Recent work in artificial intelligence has increasingly turned to argumentation as
a rich interdisciplinary area of research that can provide new methods related to
evidence and reasoning in the area of law. In this book, DouglasWalton provides
an introduction to basic concepts, tools, and methods in argumentation theory
and artificial intelligence as applied to the analysis and evaluation of witness
testimony. He shows how witness testimony is by its nature inherently fallible
and sometimes subject to disastrous failures. At the same time, if used properly,
such testimony can provide evidence that it is not only necessary but inherently
reasonable for logically guided legal experts to accept or reject a claim. Walton
shows how to overcome the traditional disdain for witness testimony as a type
of evidence shown by logical positivists and the views of trial skeptics who doubt
that trial rules deal with witness testimony in a way that yields a rational decisionmaking
process. This book will be of interest to those who work in the areas of
analytical philosophy, informal logic, artificial intelligence, and law.