The role of abduction in production of new ideas in design

The pragmatist philosopher Peirce insisted that besides deduction and induction there is a third main form of inference, abduction, which is the only type of inference capable of producing new ideas. Also he defined abduction as a stage of the methodological process in science, where hypotheses are formed to explain anomalies. Basing on these seminal ideas, scholars have proposed modified, widened or alternative definitions of abduction and devised taxonomies of abductive inferences. Influenced by Peirce’s seminal writings and subsequent treatments on abduction in philosophy of science, design scholars have in the last 40 years endeavoured to shed light on design by means of the concept of abduction. The first treatment was provided by March in 1976. He viewed that abduction, which he called “productive reasoning”, is the key mode of reasoning in design. He also presented a three-step cyclic design process, similar to Peirce’s methodological process in science. Among the many other later treatments of design abduction, Roozenburg’s definition of explanatory and innovative abduction is noteworthy. However, an evaluation of the related literature suggests that research into abduction in design is still in an undeveloped stage. This research shows gaps in coverage, lack of depth and diverging outcomes. By focusing on the differences between science and design as well as on empirical knowledge of different phenomena comprising design, new conceptions of abduction in design are derived. Given the differences of context, abduction in design shows characteristics not yet found or identified in science. For example, abduction can occur in connection to practically all inference types in design; it is a property of an inference besides an inference itself. A number of the most important abductive inference types as they occur in design are identified and discussed in more detail.Peer reviewe

Communication and the Origins of Personhood

This thesis presents a communicative account of personhood that argues for the inseparability of the metaphysical and the practical concepts of a person. It connects these two concepts by coupling the question “what is a person” (concerning the necessary conditions of personhood) with the question "how does one become a person"(concerning its genetic conditions). It argues that participation in social interactions that are characterized by mutual recognition and giving-and-taking reasons implied by the practical concept of a person is in fact an ecological and developmental condition for an entity to possess the kind of characteristics and capacities such as reflexive self-consciousness addressed by the metaphysical concept. The chief theoretical contribution of the dissertation research lies, accordingly, in demonstrating that an adequate metaphysical concept of a person has to make reference to the kind of social processes that are necessary for the emergence and development of the distinguishing attributes of persons among other moving, perceiving, desiring and cognizing agents. Methodologically, it undertakes an original philosophical analysis that is enriched by an interdisciplinary investigation of several notions and insights from semiotics, comparative and developmental psychology, cognitive science and anthropology. The main argument of the thesis is that one becomes a person through internally recreating a social, communicative process; namely, that of dialogical transformation of habits. We find the paradigmatic case of this social process in mutual persuasion. The internalization of this process in the form of an inner dialogue cultivates a social self that is in ongoing communication with the embodied, organismic self of uncritically habituated attitudes, convictions and desires. This inner dialogue can be conceived as a temporally extended process of self-persuasion, which is characterized by an ongoing strive for attaining higher degrees of self-control; that is, for achieving a more coherent alignment between our habits and the kind of person we would like to be. It starts with self-interpretation and self-evaluation, and culminates in the formation of higher-order desires that facilitate habit-change and novel habit formation in accordance with certain social, moral, aesthetical or intellectual categories and norms one comes to endorse. For this reason, self-induced, deliberate habit-change is also a process of appropriation or self-appropriation, through which we strive to cultivate habits of feeling, thinking, acting that we can deem more truly ours. The thesis demonstrates that the capacity for engaging in this kind of self-persuasion consists chiefly in the capacities for metasemiosis, perspective-taking, and for cultivating habits of reflexivity. It explicates how all these capacities have a social origin and ultimately a social function by showing that they all presuppose certain higher-order communicative patterns that arose through an evolutionary and cultural history, and develop through the internal reconstruction of these patterns as cognitive-semiotic processes. The thesis concludes that becoming a kind of being who can engage in self-persuasion, thus a person, consists ultimately in internalizing the patterns of communicative social interactions in the form of an ongoing auto-communication.  Väitöskirjassa käsitellään persoonuuden kommunikatiivista prosessia ja osoitetaan, että persoonan metafyysiset ja käytännölliset käsitteet ovat erottamattomat. Nämä kaksi käsitettä yhdistetään tarkastelemalla kysymyksiä ”mikä on persoona” ja ”miten tullaan persoonaksi”. Väitöskirjassa osoitetaan, että osallistuminen sosiaaliseen kanssakäymiseen, johon kuuluu persoonan käytännön käsitteeseen kuuluva vastavuoroinen tunnustaminen sekä kompromissi, on itse asiassa entiteetin ekologinen ja kehityksellinen olotila, jossa se saavuttaa piirteitä ja taitoja, kuten persoonan metafyysisen käsitteen mukainen refleksiivinen itsetietoisuus. Väitöskirjan keskeinen teoreettinen tavoite on osoittaa, että persoonan onnistuneessa metafyysisessä käsitteessä on otettava huomioon sosiaaliset prosessit, jotka ovat välttämättömiä persoonan erityisten attribuuttien kehittymiselle, kuten liikkuminen, havaitseminen, haluaminen sekä kognitiiviset agentit. Väitöskirjan metodologia koostuu filosofisesta analyysista, jota monitieteisesti rikastutetaan semiotiikan, vertailevan ja kehityspsykologian, kognitiivisten tieteiden ja antropologian lähestymistavoilla. Väitöskirjan keskeinen teesi on, että agentista tulee persoona, kun se luo uudestaan sisäisesti sosiaalisen, kommunikatiivisen prosessin, toisin sanoen tapojen dialogisen transformaation kautta. Tämän sosiaalisen prosessin paradigmaattinen esimerkki on molemminpuolinen vakuuttaminen. Sen sisäistäminen sisäisen dialogin muotoon kehittää sosiaalista minuutta, joka on jatkuvassa kommunikaatiossa epäkriittisten asenteiden, vakaumusten ja halujen elimellisesti ruumiillistuneen minän kanssa. Tämä sisäinen dialogi voidaan mieltää itsensä suostuttelun prosessiksi. Itsensä suostuttelu on jatkuva pyrkimys saavuttaa itsehillinnän korkeampia tasoja, toisin sanoen saattaa yhteen tapamme ja se persoona, joka haluaisimme olla. Se alkaa itsearviolla ja huipentuu niiden ylevämpien halujen muodostumiseen, jotka edistävät persoonan tapojen muutosta niiden tiettyjen sosiaalisten, moraalisten, esteettisten ja intellektuaalisten normien mukaisesti, joita yksilö alkaa noudattamaan. Tästä syystä itse toteutettu tapojen muutos on myös itsensä hallitsemisen prosessi, jonka kautta me voimme kehittää tapoja, joita pidämme aidommin ominamme. Väitöskirja osoittaa, että taito ryhtyä itsensä suostutteluun muodostuu pääsääntöisesti kyvystä metasemioosiin, perspektiivin ottamisesta sekä refleksiivisyyden kehittämisestä. Se esittää, että kaikilla näillä taidoilla on sosiaalinen alkuperä ja viime kädessä sosiaalinen merkitys, osoittamalla, että ne kaikki edellyttävät tiettyjä ylevämpiä kommunikatiivisia malleja, jotka nousevat kehitys- ja kulttuurihistoriasta ja kehittyvät näiden mallien sisäisen rekonstruktion kautta kognitiivis-semioottisina prosesseina. Lopuksi väitöskirja osoittaa, että tuleminen sellaiseksi olevaksi, joka voi toteuttaa itsensä suostuttelun, toisin sanoen persoonaksi, muodostuu viime kädessä sosiaalisen kanssakäymisen kommunikatiivisten mallien sisäistämisestä jatkuvan autokommunikaation muodossa.

Tartu Ülikooli toimetised. Tööd semiootika alalt. 1964-1992. 0259-4668

http://www.ester.ee/record=b1331700*es

L'atomisme, le holisme et la quête d'une tierce alternative viable

Selon John McDowell, l'atomisme et le holisme sont chacun incapables de porter fruit. Plutôt que d'osciller futilement entre ces deux pôles, il croit que nous devrions repenser notre façon de concevoir la relation liant l'esprit et le monde. Inspiré par certains passages de Kant, il nous invite donc à reconsidérer l'expérience de telle sorte qu'on y admette d'entrée de jeu l'exercice d'une liberté distinctement humaine-l'étendue de l'esprit devenant ainsi dénuée de toute contrainte externe. À notre avis, McDowell a plus de succès lorsqu'il dépeint le va-et-vient entre l'atomisme et le holisme que lorsqu'il propose une façon d'échapper à ce mouvement. Nous croyons que la fusion qu'il cherche à développer ne tient pas la route dans la mesure où, d'un point de vue naturaliste, il y a bel et bien lieu de distinguer la réceptivité empirique et la spontaneité conceptuelle. À l'encontre de McDowell, nous soutenons qu'il n'y a oscillation entre ces facultés que si l'on endosse une inférence allant du statut non-atomique des représentations au holisme, saut inductif qui repose sur une approche spéculative que nous rejetons. Le premier chapitre cherche à démontrer comment les théories holistes de filière quinéenne se fondent sur des présupposés spéculatifs et comment les éléments plus louables de la philosophie de McDowell à cet égard sont rendus impuissants par son assentiment à la critique que fait W. Sellars du "mythe du Donné". Le second chapitre reconstruit méticuleusement l'argument fort complexe qu'étale McDowell dans Mind and World, pour ensuite critiquer sa suggestion que la culture et l'éducation induisent chez l'être humain une attitude critique pouvant remplacer la friction produite par l'expérience. Le troisième chapitre soutient que la thèse de Sellars voulant que l'expérience peut causer mais non justifier nos représentations détruirait non seulement la connaissance empirique mais aussi la capacité de tirer des inférences. Enfin, le quatrième chapitre présente une nouvelle vision "constrictive" qui, par l'entremise des notions de coercition et de complexité, reconnait que la représentation du monde met en jeu une échelle plus large que l'atome mais plus petite que le tout. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Atomisme, Holisme, Représentation, John McDowell

The theory and pedagody of semantic inconsistency in critical reasoning

One aspect of critical reasoning is the analysis and appraisal of claims and arguments. A typical problem, when analysing and appraising arguments, is inconsistent statements. Although several inconsistencies may have deleterious effects on rationality and action, not all of them do. As educators, we also have an obligation to teach this evaluation in a way that does justice to our normal reasoning practices and judgements of inconsistency. Thus, there is a need to determine the acceptable inconsistencies from those that are not, and to impart that information to students. We might ask: What is the best concept of inconsistency for critical reasoning and pedagogy? While the answer might appear obvious to some, the history of philosophy shows that there are many concepts of “inconsistency”, the most common of which comes from classical logic and its reliance on opposing truth-values. The current exemplar of this is the standard truth functional account from propositional logic. Initially, this conception is shown to be problematic, practically, conceptually and pedagogically speaking. Especially challenging from the classical perspective are the concepts of ex contradictione quodlibet and ex falso quodlibet. The concepts may poison the well against any notion of inconsistency, which is not something that should be done unreflectively. Ultimately, the classical account of inconsistency is rejected. In its place, a semantic conception of inconsistency is argued for and demonstrated to handle natural reasoning cases effectively. This novel conception utilises the conceptual antonym theory to explain semantic contrast and gradation, even in the absence of non-canonical antonym pairs. The semantic conception of inconsistency also fits with an interrogative argument model that exploits inconsistency to display semantic contrast in reasons and conclusions. A method for determining substantive inconsistencies follows from this argument model in a 4 straightforward manner. The conceptual fit is then incorporated into the pedagogy of critical reasoning, resulting in a natural approach to reasoning which students can apply to practical matters of everyday life, which include inconsistency. Thus, the best conception of inconsistency for critical reasoning and its pedagogy is the semantic, not the classical.Philosophy Practical and Systematic TheologyD. Phi

Thinking In-Between: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Problem of Relations in South Asian Philosophy

The present dissertation represents a constructive cross-cultural analysis of the philosophical problem of relation (Sanskrit: sambandha). This involves general theoretical questions such as: What does it actually mean for things, or ideas, to be related? Are ‘relations’ real kinds of entities in the world, like a table or my keyboard, or are they merely conceptual constructions; that is, figments of the imagination superimposed on a reality that is essentially non-relational? If the latter, then how do separate, independent things come to be interpreted as things in a relation, i.e., as ‘relata’? In this project, I translate, analyze, and compare texts from three philosophical schools in medieval South Asia that provide distinct answers to these relational questions: (a) the ‘naive realism’ of Nyāya Vaiśeṣika; (b) the ‘eliminativism’ of Pramāṇavāda Buddhism; and (c) the ‘reformed realism’ of the tantric school of Pratyabhijñā Śaivism. Under the hermeneutical auspices of the classical American pragmatists, I employ a characteristically Peircean triadic taxonomy of analysis to bring into clear relief the presuppositions and entailments of these Indian schools in conversation with their 20th century Western counterparts. We come to find that these initially highly abstract relational commitments have far-reaching systematic and practical reverberations, ones that touch upon, among other things: the purported dichotomy between ‘realism’ vs. ‘idealism’; the temporality of causation; the reflexive nature of judgment; the significance of phenomenal continuity; the reality of freedom and value; the active vs. inactive status of the divine; and even the practice of religion and the project of its philosophical reconstruction. By way of conclusion, I gesture towards a constructive philosophical project that I call ‘groundless teleology.

Social deprivation and government employment of the non-profit sector: a two-phased interrogation of the welfare policy-practice phenomenon in KwaZulu-Natal.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Social services delivery in South Africa is substantially achieved through the contracting by provincial governments of select civil society organisations, required to be registered as non-profit organisations. The questions that arise are whether non-profit organisations operate in the area of greatest deprivation and whether the contractual relationships established by government with select non-profit organisations effectively impact citizen deprivation. Conducted from a pragmatic research perspective as a principally quantitative enquiry, the research investigates at the level of population study, in two phases, the phenomenon of non-profit organisation welfare service delivery in KwaZulu-Natal. The first phase interrogates the spatial relationship between the distribution of the human-welfare non-profit organisations and the distribution of human deprivation over the eleven municipal districts of KwaZulu-Natal. Undertaken as a cross-sectional study, a multidimensional deprivation measurement instrument was developed to measure deprivation throughout the province. Correlative association testing was performed to assess the form and extent of the relationship between all registered non-profit organisations, as well as the subset government-contracted non-profit organisations, and deprivation intensity. The second phase of the study was conducted as a five-year longitudinal investigation of provincial government’s disbursements to contracted non-profit welfare organisations, from fiscal year 2013. Regression analysis was undertaken for each provincial District Municipality, modelling the impact of annual disbursements to contracted NPO welfare providers on district poverty headcounts. The goal was to determine the explanatory effect of this expenditure on provincial deprivation levels. The findings of the first phase reveal that there is no discernable relationship between the provincial incidence of welfare non-profit organisations generally and the deprivation experienced by the provincial population. However, a very distinctive positive association is distinguished between the geographic incidence of deprivation and the location of government-contracted non-profit organisations. Second phase analysis demonstrates there is limited impact of government contracted non-profit organisation welfare provision on deprivation intensity in any region of KwaZulu-Natal. The evidence demonstrates that government’s social developmental welfare spend is neither impactful, nor judiciously targeted. It is concluded that this spending is palliative at best, markedly distinct from government’s stated ambition.Abbreviations on page v-vi