Michael H. G. Hoffmann

What you should know to survive in knowledge societies. On a semiotic understanding of 'knowledge'

Abstract Different situations — like school and workplace — demand different forms of knowledge. Even more important, in particular for lifelong learning, are forms of knowledge we need for managing movements between those situations. To develop a better understanding of how to ‘navigate’ knowledge boundaries, this paper analyzes, firstly, interviews with scientists interpreting familiar and unfamiliar graphs. Our goal is to identify those forms of knowledge that should receive special attention in education. Secondly, the article elaborates — based on Peirce’s semiotics — an epistemologically reflected semiotic model to describe the role and conditions of knowledge necessary for crossing knowledge boundaries.

Signs as Means for Discoveries

The paper aims to show how by elaborating the Peircean terms used in the title creativity in learning processes and in scientific discoveries can be explained within a semiotic framework. The essential idea is to emphasize both the role of external representations and of experimenting with those representations (“diagrammatic reasoning”), and to describe a process consisting of three steps: First, looking at diagrams “from a novel point of view” (“theoric transformation”) offers opportunities to synthesize elements of these diagrams which have never been perceived as connected before. Second, by forming those observed syntheses to “new objects” of thinking, and by signifying these objects through new signs (“hypostatic abstraction”), new means of thinking and acting are created (to be used for “theorematic deductions”). And finally, by applying these new means — in proofs, for instance — the “intelligibility” of new discoveries and their power to explain problematic facts must be tested.

Cognitive conditions of diagrammatic reasoning

Abstract In the first part of this paper, I delineate Peirces general concept of diagrammatic reasoning from other usages of the term that focus either on diagrammatic systems as developed in logic and AI or on reasoning with mental models. The main function of Peirces form of diagrammatic reasoning is to facilitate individual or social thinking processes in situations that are too complex to be coped with exclusively by internal cognitive means. I provide a diagrammatic definition of diagrammatic reasoning that emphasizes the construction of, and experimentation with, external representations based on the rules and conventions of a chosen representation system. The second part starts with a summary of empirical research regarding cognitive effects of working with diagrams and a critique of approaches that use “mental models” to explain those effects. The main focus of this section is, however, to elaborate the idea that diagrammatic reasoning should be conceptualized as a case of “distributed cognition.” Using the mathematics lesson described by Plato in his Meno, I analyze those cognitive conditions of diagrammatic reasoning that are relevant in this case.

Understanding Ill-Structured Engineering Ethics Problems Through a Collaborative Learning and Argument Visualization Approach

As a committee of the National Academy of Engineering recognized, ethics education should foster the ability of students to analyze complex decision situations and ill-structured problems. Building on the NAE’s insights, we report about an innovative teaching approach that has two main features: first, it places the emphasis on deliberation and on self-directed, problem-based learning in small groups of students; and second, it focuses on understanding ill-structured problems. The first innovation is motivated by an abundance of scholarly research that supports the value of deliberative learning practices. The second results from a critique of the traditional case-study approach in engineering ethics. A key problem with standard cases is that they are usually described in such a fashion that renders the ethical problem as being too obvious and simplistic. The practitioner, by contrast, may face problems that are ill-structured. In the collaborative learning environment described here, groups of students use interactive and web-based argument visualization software called “AGORA-net: Participate – Deliberate!”. The function of the software is to structure communication and problem solving in small groups. Students are confronted with the task of identifying possible stakeholder positions and reconstructing their legitimacy by constructing justifications for these positions in the form of graphically represented argument maps. The argument maps are then presented in class so that these stakeholder positions and their respective justifications become visible and can be brought into a reasoned dialogue. Argument mapping provides an opportunity for students to collaborate in teams and to develop critical thinking and argumentation skills.

Logical argument mapping: a cognitive-change-based method for building common ground

In this paper, I situate Logical Argument Mapping (LAM) within the broader context of IBIS-based Computer Supported Argument Visualization (CSAV) and Dialogue Mapping, and argument mapping as realized in Rationale. While the primary goal of these methods is to clarify issues and to augment cognitive processes, LAMs purpose is to motivate cognitive change by establishing a normative standard of argumentation.

Philosophy of and as interdisciplinarity

“Interdisciplinarity” is now a buzzword for more than 40 years since Erich Jantsch coined the term for a broader audience, together with “transdisciplinarity” (Jantsch 1970; see also Apostel et al. 1972). The exact meaning of these and related terms seems to be still in flux. However, as Britt Holbrook explains in the first contribution to this special issue, we can observe a convergence in the literature according to which we could distinguish three notions. Following Holbrook’s report about more or less accepted terminology—which he himself criticizes in his contribution—we restrict, for the purposes of this special issue, “multidisciplinarity” to a juxtaposition of two or more academic disciplines focused on a single problem; “interdiscplinarity” to the integration of one or more academic disciplines; and “transdisciplinarity”—although this usage is more contested—to “the integration of one or more academic disciplines with extra-academic perspectives on a common (and usually a real-world, as opposed to a merely academic) problem.” 1

Learning by Developing Knowledge Networks. A semiotic approach within a dialectical framework

A central challenge for research on how we should prepare students to manage crossing boundaries between different knowledge settings in life long learning processes is to identify those forms of knowledge that are particularly relevant here. In this paper, we develop by philosophical means the concept of adialectical system as a general framework to describe the development of knowledge networks that mark the starting point for learning processes, and we use semiotics to discuss (a) the epistemological thesis that any cognitive access to our world of objects is mediated by signs and (b)diagrammatic reasoning andabduction as those forms of practical knowledge that are crucial for the development of knowledge networks. The richness of this theoretical approach becomes evident by applying it to an example of learning in a biological research context. At the same time, we take a new look at the role of mathematical knowledge in this process.

Skizze einer semiotischen Theorie des Lernens

ZusammenfassungDer hier skizzierte Ansatz wird in vier Thesen entwickelt: Die erste ist, dass Lernen als Prozess der Entwicklung von Erkenntnisbedingungen verstanden werden kann; die zweite, dass solche Erkenntnisbedingungen in den jeweils verwendeten „Zeichen“ oder „Repräsentationen“ sichtbar und kommunizierbar werden, und die dritte, dass im Arbeiten mit solchen Reprasentationen (Peirce spricht von „diagrammatischem Schließen“) eine Vermittlung unterschiedlicher Wissensformen stattfindet und damit Lernen möglich wird. Die vierte These besagt, dass diagrammatisches Schließen einerseits konsistente Darstellungssysteme und andererseits die Fahigkeit des Lernenden voraussetzt, die Regeln dieser Systeme durch „Abduktion“ zu erkennen.AbstractThis approach to a semiotic theory of learning is based on four theses. The first is that learning can be understood as a development of knowledge conditions. The second thesis is that such epistemic conditions become visible and communicable in the “signs” or “representations” used by individuals, and the third that in working with those representations (what Peirce called “diagrammatic reasoning”) a mediation between different forms of knowledge takes place so that learning becomes possible. The fourth thesis, finally, says that diagrammatic reasoning presupposes, firstly, consistent systems of representation, and, secondly, the learner’s ability of grasping the rules of those systems by “abduction”.

The complementarity of a representational and an epistemological function of signs in scientific activity

Abstract Signs do not only ‘represent’ something for somebody, as Peirces definition goes, but also ‘mediate’ relations between us and our world, including ourselves, as has been elaborated by Vygotsky. We call the first the representational function of a sign and the second the epistemological function since in using signs we make distinctions, specify objects and relations, structure our observations, and organize societal and cognitive activity. The goal of this paper is, on the one hand, to develop a model in which both these functions appear as complementary and, on the other, to show that this complementarity is essential for the dynamics of scientific activity, causing a dialectical process of generating new epistemological and representational means. This will be demonstrated with an example of how two scientists with different background knowledge analyze educational data collaboratively.

Climate Ethics: Structuring Deliberation by Means of Logical Argument Mapping

One of the fi rst things President Obama did after coming to offi ce was the establishment of the Offi ce of Public Engagement. As described on its Web site, this offi ce “is the embodiment of the President’s goal of making government inclusive, transparent, accountable and responsible.” The Offi ce of Public Engagement is supposed to “create and coordinate opportunities for direct dialogue between the Obama Administration and the American public, while bringing new voices to the table and ensuring that everyone can participate and inform the work of the President.” 1