argumentation-based choice. For this purpose, we define the *rational man’s expansion* as a normal and non-cyclic expansion. Finally, we put reference independence into the context of preference-based argumentation and show that for this argumentation variant, which explicitly model preferences, the rational man’s expansion cannot ensure reference independence.'
author:
- |
    Timotheus Kampik tkampik@cs.umu.se\
    Juan Carlos Nieves jcnieves@cs.umu.se\
    Department of Computing Science, Umeå University\
    90187 Umeå, Sweden
bibliography:
- 'references.bib'
title: Abstract Argumentation and the Rational Man
---

Introduction
============

Argumentation has been studied as a tool for persuasion and reasoning since antiquity. In recent decades, a large body of research emerged on argumentation as a method to instill intelligence, *i.e.* reasoning capabilities, into computing systems, in particular into *autonomous agents*. In this context, a popular theory for formal argumentation is so-called *abstract argumentation*, as initially developed by Dung [@dung1995acceptability], which is frequently used as the foundation of research on formal argumentation and hence spawned a variety of frameworks that extend the initial work [@baroni2018abstract]. Abstract argumentation is considered (see, *e.g.*, Rahwan and Simari [@Rahwan:2009:AAI:1594368]) a step towards Leibniz’s vision of the unambiguous resolution of disagreements through mathematical means–the axiomization of argumentation:\
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If  [@russell1938critical p. 170].\
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A key aspect 