Linguistically quantified propositions for consensus reaching support

Consensus reaching has been widely recognized as an important decision making process. An effective support of this process requires a practical, operational definition of the very concept of consensus. As it is inherently imprecise, it cannot be adequately defined using the classical binary logic. In our previous works, we proposed a definition that is both precise and human consistent. It is based on the Zadeh´s calculus of linguistically quantified propositions and may be summarized as follows. There is a consensus when most of the involved individuals agree to a satisfactory degree in respect to most of the important issues. Such a definition provides a continuous assessment of the consensus degree, which makes it an excellent discussion guidance indicator. In the present paper, we extend the array of relevant indicators so as to make the support of consensus reaching, more effective and efficient. We are inspired by the very closely related concept of a linguistic summary of the data. We propose to use the latter for the evaluation of an option´s standing, an individual´s position and a more elaborate consensus degree.