Michael H. G. Hoffmann

Georgia Institute of Technology | GT · School of Public Policy

Many have argued that it is impossible to determine criteria to identify good arguments. In this contribution, we argue that it is at least possible to identify features of objectively bad arguments. Going beyond Blair and Johnson’s ARS criteria, which state that reasons must be acceptable, relevant, and sufficient, we develop a list of eight crite...

What is ‘translation’? Even as the scholarly viewpoint of translation studies has expanded over recent years, the notion of ‘translation’ has remained fixedly defined by its interlinguistic element. However, there are many different contexts and disciplines in which translation takes place for which this definition is entirely unsuitable. Exploring...

Most of the epistemological debate on disagreement tries to develop standards that describe which actions or beliefs would be rational under specific circumstances in a controversy. To build things on a firm foundation, much work starts from certain idealizations—for example the assumption that parties in a disagreement share all the evidence that...

Objective This study utilized the Reflect! platform, an educational tool, as an instrument to structure deliberations among small groups of people with conflicting views. Can a technology designed to provide guidance for self‐directed learning in small teams of students also be used in projects with “real” stakeholders involved in actual conflicts?...

Wicked problems—that is, problems that can be framed in a number of different ways, depending on who is looking at them—pose ethical challenges for professionals that have scarcely been recognized as such. Even though wicked problems are all around us, they are rarely addressed in education. A reason for this failure might be that wicked problems p...

Although there is increasing interest in philosophy of science in transcendental reasoning, there is hardly any discussion about transcendental arguments. Since this might be related to the dominant understanding of transcendental arguments as a tool to defeat epistemological skepticism, and since the power of transcendental arguments to achieve th...

Peirce developed two different concepts-"abduction" and "diagrammatic reasoning"-that are interesting for theories of creativity in mathematics, the sciences, and in learning. He defined "abduction" as the "inference" from surprising, or unexplained, observations to an explanatory hypothesis. However, he does not provide much to explain how the pro...

We all seem to have a sense of what good and bad arguments are, and there is a long history—focusing on fallacies—of trying to provide objective standards that would allow a clear separation of good and bad arguments. This contribution discusses the limits of attempts to determine the quality of arguments. It begins with defining bad arguments as t...

A large body of research in cognitive science differentiates human reasoning into two types: fast, intuitive, and emotional “System 1” thinking, and slower, more reflective “System 2” reasoning. According to this research, human reasoning is by default fast and intuitive, but that means that it is prone to error and biases that cloud our judgments...

Why do we formulate arguments? Usually, things such as persuading opponents, finding consensus, and justifying knowledge are listed as functions of arguments. But arguments can also be used to stimulate reflection on one’s own reasoning. Since this cognitive function of arguments should be important to improve the quality of people’s arguments and...

There is evidence that problem-based learning (PBL) is an effective approach to teach team and problem-solving skills, but also to acquire content knowledge. However, there is hardly any literature about using PBL in philosophy classes. One problem is that PBL is resource intensive because a facilitator is needed for each group of students to suppo...

Der 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 solche...

Diese Einleitung in das Themenheft „Semiotik in der Mathematikdidaktik — Lernen anhand von Zeichen und Repräsentationen” verortet die hier veröffentlichen Beiträge in den weiteren Kontext von Forschungen zu semiotischen Ansätzen in der Mathematikdidaktik und stellt deren Besonderheit heraus. Als ein Schwerpunkt wird dabei die Frage hervorgehoben, o...

Technology is not only an object of philosophical reflection but also something that can change this reflection. This paper discusses the potential of computer-supported argument visualization tools for coping with the complexity of philosophical arguments. I will show, in particular, how the interactive and web-based argument mapping software “AGO...

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...

Forthcoming in Semiotica (ISSN: 0037-1998), published by Walter de Gruyter & Co. In the first part of this paper, I delineate Peirce's 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 Peirce's form o...

One of the first things President Obama did after coming to office was the establishment of the Office of Public Engagement. As described on its Web site, this office "is the embodiment of the President's goal of making government inclusive, transparent, accountable and responsible." The Office of Public Engagement is supposed to "create and coordi...

Based on a definition of “abductive insight” and a critical discussion of G. Schurz’s (2008) distinction of eleven “patterns of abduction” that he organizes in four groups, I suggest an even more comprehensive classification that distinguishes 15 forms in an alternative structure. These forms are organized, on the one hand, with regard to what is a...

Interdisciplinary collaboration figures centrally in frontier research in many fields. Participants in inter- disciplinary projects face problems they would not encounter within their own disciplines. Among those are problems of mutual understanding, of finding a language to communicate both within projects and with the scientific community and soc...

Developing a theory of signs was Peirce’s goal for about fifty years of his life. There are some indications that he himself perceived his efforts at the end as a failure. This paper argues that a fundamental problem of Peirce’s approach to semiotics is that he did not realize that signs can fulfill a set of very different functions. Depending on t...

The primary goal of this chapter is to present a new method—called Logical Argument Mapping (LAM)—for the analysis of framing processes as they occur in any communication, but especially in conflicts. I start with a distinction between boundary setting, meaning construction, and sensemaking as three forms or aspects of framing, and argue that cruci...

This paper formulates in the first part some ,requirements for a certain sort of computationalargumentation systems, namely those which are designed for avery specific purpose: to motivate reflection on one’s own thinking, and to in- duce cognitive change. This function of argumentation systems is important for ar- gument-based conflict negotiation...

Theories of argumentation usually focus on arguments as means of persuasion, finding consensus, or justifying knowledge claims. However, the construction and visualization of arguments can also be used to clarify one's own thinking and to stimulate change of this thinking if gaps, unjustified assumptions, contradictions, or open questions can be id...

Starting from the observation that small children can count more objects than numbers—a phenomenon that I am calling the “lifeworld dependency of cognition”—and an analysis of finger calculation, the paper shows how learning can be explained as the development of cognitive systems. Parts of those systems are not only an individual's different forms...

Signs do not only “represent” something for somebody, as Peirce’s 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 ob...

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, LAM's purpose is to motivate cognitive...

Robert Fogelin (1985) formulated the thesis "that deep disagreements cannot be resolved through the use of argument, for they undercut the conditions essential to arguing." The possibility of arguing presupposes "a shared background of beliefs and preferences," and if such a background is not given, there is no way of "rational" dispute resolution....

Presented at IACM 2007 (International Association for Conflict Management). One of the most exciting new approaches in conflict research applies Dynamical Systems Theory (DST) to explain the devastating dynamics of intractable conflicts. This paper describes what makes this approach so powerful, and discusses some of its limitations that become vis...

This paper sketches a theory of scientific discoveries that is mainly based on two concepts that Charles Peirce developed: abduction and diagrammatic reasoning. Both are problematic. While “abduction” describes the process of creating a new idea, it does not, on the one hand, explain how this process is possible and, on the other, is not precisely...

The goal of this paper is to define framing as a basic form of knowledge. Starting point is a discussion of a variety of different approaches to and classifications of frames and framing as provided in the literature. The outcome of this discussion is that the confusion we can observe with regard to these concepts results from the fact that researc...

This comment attempts to identify different “semiotic perspectives” proposed by the authors of this special issue according to the problems they discuss. These problems can be distinguished as problems concerning the representation of mathematical knowledge, the definition and objectivity of meaning, epistemological questions of learning and activi...

Some proponents of epistemological approaches to argumentation (Biro, Siegel, Lumer, Goldman) assume that it should be possible to develop non-relative criteria of argument evaluation. By contrast, this paper argues that any evaluation of an argument depends (a) on the cognitive situation of the evaluator, (b) on background knowledge that is availa...

In recent years, semiotics has become an innovative theoretical framework in mathematics education. The purpose of this article is to show that semiotics can be used to explain learning as a process of experimenting with and communicating about one's own representations (in particular ‘diagrams') of mathematical problems. As a paradigmatic example,...

This paper argues that one of the biggest problems for resolving conflicts by negotiation are epistemological problems, or more precisely: the problem to understand one another. In conflict research, it has been discussed under the heading of "framing." I apply Charles Peirce's theory of signs to clarify this epistemological problem. According to a...

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 s...

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 de...

The advancement of a scientific discipline depends not only on the "big heroes" of a discipline, but also on a community's ability to reflect on what has been done in the past and what should be done in the future. This volume combines perspectives on both. It celebrates the merits of Michael Otte as one of the most important founding fathers of ma...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

Es gibt prinzipielle Grenzen für Wissenssysteme, die dem Anspruch einer "Logik der Rechtfertigung" zu genügen versuchen. In dieser Situation, so wird in dieser Studie argumentiert, kann die Möglichkeit von Wissen und Erkenntnis nur aus einer genetischen Perspektive erklärt werden, welche die Frage nach den Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der Entw...

A crucial problem of conflict management is that whatever happens in negotiations will be interpreted and framed by stakeholders based on their different belief-value systems and world views. This problem will be discussed in the first part of this article as the main cognitive problem of conflict management. The second part develops a general semi...

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...

Discussions concerning belief revision, theory development, and "creativity" in philosophy and AI, reveal a growing interest in Peirce's concept of abduction. Peirce introduced abduction in an attempt to provide theoretical dignity and clarification to the difficult problem of knowledge generation. He wrote that "An Abduction is Originary in respec...

How can we reach “new” levels of knowledge if “new” means that there is something “evolved” that cannot be generated simply by deduction or by induction from what has been given before. The paper’s first goal is to show that two paradigmatic attempts at solving this so-called “learning paradox,” Plato’s apriorism and Aristotle’s inductivism, form t...

Abductive reasoning takes place in forming "hypotheses" in order to explain "facts." Thus, the concept of abduction promises an understanding of creativity in science and learning. It raises, however, also a lot of problems. Some of them will be discussed in this paper: After analyzing the difference between induction and abduction (1), I shall dis...

Unterscheidung einer Repräsentationsfunktion und einer Erkenntnisfunktion von Zeichen; Peirces allgemeine Zeichendefinition; eine Schwierigkeit: Der Objektbegriff; Peirces Klassifikation möglicher Zeichenrelationen um 1903; Die Kategorienlehre als Grundlage aller Differenzierungen. Drei Dimensionen der Zeichenrelation: Objekt, Zeichen und Interpret...

3. to provide a tool that can be used by practitioners in public policy. In order to test whether Logical Argument Mapping fulfills these purposes (and to improve the method if necessary), we will work, in the second part of the class, in research teams on specif- ic problems that cover the School of Public Policy's "areas of concentration": enviro...

The paper distinguishes, in its first part, different epistemological approaches to argumentation theory and criticizes those who focus on non-relative criteria of argument evaluation. The second part describes the basic idea of an alternative epistemological approach that focuses on improving the practice of argumentation by a representational too...

Ethical decisions are often not clear-cut. Most of the time it is possible to argue for more than one "right thing to do," especially if there is a variety of ethical principles or conflicting arguments. In order both to understand those arguments and to participate in deliberation and communication on ethically relevant issues, we need some method...

A map that shows a certain point in a fictitious deliberation which is supposed to be ongoing and open-ended, driven by the motive of participants to support or to criticize any of the assumptions mapped out so far by further arguments. This map is mainly based on recent publications on geo-engineering

This map is -- in a different form, with linked sub-maps -- also available online: http://tinyurl.com/y9jlsxv

Referring to the concept of “dialectic” has been a promising approach for Activity Theorists to explain development and learning both in societies and in individuals. “Contradictions,” for example, are understood as the “driving force” of development. Often “dialectic” is supposed to work as the theory's most basic foundation. Open questions of thi...

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 a dialectical system as a general framework...

Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es, ein Projekt der am Institut für Didaktik der Mathematik (IDM) in Bielefeld beheimateten Arbeitsgruppe Erkenntnistheoretische und semiotische Grundlagen des Mathematik-Lernens vorzustellen und in eine bestimmte Richtung mathematikdidaktischer Forschung einzuordnen, wie sie von Michael Otte vertreten wird, dem Leiter der...