Argumentation with (Bounded) Rational Agents

A major reason for our communication is to influence our conversational partners. This is so both if our preferences are aligned, and when they are not. In the latter case, our communicative acts are meant to manipulate our partners. We all know that attempts to manipulate are nothing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, the standard theory of rational communicative behavior predicts that any such attempt will be seen through and is thus useless. The main aim of this chapter is to investigate which assumptions of the standard theory we have to give up to account for our communicative behavior, when preferences between partners are not aligned.