There is no more central issue to education than thinking and reasoning. Certainly, such an emphasis chimes with the rationalist and cognitive deep structure of the Western educational tradition. The contemporary tendency reinforced by cognitive science is to treat thinking ahistorically and aculturally as though physiology, brain structure and human evolution are all there is to say about thinking that is worthwhile or educationally significant. The movement of critical thinking also tends to treat thinking ahistorically, (...) focusing on universal processes of logic and reasoning. Against this trend and against the scientific spirit of the age this paper presents a historical and philosophical picture of thinking. By contrast with dominant cognitive and logical models the paper emphasizes kinds of thinking and styles of reasoning. The paper grows out of interests primarily in the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, and in the extension and development of their work in Critical Theory and French poststructuralist philosophy. The paper draws directly on some of this work to argue for the recognition of different kinds of thinking, which are explored by reference to Heidegger, and also the significance of styles of reasoning, which are explored by reference to Wittgenstein and to Ian Hacking. (shrink)

Der Denkstil der Chemiker. Der Aufsatz diskutiert die Tragfähigkeit des Begriffes “Denkstil”, wie er von Alistair Crombie eingeführt und Ian Hacking aufgegriffen wurde, für das Verständnis dessen, wie das Fach Chemie historisch seine Identität ausgeprägt hat. Obwohl weder Crombie noch Hacking den Begriff “Denkstil” in Bezug auf einzelne Disziplinen verwendet haben, erscheint im Fall der Chemie seine Anwendung besonders vielversprechend, weil er hier hilft, ein zentrales Problem zu thematisieren – nämlich die Frage, wie es Chemikern trotz wechselnder Gegenstandsbereiche und theoretischer (...) Umbrüche gelang, eine eigenständige und stabile Identität auszubilden. Nach einer Einführung in den Begriff “Denkstil”, argumentiert der Aufsatz, dass die Beständigkeit der Chemie als eines Faches wesentlich in ihren Laborpraktiken gründet, die ihrerseits wiederum die spezifische Art der Fragen bestimmten, die Chemiker in ihren Forschungen stellten bzw. die Form der Antworten, nach denen sie suchten. Folgende Merkmale kennzeichnen diesen “chemischen Denkstil” (1) eine spezifische, im Herstellen begründete Form des Wissens, (2) die Befassung mit einzelnen Stoffen und Materialien statt mit Materie im Allgemeinen und (3) eine Beobachtung von Natur besonders im Hinblick auf Transformationsprozesse.The Chemists' Style of Thinking. This paper discusses the relevance of the notion of “styles of scientific thinking” introduced by Alistair Crombie and revisited by Ian Hacking, for understanding how chemistry shaped its identity. Although neither Crombie nor Hacking applied this notion to individual disciplines, it seems appropriate to use it in the case of chemistry because it helps to address a puzzling issue: how did chemists manage to shape an identity of their own, despite shifting territories and theoretical transformations? Following a presentation of the notion of style, I will argue that the stable identity of chemistry is rooted in laboratory practices, which determined the specific questions that chemists put to nature as well as the answers to their questions. The “chemical style of thinking” is characterized by i) a specific way of knowing through making, ii) the concern with individual materials rather than matter in general and iii) a specific commitment to nature. (shrink)

In the article, the organic principle of the Euroasian philosophy is studied. The organic principle acts as a basis of special style of thinking and a certain methodology of scientific knowledge here. The Euroasian methodology of studying of development of society allows establishing of the nature of communications between social processes and the phenomena of wildlife. In the article, the most important components of the Euroasian organic principle of thinking are shown: special terminology and possibilities of its application (...) for the description and forecasting of the social phenomena. Prerequisites of change of the style of thinking dominating in modern science are also noted. The author considers advantages of the organic principle of the Euroasian methodology in solution of national political, social-economic and cultural problems and in possible prospects of its use for formation of scientific methodology. The organic principle of thinking creates complex idea of reality, which can appear before us new, party unknown earlier. Lack of division of sensual experience and ‘pure reason‘, irrational and rational in organic thinking is unconditional advantage of organic approach. Organic principle presented by the Euroasian philosophical organization of the beginning of the twentieth century and continued by Lev Gumilev in the theory of ethnogenesis acts as alternative developed in the west of one-dimensional, mechanistic methodology. It can be told with confidence that owning all of variety of intellectual traditions is necessary for the modern humankind to become capable to realize global ecological threats and negative consequences of influence of culture in which ethics of individualism prevails. (shrink)

This article considers the meaning of the ancient Chinese magic square Luoshu. It is known that this square is the most ancient of this type of squares. The importance of the magic square in the philosophical tradition and in the whole culture of China is large. The ancient understanding of number differs from the modern one by its dual character, combining the features of philosophical symbolism and mathematical constructions. Unfortunately, modern interpretations of the Luoshu as well as other numerical constructions (...) preserved by the Chinese tradition are too often limited to a superficial statement of their symbolic, “numerological” nature, ignoring the effects of the mathematical structure represented by them. At the same time, some scholars strongly emphasize the intuitive aspects of numerology, which do not presuppose accuracy. On the contrary, Leibniz saw in the Chinese binary system of thinking the beginning of an exact universal language. The author, appealing to the concept of A.A. Krushinskiy, analyzes the arithmetic laws of the structure of the square. The article shows that the magic square Luoshu is not a numbers game. Without any doubt, its main meaning lies in the application of arithmetic. Chinese magic square is an illustrative implementation of one of the main features of Chinese language and traditional thinking – its rational and mathematical basis. The Luoshu square is a vivid example of visual constructivism in the Chinese style of thinking. By means of the magic square’s scheme, the procedure of generalization that is a basis of concepts formation is carried out. This procedure uses a mathematical magic square algorithm based on the numerical codes of the five elements. The quinary spontaneous symbolism is rooted in the Chinese traditional culture of thinking and life order. (shrink)

The primary objective of the present research was to explore the statistical predictive power of thinking styles in coping strategies beyond demographic factors. One hundred and forty-eight mainland postgraduate students were administered to the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised II and the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced Revised. Results indicated that Type I thinking styles primarily predicted adaptive coping strategies, while Type II thinking styles positively contributed to maladaptive coping strategies. Results in the present (...) research were largely in the expected directions beyond the influence of demographic factors. Furthermore, thinking styles varied as a function of age, gender, gender-role orientation, and marital status. Implications for postgraduate students, academics, university administrators, and the limitations of the research, are discussed. (shrink)

In philosophy of science, the literature on abduction and the literature on styles of thinking have existed almost totally in parallel. Here, for the first time, we bring them together and explore their mutual relevance. What is the consequence of the existence of several styles of scientific thinking for abduction? Can abduction, as a general creative mode of inference, have distinct characteristic forms within each style? To investigate this, firstly, we present the concept of abduction; secondly (...) we analyze what is understood by styles of thinking; thirdly, we give some comments on abduction and styles of thinking by analyzing examples of scientific discovery or innovation within each style. We develop a case-based comparative investigation of creative aspects of abductive reasoning with examples drawn from different styles of scientific thinking and doing as understood by the Crombie/hacking tradition. We argue that abduction, as a general mode of reasoning, can have a variety of specific expressions enabled and constrained by the styles of scientific thinking. Finally, we draw some conclusions on the relationship between abduction and styles of thinking suggesting that scientific discovery is a dynamical goal-directed activity within the scientific community that benefits from distinct styles of thinking and doing research. (shrink)

The volume starts with the paper of Lynn Maurice Ferguson Arnold, former Premier of South Australia and former Minister of Education of Australia, concerning the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life) that was held from 25 May to 25 November 1937 in Paris, France. The organization of the world exhibition had placed the Nazi German and the Soviet pavilions directly across from each other. Many papers are devoted (...) to the interpretation of this opposition. Arnold’s paper considers the differences in the two totalitarian states’ architectural and design discourse styles. Although each of them communicated a totalitarian language of purposes, permissions, and boundaries, they essentially differed in the styles of discourse represented by the architecture and design of their respective pavilions. They were opposites of each other and the liberal ideals they contested. The internationalist viewpoint reflecting the multi-ethnic mix of the USSR is contrasted to the ein Volk homogeneity represented in the German pavilion. The Soviet pavilion opted for a utopian future to be arrived at by “benign” leadership, whereas the German pavilion anchored itself in the myth of Teutonic history with the nostalgic pride protected by the swastika-bearing eagle. Jean-Yves Béziau is best known as a logician and founder of Universal Logic. However, in this paper, he poses a new philosophical question: why philosophical discourse does not use images? The paper begins with a general analysis of different types of philosophical discourses. Then, he focuses on why images have been and are still rejected in philosophical discourse. He explains various ways to use images in a fruitful way to develop philosophical thinking and discourse and illustrates his view by providing several examples. He concludes with a promising programmatic declaration about founding a new journal entitled World Journal of Pictorial Philosophy to stimulate the usage of images for developing philosophical thinking. Although complaints about the obscurity of many philosophers’ discourse are widespread, Tatiana Denisova, ex-professor of the Surgut University and a research associate of the University of the Aegean undertakes a positive attitude to this problem. She explains that the reasons for the obscurity of philosophical texts, the subsequent complexity in communicating philosophers’ meanings and their eventual incomplete understanding is not a sign of their inferiority. On the contrary, it is a sign of the fruitfulness of philosophical discourse, which can generate new meanings. Thus, the darkness of philosophical discourse is like the life-giving chaos, and the obscurity that it inevitably contains can be the keeper of implicit meanings and even their generator. Katarzyna Gan-Krzywoszyńska and Piotr Leśniewski, authors of a monograph on Polish philosopher Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890 – 1963), make a comparative analysis of his educational style with that of Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (1921 – 1997). The authors highlight that these scholars have distinctly different backgrounds. The former was an educator, philosopher and a leading advocate of critical pedagogy connected with the dialogical Latin-American tradition. The latter was a philosopher and logician, a notable representative of the Lwów–Warsaw school of logic with significant contributions to semantics, model theory and the philosophy of science. Despite their apparent difference, the authors identify some striking similarities regarding their attitudes towards education; notably, their approaches are essentially dialogical. Gilah Yelin Hirsch is a multidisciplinary artist who works as a painter, writer, curator, educator, and filmmaker. In her experiential paper, he explains how and why she uses four channels of communication in her creative expression: writing, painting, filmmaking, and teaching, as dialogic inquiry. She considers that these channels compose a continuum of discourse styles, each reaching a different facet of kaleidoscopic consciousness. She claims that her choice of medium is prompted by a need to communicate her insights profoundly. Thus, for instance, she created painted allegories to express narratives based on dreams and visions emerging from her subconscious. Art and healing is another Tibetan-rooted type of discourse practised by the author. Creating and observing a healing image produces a positive psychophysiological change in both the artist and the viewer. The discourse here is tripartite between creator, image, and viewer. Filmmaking is another type of discourse she practices between the filmmaker/artist as shaman or healer and the viewer as respondent or participant. These films are meant to be experienced frame by frame, physically and emotionally in both the body and mind. Jocelyn Ireson-Paine is a cartoonist and programmer. His paper offers an original attempt to use category theory in cartooning. Category theory is a branch of mathematics that provides concepts and methods to describe general abstract structures in terms of a labelled directed graph called category, whose nodes are called objects, and whose labelled directed edges are called arrows (or morphisms or transformations or mappings). The author explores different ways to define “style” in art using category theory and a relational view of art. Moreover, he examines how “translation” (transformation) between styles could be defined and reveals the difficulties of how it could be implemented in a computer using special software. Jens Lemanski is a philosopher who has revived research in Arthur Schopenhauer’s legacy by exploring his work on mathematical evidence, logic diagrams, and problems of semantics. In this paper, he advances a new approach to eristic as an art of protecting oneself from the one who deliberately violates norms of discourse ethics to win an argument. The author attributes the origins of this view to Schopenhauer, suggesting a new reading of his work. According to the author, eristic is a prohibitive technique that takes effect when the norms of discourse ethics are transgressed and violated. Thus, eristic is viewed as a discipline of Enlightenment philosophy and a correlate of discourse ethics. Roshdi Rashed is an authority on the history of Arabic mathematical sciences. Proceeding from Gilles-Gaston Granger’s definition of mathematical style, he studies the question of whether a mathematical work can be characterized by a single style or by a multitude of styles. This question is explored within the style of a single work, namely Menelaus’s Sphaerica, and through the study of the development of a single problem over time, namely the isoperimetric problem. He indicates Menelaus’s divergence from the Euclidean style of (plane and stereometric) geometry caused by the drop of the Parallel Postulate, which associated it with hyperbolic geometry. Hence, the author concludes that Menelaus’s Sphaerica incorporates the well-known Euclidean style with a variation of the non-Euclidean one. On the other hand, examining the isoperimetric problem reveals another interesting historical picture. A succession of different styles (cosmological, geometric, infinitesimalistic, style of the calculus of variations, of synthetic geometry) can be observed due to the transformation of the research object over time. Boris Shalyutin, a Russian social philosopher, and Ombudsman for Human Rights in the Kurgan Region, explores the origins of discourse in combination with the birth of society and law. He claims that legal discourse marks the historical emergence of discourse in general. Homo Juridicus generated Homo Sapiens, which have created new spheres of discourse, notably moral discourse and further philosophical, political, and scientific discourse. Petros Stefaneas, a logician, computer scientist and novelist, suggests an alternative to the traditional narratology approach for studying (interactive) social media discourse. He claims that style describes how the parts of a narrative are blended into a whole. The author relies upon Goguen’s and Harrel’s concept of style as a choice of blending principles and transfers to the study of the social media narratives elements from the methodology of studying Web-based collaborative search for mathematical proofs like those implemented within the Polymath project. The last paper belongs to Ghil‘ad Zuckermann, a linguist, language revivalist, and proponent of a model of the emergence of Israeli Hebrew, according to which Hebrew and Yiddish were the primary sources of Modern Hebrew. This paper explores the fascinating and multifaceted Yiddish language and its survival in Israeli. Yiddish is characterized by a unique style that embeds psycho-ostensive expressions throughout its discourse. The author highlights the cross-fertilization between Hebrew and Yiddish as it manifests itself in any aspect of the Israeli language. He claims that Yiddish survives beneath Israeli phonetics, phonology, discourse, syntax, semantics, lexis, and even morphology, although traditional and institutional linguists have been most reluctant to admit it. (shrink)

The question as to whether Ian Hacking’s project of scientific styles of thinking entails epistemic relativism has received considerable attention. However, scholars have never discussed it vis-à-vis Wittgenstein. This is unfortunate: not only is Wittgenstein the philosopher who, together with Foucault, has influenced Hacking the most, but he has also faced the same accusation of ‘relativism’. I shall explore the conceptual similarities and differences between Hacking’s notion of style of thinking and Wittgenstein’s conception of form of life. (...) It is a fact that whether or not the latter entails epistemic relativism is still a controversial question. From my comparative analysis, it will emerge that there are stronger reasons to conclude that Hacking’s notion of style leads to epistemic relativism than there are to reach the same conclusion in the case of Wittgenstein’s conception of form of life. This point will be at odds with the anti-relativistic stance that Hacking has taken in his more recent writings. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the different styles of moral relativism. The history of moral relativist thinking features different branches to the family tree, each representing a different impetus to relativism, and so producing a different style of moral relativist thought. At the root, however, is a broadly subjectivist parent idea that morality is at least in part the upshot of a shared way of life, and shared ways of life tend to vary markedly from culture to culture. The (...) discussions cover the branches of moral historicism, moral reasons, moral truth, and moral plurality. (shrink)

Richard Rorty once suggested that, following a rigorous process of auto-critique, analytical philosophy attained coherence at a stylistic level, rather than being co-terminus with philosophy as such. Rorty’s subsequent reassurance that this was no bad thing, since the analytical style was, after all, a good style, seems less than reassuring, in part because of the philosophical resistance to style. Stanley Cavell—a philosopher certainly possessed of a distinctive style—has drawn attention to the tension, within philosophy, between the stylisation of and responsiveness (...) to experience. Taking Rorty’s and Cavell’s reflections as a starting point, this paper considers the status of George Santayana’s philosophy in relation to overlapping questions concerning style: prose style within philosophy, styles of philosophy, and philosophy as a style. Santayana’s poetic materialism and modest meta-philosophical premises make style central to his work in ways that anticipate the questions raised by Rorty and Cavell. (shrink)

Theories of affective influences on cognition posit that negative mood may increase cognitive load, causing a decrement in task performance (Seibert & Ellis, [1991]. Irrelevant thoughts, emotional mood states, and cognitive task performance. Memory & Cognition, 19(5), 507–513), or cause a shift to more analytic thinking, which benefits tasks requiring attention to detail (Schwarz & Clore, [1983]. Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(3), 513–523). We previously (...) reported that individuals who are higher in the trait of emotional reactivity performed better on an inhibitory task with increasing negative mood whereas low-reactive individuals showed the converse pattern (Gabel & McAuley, [2018]. Does mood help or hinder executive functions? Reactivity may be the key. Personality and Individual Differences, 128, 94–99; [2020]. React to act: Negative mood, response inhibition, and the moderating role of emotional reactivity. Motivation and Emotion, 44(6), 862–869). Because high-reactive individuals are more accustomed to negative affect (Nock et al., [2008]. The emotion reactivity scale: Development, evaluation, and relation to self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. Behavior Therapy, 39(2), 107–116), we speculated that negative mood engendered analytic thinking but without a task-incongruent increase in cognitive load – thereby facilitating performance. Here, we induced a heuristic or analytic approach to information processing prior to performance of an inhibitory task and expected different results pending the thinking style induced. In the heuristic condition, increasing negative mood was associated with better performance for high-reactive participants but not their low-reactive counterparts. In the analytic condition, increasing negative mood was associated with better performance irrespective of emotional reactivity. Our results are consistent with the notion that negative mood engenders analytic thinking which may benefit response inhibition provided it does not increase task-incongruent cognitive load. (shrink)

My book 'History of Rationalities: Ways of Thinking from Vico to Hacking and Beyond' draws a number of philosophical implications from Hacking's characterization of the notion of style and analyzes them. How did certain concepts emerge and change? How have our styles of reasoning changed and why? To what extent is the emergence of the styles of reasoning at a certain point of history a contingent circumstance? Why have these styles of reasoning endured? In this article (...) I explain how I have attempted to answer these questions in my book. (shrink)

Tharae history of argument and explanation especially in the mathematical and biomedical sciences and arts. 3 vols. 2456 pp., ills. Duckworth, London, 1994, £180 ISBN 0?7156?2439?3.

In this paper we argue that the different positions taken by Dyson and Feynman on Feynman diagrams’ representational role depend on different styles of scientific thinking. We begin by criticizing the idea that Feynman Diagrams can be considered to be pictures or depictions of actual physical processes. We then show that the best interpretation of the role they play in quantum field theory and quantum electrodynamics is captured by Hughes' Denotation, Deduction and Interpretation theory of models (DDI), where (...) “models” are to be interpreted as inferential, non-representational devices constructed in given social contexts by the community of physicists. (shrink)

The analytical notion of ‘scientific style of reasoning’, introduced by Ian Hacking in the middle of the 1980s, has become widespread in the literature of the history and philosophy of science. However, scholars have rarely made explicit the philosophical assumptions and the research objectives underlying the notion of style: what are its philosophical roots? How does the notion of style fit into the area of research of historical epistemology? What does a comparison between Hacking’s project on styles of (...) class='Hi'>thinking and other similar projects suggest? My aim in this paper is to answer these questions. Hacking has denied that his project of styles of thinking falls into the field of historical epistemology. I shall challenge his remark by tracing out the connections of the notion of style with historical epistemology and, more in general, with a tradition of thought born in France in the beginning of twentieth-century. (shrink)

This paper depicts Ian Hacking’s ‘styles of reasoning’ as conditions of possibility. After distinguishing between possibilities and causes, it articulates the implicit stratigraphical metaphor used to describe the relationship between different conditions of possibility, with ‘lower’ layers being necessary for ‘higher’ ones. It notes the use of this stratigraphical metaphor in the work of multiple scholars in history and in science studies. The paper suggests three ways in which this model can be useful: clarifying the definition and use of (...) ‘context’ in history of science; redefining counterfactuals as ‘possible historical worlds’; and thinking up new forms of ‘big picture’ histories of science. (shrink)

RESUMO Neste artigo pretendo identificar um "estilo de raciocínio" próprio à química e apontar a disseminação de seus produtos e conceitos. O objetivo é o de explicitar alguns elementos que caracterizam o estilo de pensar e de fazer da química na segunda metade do século XVIII, sua capilarização técnico-cultural. O delineamento de um estilo químico de raciocinar origina-se da constância dos espaços técnico-epistêmicos em que o saber químico é construído. A química é uma ciência de laboratório, eminentemente técnica e operatória, (...) quer dizer, trata-se de um conhecimento técnico-científico stricto sensu. Produtora de artefatos, a ciência química é inseparável da técnica, da tecnologia e da indústria, de maneira que sua identidade epistêmica é indissociável de sua história. Seu estilo caracteriza um valor profundo na cultura técnica do homo faber, do poder de agir sobre a natureza e de transformá-la através de manipulações e de rearranjos. ABSTRACT In this paper I will identify a "style of reasoning" that is proper to to Chemistry and to point to the dissemination of its products and concepts. My aim is to explain some elements that characterize the style of thinking and engaging in Chemistry in the second half of the 18th century, its techno-cultural capillary action. The shaping of a chemical style of reasoning originated from the constancy of the techno-epistemic sites in which chemical knowledge is formed. Chemistry is a laboratory science, eminently technical and operative, i.e., it deals with a techno-scientific knowledge stricto sensu. A producer of artifacts, chemical science is inseparable from technique, technology and industry, in such a way that its epistemic identity is inseparable from its history. Its style marks a profound value in the technical culture of the homo faber, the power of acting upon nature and transforming it through manipulations and rearrangements. (shrink)

In this chapter I shall address the question as to whether there exists a universal and atemporal justification for the claims made by a community that adopts a particular style of reasoning. I shall present a case study in which a claim made in the laboratory style of reasoning has no universal and atemporal justification. As I shall explain, Hacking justifies his belief that unobservable entities exist on the ground that they can be regularly manipulated by experimenters in order to (...) find out and produce various phenomena (experimental realism); he also maintains that no belief that our theories are true is required in order to be realist about unobservable entities. I shall argue that his justification is relative to the laboratory style of reasoning. Ultimately, from this case study I shall draw the important conclusion that the styles of reasoning project implies epistemic relativism. In the first part of this chapter, I shall analyse Hacking’s experimental realism in the light of the styles of reasoning project. I shall start by making these points: Hacking’s theory anti-realism denies the possibility of ranking styles of reasoning in terms of their capacity to explain phenomena; furthermore, Hacking is not successful in showing that his entity realism is justified for a community that does not adopt the laboratory style of reasoning. It will follow that the styles of reasoning project is in conflict with the claim that we know about unobservable entities. (shrink)

A comparative analysis of the different notions of ‘ways of thinking’ introduced by philosophers. A guiding thread running through historical epistemology in an attempt to unify the researches of its authors. A comprehensive study of Ian Hacking’s ‘project of styles of reasoning’ and its implications for the relativism.

In this paper I propose a solution to the crucial issue of the number of styles of reasoning. Ever since, in the 1980s, Ian Hacking outlined what he later called the ‘project of styles of scientific reasoning’, for short the ‘styles project’, he has never provided criteria for individuating styles of reasoning. Whether or not certain ways of thinking can be counted as styles of reasoning in the sense of Hacking is a question that (...) has remained unanswered, despite its apparent relevance to various other controversial issues related to the styles project. I shall frame the issue within a view of categorization which begins with the later philosophy of Wittgenstein and culminates with the so-called theory of prototypes in psychological research. My conclusion will be that there is no clear boundary to the category of styles of reasoning and that degrees of category membership for a given way of thinking are determined by its degree of similarity to prototypes such as the statistical style of reasoning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kendall L. Walton FICTION, FICTION-MAKING, AND STYLES OF FICTIONALITY Both objectsandactions are said to have styles. Styles eire attributed to works of art, bathing suits, neckties, and automobiles. But we also think of styles as ways of doing things. There are styles of teaching, styles of chess playing, styles of travel. The primary notion of style is the one which attaches to (...) actions. When we speak of die style of a poem or a portrait or em automobile we do so with reference to an action or actions associated with the object, usually the action or actions which appear to have been performed in die making of it. I will not argue now for this claim about style except to note that style attributions eure peculietrly alien to objects which are not products of human action. What is the style of a tulip, or an alpine meadow, or a pristine lake in the high Sierras? Are the Grand Canyon and Yosemite Valley in the same style or different ones? Sunsets in the tropics are very different from sunsets in the arctic, but is die difference a stylistic one? We might allow that in unusual cases natured objects can have styles. A chorus ofchirping birds might, just conceivably, chirp in the style of Haydn. But die notion of style here is obviously parasitic on diat which is applied to man-made eirtifacts. To think of an object as having a style is to mink of it as a product of human action.1 If actions are the primary possessors of style, to understand styles of fictionality we must look at die action of fiction-meddng emd its relation to works of fiction. I will concentrate on the very basic question ofwhat fiction is, what it is for something to be a work of fiction, and on attempts to answer this question in terms of die action offiction-making. It has been especially fashionable to utilize die notion ofspeech acts introduced by John Austin in tackling this problem. The fictional status of a work is, supposedly, to be accounted for by what illocutionary actions were or were not performed by the artist producing it, or by connections between what the artist did and certain illocutionary actions. My assessment of mis program will be mostly negative. Speech-act theory is remarkably unhelpful in explaining what fiction is. We have here something ofa "Have dieory, will travel" syndrome. There is a tendency for theorists, when 78 Kendall L. Walton79 faced with a new problem, to dust off an old theory which they know emd love, one devised with other questions in mind, shove it into die breach, and pray mat it will fit. In this case it does not fit, and the result is confusion radier dian illumination. Lest I step on toes other man the ones I am aiming at, let me empheisize that my present concern is not with the viability of speech-act theory as a dieory of language. Nor do I mean to deny that speech-act theory can be used fruitfully to illuminate important features of literary fictions. I am now addressing only die basic question of what fiction is, how works of fiction are to be differentiated from odier things. Whatever the other merits of speech-act theory, its applications to this question have been distinctly infelicitous. From our discussion of such applications em even stronger conclusion will emerge, the conclusion that the nature of fiction is not to be explicated in terms of acts of fiction-making at all. The notion of fiction is in diis respect contrary to that of style, and certain consequences about styles of fictionality follow. I Speech-act theory has been brought to bear on the problem of the nature of fiction in a number of rather different ways. I will look at four of them. The first is the idea that works of fiction are simply texts (or other representations ) which are not vehicles of illocutionary acts. It is true mat in writing fiction an author typically does not perform the illocutionary acts that a person who uses the setme words in a nonfictional setting is likely to be performing... (shrink)

In this chapter, I shall consider a number of connections between various ideas of the theory of styles of reasoning and the issue of the contingency and inevitability of science. By ‘contingency issue’ it is meant the question as to whether the history of a particular branch of our science could have taken a different route and provided results incompatible with those of our actual science. Apart from Hacking’s recent comments, the discussions on the contingency issue have not involved (...) the notion of style of reasoning. I will fill this gap in the literature by drawing some important implications for the issue of contingency from the theory of styles of reasoning that I have developed so far. I shall address four fundamental questions. First of all, in the next section I shall discuss to which extent the emergence of styles of reasoning at a certain point of history is a contingent circumstance. In the following section I shall ask whether the endurance of styles of reasoning was inevitable by tackling the connected question as to why the styles are long lasting. Afterwards, I shall focus on the growth of knowledge by dealing with questions such as: if a certain style of reasoning continues to be employed and if Q is a ‘live question’, is science bound to converge on a single answer to Q? Finally, on the basis of my previous reflections I shall look into the question of the convergence of science in the long run. The answers to these questions will rely on some basic assumptions of the theory of style of reasoning and imply a picture of the evolution of sciences in which both contingency and inevitability play a key role. (shrink)

Previous studies have suggested that the Zhongyong thinking style is associated with psychological features. However, little is known about the direct association between Zhongyong thinking and resilience and the underlying mechanisms of this relationship in Chinese culture. The present study aimed to investigate the association between Zhongyong thinking and undergraduates’ resilience and to assess whether cognitive reappraisal and positive effects mediated this association. A sample of undergraduates was recruited for this study and the participants completed the Zhongyong (...) Thinking Style Scale, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale, and the Resilience-11. Results indicated that the Zhongyong thinking style was positively and significantly associated with resilience. Undergraduates’ resilience was affected by Zhongyong thinking partly through 3 different pathways: the mediating role of cognitive reappraisal, the mediating role of positive effect, and the mediating chain role of both cognitive reappraisal and positive effect. These findings might provide a deeper understanding of the protective factors for resilience among Chinese undergraduates. (shrink)

Although Ian Hacking’s meta-concept is frequently applied to historical cases, few theorists have questioned the very idea of a style of reasoning. Hacking himself considers Donald Davidson’s conceptual scheme argument to be the most formidable challenge to the style idea, but Hacking has set up a straw man in Davidson. Beyond Hacking’s own conclusion, that Davidson's narrow concern with meaning incommensurability does not apply to styles, which are not incommensurable in that way, there is the more obvious point that (...) styles, which do not organize or fit the world, are not the kind of schemes with which Davidson is concerned. In fact, Hacking agrees with Davidson, in that both propose we can argue over a topic only when we employ the same style of reasoning (a suggestion which I contend is not necessarily the case). Hacking has a more serious problem, in that he cannot remain a Kantian without justifying his style idea with a transcendental argument. But this kind of argument is only available to those who support a univocal notion of reason, which the very idea of a style seems to outlaw. He has overlooked the challenges which arise out of Arthur Fine’s NOA. Hacking’s attention to historical detail and unwillingness to employ transcendental arguments in support of his view renders him immune to Fine’s arguments against inference to the best explanation. But the list of the necessary and sufficient criteria which identify styles of reasoning cannot prevent the proliferation of (bogus) styles. Moreover, Fine’s call for openness in inquiry shifts the burden of proof against Hacking and calls for him to prove: 1) that we cannot understand the history of science without the style meta-concept and 2) that whenever we encounter a mystery, our first order of business should be to stand back and uncover the style of reasoning which makes the predicament possible, instead of getting directly to the business of solving the problem. According to Fine, some puzzles just happen. And there is no guarantee that uncovering the style, which identifies the topic as a topic, will have anything to do with solving the mystery. Not only is there no such guarantee, but Hacking’s position, if it is to sidestep Davidson’s critique, actually requires that styles play only the minimal role of identifying topics. Styles must be fairly trivial. Fine thinks it is deeply unnatural to view science as entertainment. Philosophers are not to shine their lights on the action and watch it unfold. Rather, we are all to join the performance, thereby eliminating the artificial boundary between actor and audience which we mistakenly call upon to reinforce the notion that the raw material of science constrains our reflections about it. (shrink)

This chapter expounds Hacking’s project of styles of reasoning more systematically than Hacking himself has done, while the following chapters examine its philosophical implications. I shall show that, in addition to the statistical and the laboratory style described in Chap. 3, there exist other four styles of reasoning that share a set of common characterizing features: the algorithmic, the postulational, the historico-genetic and the taxonomic style of reasoning. All the differences notwithstanding, striking parallels can be drawn between these (...) different styles of reasoning: they emerged suddenly at certain points in time, crystallized around communities that shared certain standards of evidence and represent basic and inescapable forms of reasoning. Finally, I shall argue that there are other ways of thinking that differ from styles of reasoning in the sense of Hacking. What I consider a relevant difference is that only styles of reasoning have strong techniques of self-authentication, techniques that are intrinsic to their forms of reasoning. (shrink)

In this chapter I shall present two different notions of the concept of ‘ways of thinking’ named ‘style of reasoning’ and ‘epistemic virtue’, which have been proposed, respectively, by Ian Hacking and by Peter Galison and Lorraine Daston. To explain how the former characterizes the notion of style of reasoning, I shall reread his book The Emergence of Probability in terms of the notion of ‘statistical style of reasoning’ and Shapin and Schaffer’s Leviathan and the Air Pump in terms (...) of the notion of ‘laboratory style of reasoning’. My analysis will show that many points of Hacking’s styles project need to be developed in order to make his suggestions into a full-fledged theory. A salient point of my analysis will be that Hacking’s is another of the projects of historical epistemology that historicize Kant. I shall also show that there are substantial convergences between the styles project and Daston and Galison’s study on objectivity. Finally, following Williams’s account of truth and truthfulness, I shall argue that styles of reasoning are ways of telling the truth and ways of looking at the world. (shrink)

This article explores Ludwik Fleck’s concepts of collective thinking, style of thinking, esoteric and exoteric communication as precursors of the concepts of paradigm and incommensurability central in Thomas Kuhn’s thought.

This study provides a comparison of thinking style and ethical decision-making patterns between 386 U.S. students and 506 students from the People’s Republic of China enrolled in undergraduate business education in their respective countries. Contrary to our expectations, the Chinese students demonstrated a significantly greater linear thinking style compared to American students. As hypothesized, both Chinese and U.S. students possessing a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style profile demonstrated greater ethical intent across a series of ethics vignettes. (...) Chinese students also were more likely to adopt an act utilitarian rationale, an ethical philosophy that in practice may violate government regulations or social rules to benefit one’s family instead of society for explaining their decisions across the vignettes. We conclude with a discussion of important theoretical as well as practical and potential future implications based on this comparative study. (shrink)

In two papers earlier in his career, Siméon Rajaona—one of Madagascar's most famous intellectuals—argues that Westerners have tended to distort the Malagasy worldview by interpolating Western notions into their understanding of it. As a result, the authentic characteristics of the Malagasy mind have been missed by many in the West. He claims that when compared to Westerners, Malagasy have a distinct notion of truth, a different style of reasoning, a different conceptual connection with the world, and a distinct ethical system. (...) His work on this topic is pioneering and insightful. We think that Rajaona is correct on some points but that others are overestimated. In the essay, we explain his work and raise challenges for most of his claims and express agreement with him in parts. While we express skepticism about his claims involving truth, reasoning, and conceptual connection, we agree with him that there is a distinctive Malagasy ethics, though it has analogues in the West. At the end of the paper, we sketch what we take to be distinct elements in the Malagasy worldview relative to Rajaona’s claims. (shrink)

This study presents the results of an empirical analysis of the relationship between managerial thinking style and ethical decision-making. Data from 200 managers across multiple organizations and industries demonstrated that managers predominantly adopt a utilitarian perspective when forming ethical intent across a series of business ethics vignettes. Consistent with expectations, managers utilizing a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style demonstrated a greater overall willingness to provide ethical decisions across ethics vignettes compared to managers with a predominantly linear thinking style. (...) However, results comparing the ethical decision-making of balanced thinking managers and nonlinear thinking managers were generally inconsistent across the ethics vignettes. Unexpectedly, managers utilizing a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style were least likely to adopt an act utilitarian rationale for ethical decision-making across the vignettes, suggesting that balanced thinkers may be more likely to produce ethical decisions by considering a wider range of alternatives and ruling out those that are justified solely on the basis of their outcomes. Implications are discussed for future research and practice related to management education and development, and ethical decision-making theory. (shrink)

This article provides somephilosophical ``groundwork'' for contemporary debatesabout the status of the idea(l) of critical thinking.The major part of the article consists of a discussionof three conceptions of ``criticality,'' viz., criticaldogmatism, transcendental critique (Karl-Otto Apel),and deconstruction (Jacques Derrida). It is shown thatthese conceptions not only differ in their answer tothe question what it is ``to be critical.'' They alsoprovide different justifications for critique andhence different answers to the question what giveseach of them the ``right'' to be critical. It is (...) arguedthat while transcendental critique is able to solvesome of the problems of the dogmatic approach tocriticality, deconstruction provides the most coherentand self-reflexive conception of critique. A crucialcharacteristic of the deconstructive style of critiqueis that this style is not motivated by the truth ofthe criterion (as in critical dogmatism) or by acertain conception of rationality (as intranscendental critique), but rather by a concern forjustice. It is suggested that this concern should becentral to any redescription of the idea(l) ofcritical thinking. (shrink)

Visual programming language is a crucial part of learning programming. On this basis, it is essential to use visual programming to lower the learning threshold for students to learn about artificial intelligence to meet current demands in higher education. Therefore, a 3-h AI course with an RGB-to-HSL learning task was implemented; the results of which were used to analyze university students from two different disciplines. Valid data were collected for 65 students in the Science -student group and 39 students in (...) the Humanities -student group. Independent sample t-tests were conducted to analyze the difference between cognitive styles and computational thinking. No significant differences in either cognitive style or computational thinking ability were found after the AI course, indicating that taking visual AI courses lowers the learning threshold for students and makes it possible for them to take more difficult AI courses, which in turn effectively helping them acquire AI knowledge, which is crucial for cultivating talent in the field of AI. (shrink)

In this chapter I shall bring to the fore the family resemblances of the different notions of the concept of ‘ways of thinking’ that I have introduced in the previous chapter. For example, I shall compare Hacking’s styles project with Daston and Galison’s study on objectivity as well as with other projects such as Fleck’s, Kuhn’s and Foucault’s. Thanks to these comparative analyses, I shall identify points where all these projects support one another. I shall also provide a (...) model for studying objectivity that incorporates the notions of Fleck, Foucault, Kuhn and Hacking. Used together, these notions provide a more profound understanding of how objectivity emerges. Furthermore, I shall propose a layered diagram that maps the differences between the notions of thought style, episteme, paradigm and style of reasoning. Finally I shall highlight two philosophical issues, relativism and contingency, connected with the concept of ‘ways of thinking’ in all its different notions. I shall argue that this issue is particularly controversial in the case of Hacking’s notion. (shrink)

The research was conducted at one of the universities in Banten. Even semester, a sample of all students majoring in mathematics education, which totaled 88 students, was taken. The data collection approach involves learning style questionnaires, geometric thinking skills exams, and interviews, and the research method is qualitative. Qualitative data analysis follows a three-stage flow model: data reduction, data presentation and conclusion, and verification. The research problems are: 1) how students learn during online learning, and 2) how students' geometry (...) thinking skills are reviewed from their learning style. The results of the study concluded that students more have auditorial learning style during online learning. Then based on the ability to think geometry, students are seen from the mastery of fundamental geometry skill indicators and reviewed from their learning style. Known students with visual learning styles master visual indicators and drawing but lack master verbal, logical, and applied indicators. Furthermore, students with an auditorial learning style show mastery of logic and applied indicators but lack mastering visual, verbal, and drawing indicators. Students with kinesthetic learning styles show mastery of drawing and applied indicators but lack mastering visual, verbal, and logic indicators. (shrink)