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______________________________________________________________________ The "Zeitschrift für
Semiotik": Abstracts ______________________________________________________________________
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Jan Van Dormael Maurice A. Finocchiaro Arnold Günther Michael May Christine Ohno Roland Posner Gerhard Schönrich Horst Wessel Horst Wessel Uwe Wirth Analogical thinking: a study of children's capability to adjust Jan Van Dormael, State University of Ghent Summary. The notion of analogy is ambiguous. It may refer to a relationship between
phrases which is itself signified by a phrase, but also to a process of thought. As a
linguistic expression, analogy (in its broadest sense) is here taken to refer not merely
to statements of the form "A is to B as C to D", but to any statement expressing
a relation of similarity between objects, categories, or concepts. In reference to
thought, analogical thinking is taken to mean any mode of thought in which one object or
complex of objects is likened or assimilated to another. People understand new situations
by linking them with familiar situations, and they solve problems based on previously
solved problems. All of these may be considered as abilities of analogical thinking. But
what exactly does analogical thinking mean, and what are the characteristics of this
thought process? In this contribution it is argued that analogical thinking can be
understood by linking this thought process with the child’s ability to act "as
if". In doing so, one transforms the usual logical study of analogy into a rhetorical
study of analogy. Empirical essays to research debate: experiment, induction, historical text analysis Maurice A. Finocchiaro, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Summary. David N. Perkins has studied informal, everyday reasoning using a variant of
the experimental approach involving taped, one-hour interviews. During these the subjects
are given time for some reflections on controversial issues. They are asked to articulate
their reasons for conclusions and to raise objections to their own arguments; in another
phase of the study, the experimenters themselves advance objections to the subjects’
arguments. The present author has studied informal, scientific reasoning by employing an
historical-textual approach that involves a critical examination of Galileo’s book
Two Chief World Systems and the production of a data base consisting of hundreds of
reconstructed arguments in natural language meant to be accurate interpretations of the
text. Independent of each other, these two studies have reached strikingly similar
substantive conclusions, the main one being that the most common flaw of informal
reasoning is the failure to consider lines of arguments supporting conclusions contrary to
the one in fact reached. This article describes, compares, and contrasts the respective
approaches and results, arguing that there are significant methodological similarities
underlying the two apparently different procedures, and that there are important
theoretical differences underlying the common substantive conclusion. Paradoxes and paraconsistent logic Arnold Günther, Technical University Berlin Summary. One of the solutions proposed for the paradoxes of logic and set theory is
based on the idea that contradictions may not have the devastating effect they are
commonly supposed to have in our theories. This is the basic idea of paraconsistent logic.
According to all paraconsistent logicians, theories may contain contradictions without
thereby becoming trivial, and some paraconsistent logicians claim that contradictions may
even be true. After a preliminary discussion of basic notions and ideas, I review three
books published in the last few years. In the first a nearly complete survey of all extant
paraconsistent approaches is given; in the second one strong paraconsistent position is
worked out and defended in detail, while in the third, two paraconsistent approaches to
the liar paradox are examined and attacked within a survey of contemporary approaches to
solutions of the liar paradox. Diagrammatic thinking : the interpretation of logical diagrams af idea systems in Lakoff and Peirce Michael May, Technical University Denmark Summary. According to George Lakoff, a logic diagram provides an image schema that has
a "built-in-logic" of the container type. Relying on the cognitive topology of
the image schema, one seems to "see instantly" what follows from the premisses
"without doing any logical deduction". A close scrutinity of how one actually
reasons on the basis of a logic diagram shows, however, that more than one level of
representation must be assumed. The procedures by which particular areas in a Venn diagram
are interpreted as representing particular propositions on a logical level can be shown to
violate the constraints imposed by the very conditions of representation for such a
diagram on a topological level. This result demonstrates that diagrammatic reasoning is
based on a systematic tension between the concrete properties of the diagram and the
abstract properties of the corresponding image schema. This fact, which is not taken into
account by Lakoff, was already pointed out by C.S. Peirce in his analysis of diagrammatic
reasoning.
Paradigms of meaning analysis from Aristotle to Greimas: reference, difference and standardisation Christine Ohno, University of Dortmund Summary. The main tendencies in providing an explanation of human categorization can be
classified with respect to three paradigms, which may be called the referential, the
differential and the typological paradigm. The referential paradigm, developed in the
tradition of Frege and Carnap and defining the sense or intension of a word (or
expression) in terms of necessary and sufficient criteria that determine its reference has
recently become subject to serious criticism, since its basic assumptions were challenged
by the results of cognitive science and typological research in particular. Within the
differential paradigm, which is also subject to typological criticism, three variants are
discussed: the philosophical approach developed by Kant and Hegel, the linguistic approach
of F. Rastier, and the mixed version of A.J. Greimas. The famous semiotic square of
the mixed version in analyzed in detail. It is argued that the mixed version mainly
combines a philosophical and a text-theoretical approach so that the typological cirticism
does not apply. The linguistic version might eventually integrate results of typological
research. In the domain of cognitive science a reductionist tendency can be observed,
which is supported by the typological paradigm, i.e., the tendency to overrate
categorization based on comparison of and operations with mental images and to underrate
logical forms of categorization. This article argues for a broader stance which acoounts
for mental images and references to perceived objects as well as abstract forms of
thought. Thought methods as communication methods Roland Posner, Technical University Berlin Summary. Taking number representation and calculation as basic examples, this
introductory contribution describes the external signs used to stabilize and control
thought processes. Various types of body movements, diagrams and symbols, including
linguistic expressions, can have this purpose, as is well documented in the history of the
techniques for calculation. The question is which indications the structure of operations
with external signs can give concerning the structure of the internal thought process.
Based on the work of philosophers from the age of Enlightenment, such as Leibniz and
Lambert, one may argue that operations with external signs can be used to anticipate and
replace mental processes. This paves the way for two opposing hypotheses about the
structure of mental processes, which have been taken up in present-day cognitive science
under the terms of "symbol theory" and "connectionism". In this
contribution, a moderate connectionist position is advocated which is shown to have
already been held by C.S. Peirce. This position is defended on the basis of
ontological, historical and functional arguments. The same external signs are regularly
used not only as means for thinking but also as means for communicating the results of the
thought process, and these are two rather different functions, which often utilize
opposite features of the external signs in question. In order to avoid a confusion between
thinking and communicating, one should be careful to differentiate the structure of
operating with external signs from the structure of mental sign processing. Consciousness of self in the sign process Gerhard Schönrich, Technical University Dresden Summary. This contribution takes a critical look at the treatises of Ulrich Baltzer and
Helmut Pape in Zeitschrift
für Semiotik 16 (1994). By analyzing the logical elements of Peirce’s
self-referential definition of signs, the author seeks to show that Peirce must make use
of the traditional theorem of consciousness of self to a greater extent than Baltzer
believes. In Peirce’s approach, consciousness of self is not an epiphenomenon of the
sign process, but its structure. However, this is valid in a weaker sense than Pape
suggests. While Baltzer does not fully use the possibilities of explicating consciousness
of self, Pape demands too much when he understands self-referentiality as objective
finality. The basis of a theory of terms Horst Wessel, Humboldt-University Berlin Summary.This contribution deals with the foundation of a logical theory of terms. Terms
are divided into subject-terms and predicate-terms. Subject-terms are classified from a
normative semantical perspective into singular, general and categorical terms. The
relations of inclusion and equality of meaning are defined on the basis of
normative-semantic tables. Some theorems dealing with the theory of terms are given.
Against the myth of intensional contexts Horst Wessel, Humboldt-University Berlin Summary. In this paper some operators are defined which form terms from sentences.
These operators can be read as "the sentence A", "the meaning of A",
"the proposition A", "the truth value of A", "the fact A"
and "the non-fact A". In these terms the sentence A does not occur as a sentence
but only as a graphical part. The substitution rules of logic are only valid for
occurences of terms and statements, but not for graphical parts. With the help of these
operators some epistemic contexts of that-clauses are analyzed. It is shown that there are
no intensional contexts, where the substitution rule does not work at all or only in a
restricted manner, but that there are only unsatisfactory logical analyses. Intensionality
turns out to be a myth. Uwe Wirth, University of Frankfurt am Main Summary. The last five decades have seen a clear increase of interest among scientists
in abductive inference, which Charles S. Peirce considered to be the "first
stage" of the processes of reasoning and interpretation. Such diverse fields as
philosophy, philosophy of science, sociology, linguistics, literary studies, semiotics,
and, more recently, artificial intelligence, are attempting more and more to utilize
abductive inference in reformulating the problems encountered within their research. We
might even speak of an "abductive turn" in thinking. In any case, research into
abduction offers a unique way of approaching interdisciplinary work from a unified
perspective. |
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