Abstract
Most approaches to agent communication are based on some notion of communicative act. I argue that a satisfactory model of communication should deal with three related but conceptually independent aspects of communicative acts: the semantic aspect, concerning the literal meaning of communicative acts; the normative aspect, concerning the obligations, permissions, and so on, created by performing a communicative act; and the practical aspect, concerning the role of communication in the context of rational action. I propose a definition of the semantics of communicative acts based on modal logic. The approach is extended to treat the normative component through tools of deontic logic. I then argue that the practical side of communication involves general aspects of rational behavior, and is not part of the definition of communicative acts. Finally, I consider some consequences that the proposed approach might have on the design of agent communication languages.
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Colombetti, M. (2000). Semantic, Normative and Practical Aspects of Agent Communication. In: Dignum, F., Greaves, M. (eds) Issues in Agent Communication. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1916. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/10722777_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/10722777_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41144-4
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