Eine semiotische Modellierung von Lernprozessen. Peirce und das Wechselverhältnis von Abduktion und Vergegenständlichung

Title: Eine semiotische Modellierung von Lernprozessen. Peirce und das Wechselverhältnis von Abduktion und Vergegenständlichung
Format: Working Paper
Publication Date: November 1996
Publisher Universität Bielefeld, Institut für Didaktik der Mathematik
Description: Peirces triadic sign relation allows a fruitful semiotic reconstruction of the learning process: According to Peirce, every cognition is an „interpretant“ or the „proper significate outcome of a sign“. This means that it is a part of a genuinely triadic relation, the other elements of which are an „object“ and a „ground“ or „idea“. The ground is an element of generality such as a concept, theory, skill or habit. It mediates between object and interpretant. Insofar as the quantity and quality of possible cognitions is dependent of the range of these mediating elements, learning can be understood as the development of these elements and therefore as generalization. The thesis of my paper is that the possibility of generalization can be explained by the dialectic of two processes. On the one hand, in confrontation with a problematic object or situation, in order to explain or understand it, the learner is forced to build a hypothesis. This process was called „abduction“ by Peirce. For Peirce abduction is a kind of logical inference, because the building of a hypothesis can’t be explained by chance alone. It can be shown that the logicity of abduction is based on the supposition that the generation of a hypothesis is also mediated by elements of generality. On the other hand every hypothesis must be tested; it must be objectified for further observation and experimentation. Peirce called this object-creation-process a „hypostatic abstraction“.
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Citation: 51pgs. Universität Bielefeld, Institut für Didaktik der Mathematik. Publisher's Site.
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