toniolo (University of St Andrews)

Paolo Torroni (University of Bologna)

Mauro Vallati (University of Huddersfield)

CONTACTS

Email: mario.alviano+ai32025@unical.it

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