Formal Definitions of Reason Fallacies to Aid Defect Exploration in Argument Gaming

Abstract

Reason fallacies are fallacious reasons presented in arguments during argumentative discussions. The fallacious reasons do not support the claim of argument and therefore, the argument gets defeated. Defect exploration is the process of analysing argument inconsistencies due to the presence of fallacious reasons. The context of argument exchange is a knowledge base represented in the form of Indian logic based ontology, and defect exploration actually entails analyzing the ontological elements of submitted arguments, during the ‘tarka’ style of argumentation. The process of defect exploration exploits the Navya- Nyaya methodology for identifying defects by exploring the presence or absence of invariable concomitance relation between elements of submitted arguments and populates them into a defect set. The defect set can then be utilized by the participant for designing appropriate defeat strategies, which help in generation of associated counter-arguments. In this paper, we propose the formal definitions of reason fallacies in terms of elements of arguments recommended by Nyaya logics, so that, the arguments are thoroughly analysed in a ‘tarka’ based argumentation setting.