I had dinner with Max Boisot a couple of weeks ago. Max is one of few remaining polymaths in this world and any conversation with him inevitably ends with one leaving with a reading list and a sense of guilt. Now post the last Academy of Management I been involved in a series of conversations. SenseMaker™ attracted interest as a new research tool, but also (and possibly of greater importance) was the potential link to power law mathematics, with their focus on outlier events. More on that as we get ready for the next meeting of the Academy in Montreal next August.
One point that Max made, was that we were taking an abductive approach to social systems. For those not familiar with the term, it was created by the pragmatist philosopher Peirce and describes an approach in which one considers a series of apparently unrelated events based on the suspicion that they might be connected. It is in effect a process of hypothesis creation. To complete the picture deduction is the process of saying that something is a consequence of something else based on the truth of the original assumptions; induction is inferring a particular quality from multiple instances or cases and is probably the most common approach.
One of the longstanding issues here is the potential logical fallacy (see title and look it up for yourself!). However if we take multiple instances (as we do in micro-narrative capture) and we use distributed cognition (multiple individuals interpret items ) then we create a very different and interesting approach, enabled by technology. Someone else described out work as distributed ethnography which I also like. The distributed nature allows the method to scale, while deploying the ethnographer's capability to see beyond the conventional. Ideas welcome, I am working on a more academic description of SenseMaker™ at the moment, this is a part of that. Its also nice to be bringing the pragmatists back into the swing of things, I remember being derided for using Dewey in an argument during the 1970's in a philosophy department over obsessed with analytics.
Comments (1)
Im glad pragmatism is getting some more attention too...
I have been working on some new models regarding interactionism and semiotics.
In regards to this excerpt:
"one considers a series of apparently unrelated events based on the suspicion that they might be connected"
In regards to phenomenology, we could start by saying that any and all things are first and foremost "phenomena" (that which appears).
Beyond this it seems that many approaches are hell bent on finding "the connection". Whereas Buddhism might say, abandon all connections and accept any and all things simply as phenomena.
But in regards to a more pragmatist approach I would argue that the inquirer CREATES the connection, and does not FIND the connection. We do this based on how we question and answer in regards to which assumed certainties and accepted uncertainties we cling to.
There is also another insight found in Buddhism which is called "the myth of permanence" which states that all things conditioned into existence, are not permanent. So while one approach might search for "the connections", in an attempt to find solidity. Where we in fact create "the connections", thereby creating our own solidity.
To argue against this, I feel would require the state of existence for a human to step outside of him or herself, become objective. And it gets even more muddy when we talk about two humans "reconciling truth or meaning". But maybe not?
The symbolic interactionism approach implies that we can only act towards things based on the meaning we assign those things.
So the question would be, is it possible for things to tell us what they mean? But those "things" are not sentient, so "meaning" is irrelevant to them... they are simply "that which appears", where it is us who are trying to impose meaning upon the thing, and then treat it as though the thing told us what it means.
Posted by Mark Spivey | November 10, 2009 8:44 PM
Posted on November 10, 2009 20:44