The Construction of Reality

Abstract

In this book, Michael Arbib, a researcher in artificial intelligence and brain theory, joins forces with Mary Hesse, a philosopher of science, to present an integrated account of how humans 'construct' reality through interaction with the social and physical world around them. The book is a major expansion of the Gifford Lectures delivered by the authors at the University of Edinburgh in the autumn of 1983. The authors reconcile a theory of the individual's construction of reality as a network of schemas 'in the head' with an account of the social construction of language, science, ideology and religion to provide an integrated schema-theoretic view of human knowledge. The authors still find scope for lively debate, particularly in their discussion of free will and of the reality of God. The book integrates an accessible exposition of background information with a cumulative marshalling of evidence to address fundamental questions concerning human action in the world and the nature of ultimate reality.

The Balanced Scorecard: what is the score? A rhetorical analysis of the Balanced Scorecard

“…Similar analyses should be applied to other management guru text. Furthermore, as was discussed earlier in the part on sound argumentation, the works of Arbib and Hesse (1986), Latour (1987) and McClosky (1998) raise some issues related to the use of metaphors and ethos appeal in scientific texts which indicate that a rhetorical analysis may also be useful for an evaluation of academic texts in general. As regards, e.g.…”

“…Therefore, in scholarly texts, analogies or metaphors should only be used if the similarities are reasonable (Aristotle, 1996;Cicero, 1998). In such cases, analogies and metaphors may be useful in scholarly texts as they may contribute to new scientific insights (Arbib & Hesse, 1986;Hesse, 1980). Thus metaphors are not only decorative devices but may have cognitive implications, the nature of which would be a proper subject for academic discussion, which implies that metaphors may reconfigure both a scientific theory and the ''observation language'', thus allowing us to describe and explain a wider range of phenomenona (Arbib & Hesse, 1986, p. 157;Hesse 1980).…”

“…Scientific metaphors only become explanatory, however when they are extended and developed by logic and analogy; they are not explanatory when, as in literature, they are extended by association instead of logic. Furthermore, scientific metaphors have to be internally tightly knit by logical and causal interrelations and should, in addition, be underdetermined by the data of the phenomenon under consideration (Arbib & Hesse, 1986;Hesse, 1980). These criteria are generally considered to be fundamental to the evaluation of metaphors in scholarly argumentation, but, in academic texts outside of science, interrelations other than causal and logical ones may be considered valid and the perception of what the data of a phenomenon is may be extended.…”

“…metaphors, a rhetorical analysis may be used to evaluate the extent to which a metaphorical shift in language use in an academic text contributes to the development and communication of new and valid academic insights, i.e. whether the metaphor is extended and developed by logic and analogy, whether these are internally tightly knit with valid interrelations, and whether the metaphors are underdetermined by the data of the phenomenon (Arbib & Hesse, 1986)? Furthermore, as regards ethos appeal, a rhetorical analysis may involve an assessment of the extent to which such an appeal in a text should be trusted, i.e.…”

The Polysemy of Human–Computer Interaction

“…The social sciences have expended considerable effort tackling ontological issues regarding reality through works that have entered the sociological canon, such as those of Berger and Luckmann (1966), Arbib and Hesse (1986), and Foucault (1973/1983. These analyses suggest that the assignment of quantities of "reality" to social phenomena is illusory; similarly, the digital world cannot be dismissed or disregarded solely because it lacks corporeality.…”