Month: June 2017

Types of logic

In a very useful paper Jayanti (2011) compares deductive, inductive and abductive logic.  I am using her examples here because they are couched in business language and are easier to remember than the examples used in textbooks.

I also would like to extend Jayanti’s typology to conductive logic described by Floridi (2017).

Floridi, L. (2017). The Logic of Design as a Conceptual Logic of Information. Minds and Machines, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-017-9438-1

Jayanti, E. B. (2011). Toward Pragmatic Criteria for Evaluating HRD Research. Human Resource Development Review, 10(4), 431–450. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484311412723

Deductive reasoning

All companies have logos.

This organisation is a company.

Therefore, it has a logo.

We assert truths about the world (All companies have logos) and about the case (the organisation is a company).  If the assertion about the case is true (usually justified in the Participants section), then whether or not it has a logo ‘tests’ the truth of the first statement.

When we only want to test the idea that more companies than none have a logo, then we can take a sample of companies. If they have more logos than we can contribute to measurement error, we accept that the first statement is not wrong.

Induction

All these organisations are companies.

All these organisations have logos.

Therefore, all companies have logos.

This methodology begins with data-in-hand and constructs a rule that is similar to the truth asserted in the first example.  In the first example, we intend to test the statement.  In this example, we arrive at the statement and we could go on to test it as before.

We can see the ‘stretch’ in inductive reasoningand most of us are uncomfortable unless this is exploratory research and the work moves on to that test.

This logic may also be useful for accounting for a case, in which case the truth value of the assertion is a methodological question that remains within the case and is not generalized beyond the case.

We are asserting information about the conclusion rather than the starting premise but in most ways it is used, this is simply a version of the positivistic paradigm as the example under deduction

Abduction

All companies have logos.

This organisation has a logo.

Therefore, this organisation is probably a company.

The ‘stretch’ here is even greater than under induction, but it is limited to the case-in-hand.  It is when what we assumed would be true about case is evidently not so that we put a question mark around the first statement.

The purpose of abductive reasoning is to be practical. We are trying to make sense of one case and extend things we ‘know/believe’ to be true.  Surprise requires us to take action and think again.  We accept plausible, coherent accounts until they do not work.

Conduction

Floridi (2017) suggests conduction goes further than abduction.  Writing as an information theorist, a technologist takes a set of requirements and puts together a system that satisfies those requirements. The movement from requirements to the system is conduction.  The system can still be tested deductively (does it meet the requirements?).

How could be phrased this in terms of companies and logos?

I want this to be company, meaning, it needs a legal persona of its own and must be recognised as an entity separate from its owners and have limited liability. These are requirements.  The organisation must be able to do {a, b, c}.

And the working solution could be {name, logo, registration and founding documents, directors to act for it, an official address to serve legal papers, an initial capital investment, up-to-date accounts}.  The organisation will have {x, y, z}.

We may work this out mimetically, and probably do. Imagining, the solution is conduction and has to be constructed in the local situation  . . . that is situated and embodied.

The imaginative solution also depends upon past experience, i.e.,  knowing what will work together and what the actor is able to do.

The imaginative solution anticipates meeting the requirements but it is likely that there many, but not any sets of requirements that would suffice.

 

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Six steps for a critical psychological research

What is critical research?

Critical research acknowledges power at the level of society, e.g., class in the United Kingdom.

Critical psychological research

Psychological research rarely takes a critical approach. The work of Stuart Carr at Massey in New Zealand on poverty and say, how expats justify their high salaries, is critical.

Steps for critical research

Here are six steps for a fundamentally critical approach to psychological research.

  1. We are both not fully conscious of the choices we make every day (e.g., hegemony) and, we can see conceal our interests (e.g., models of society’s conflict).
  2. Practically, we will not attend to issues unless something outside of the everyday prompts us to do so.
  3. New ideas often come from the “boy commenting on the lack of the Emperors’ clothes”.  The comments may be challenging but they often are dismissed as being naïve.
  4. Though we’re sensitized by the critical literature, and our role as academics, we are biased to
  5. The behavioural, observable data, or signal, that something interesting is going on is when people are silenced. We can detect that from texts using corpus linguistics (e.g., passive voice) but we’ll also pick it up by watching.  This is a fundamental tool for psychologists – what is making someone uncomfortable?  From their point of view, something doesn’t stack up.
  6. This method contrasts with much of the qualitative work which analyses what is said rather than what was not said.  I am not proposing thematic analysis but a way to consider counterfactuals and to consider what brings about the agenda of a group.

When to use this methodology

To use this methodology, you will need to be sufficiently trusted to be able to observe a group or the situation needs to be public.

You also need a reason to believe that taking a ‘broader angle lens’ so the group can see itself against the backdrop of what is happening in the wider world.

These methodologies are labour-intensive and the deeper investigations should begin with a compassionate intent and a reasonable belief that greater value is possible with greater sociological imagination or a historical view. And you should have time and resources to follow through to help the group digest and absorb the conversations that follow from this approach.

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Design by design!

Engaged design

Design . . .  should be elegant and pleasing.   It should also be functional and achieve its purpose.   Most importantly its purpose should be our purpose.

Engaged design in New Zealand

New Zealand has a strong tradition in design and a temperamental inclination  to engagement.   Well-worn jokes include the No 8. wire used to fix anything and everything on the Kiwi farm and the Kiwi dislike of large organisations.  A British general is reputed to have commented that Kiwi troops do not salute much.  His Kiwi counterpart replied, “but if you wave they will wave back.”

Tradition of design in New Zealand

Kiwis are articulate though about their design and their participation.   The Britten Instituge supports community activity and has an accessible, unpretentious,  list of design principles to bring people together.

“It is not innovation that matters, it is agreement. And we might need innovation to reach agreement.”

Design in Europe

I am very interested in reconciling the two bodies of knowledge that Western thought likes to keep apart if not regarding them as competitors.

Positive psychology promotes our engagement with life and of work with our engagement!  Yet we must make money too and the world is about to get very much more competitive for those of us in United Kingdom.  I have far more visitors to this blog to manage a small server than I do because someone wants to be happy!

What we want from design today?

Can we reconcile the holistic, engaged Britten approach to technical work?  I would like to try.

 

 

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