EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Speech acts, commitment and multi-agent communication

Rodger Kibble ()
Additional contact information
Rodger Kibble: Goldsmiths College, University of London

Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 2006, vol. 12, issue 2, No 4, 127-145

Abstract: Abstract The principle aim of this paper is to reconsider the suitability of Austin and Searle’s Speech Act theory as a basis for agent communication languages. Two distinct computational interpretations of speech acts are considered: the standard “mentalistic” approach associated with the work of Cohen and Levesque which involves attributing beliefs and intentions to artificial agents, and the “social semantics” approach originating (in the context of MAS) with Singh which aims to model commitments that agents undertake as a consequence of communicative actions. Modifications and extensions are proposed to current commitment-based analyses, drawing on recent philosophical studies by Brandom, Habermas and Heath. A case is made for adopting Brandom’s framework of normative pragmatics, modelling dialogue states as deontic scoreboards which keep track of commitments and entitlements that speakers acknowledge and hearers attribute to other interlocutors. The paper concludes by outlining an update semantics and protocol for selected locutions.

Keywords: Agent communication languages; Speech acts; Social semantics; Commitment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10588-006-9540-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:comaot:v:12:y:2006:i:2:d:10.1007_s10588-006-9540-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10588

DOI: 10.1007/s10588-006-9540-z

Access Statistics for this article

Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory is currently edited by Terrill Frantz and Kathleen Carley

More articles in Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:spr:comaot:v:12:y:2006:i:2:d:10.1007_s10588-006-9540-z