The Semiotic Structure of Practical Reasoning Habits: A Grammar of Common Sense

Abstract

This chapter introduces Relational Thinking Styles (RTS), a model and method for identifying practical reasoning habits. Taken together, these unintentional reasoning habits parallel C.S. Peirce’s logic of inquiry (methodeutic). However, unlike the deliberate application of inferences prescribed by Peirce’s logic, these find expression as the unconscious applications of methods for the selection of ends and means (goals and processes). Not everyone applies the same infer-encing patterns, especially for encountering novelty. Most people persistently lay familiar tem-plates over novel issues, habitually engaging inductive-like processes to the solving of new prob-lems. However, some apply abductive-like mental processes in the face of novelty; others, de-ductive-like ones. Because RTS is capable of predicting future consequences and of empirical verification by means of a reliable assessment tool (Chiasson et al 2003) it is amenable to com-puter modeling. Computer modeling of the abductive-like process defined by this model may contribute to eventual development of an abductive inference-engine.