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In this brief autobiographical excursus, Professor Michael Peters not only presents us with the most fundamental aspects of his thinking in philosophy of education, but reveals how, in the midst of some specific concerns, his encounter with Wittgenstein and post-structuralist philosophers ended up shaping the way that he traveled in his intellectual path.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this brief autobiographical excursus, Professor Michael Peters not only presents us with the most fundamental aspects of his thinking in philosophy of education, but reveals how, in the midst of some specific concerns, his encounter with Wittgenstein and post-structuralist philosophers ended up shaping the way that he traveled in his intellectual path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of what cognitive characteristics of a subject can be considered as cognitive strategies of interaction in the information environment is discussed in the article. Three groups of indicators related to the assessment of potential characteristics of the subject's cognitive strategies were involved in the conducted empirical study: structural characteristics of intelligence (offered by R. Amthauer and R. Cattell, styles of thinking and assessment of the personality's self-regulation style. As a result of the factor analysis, five main components were identified that determine the cognitive characteristics of the subject of information interaction. The first factor includes variables correlated with "mathematical" and "spatial" intelligence, that is, they are professionally significant for specialists working in the field of technology. The second factor includes the load on the variables "modeling conditions", "programming actions" and "the result assessment". The third factor comprises assessments on scales that are related to verbal abilities: "word exclusion" and "analogies", as well as an assessment of general (non-verbal or "cultural-free") intelligence. The fourth and fifth factors differ from the previous ones that they, to a greater extent, unite stylistic cognitive characteristics. The fourth factor includes "analytical", "realistic" styles of thinking and the flexibility of self-regulation. In addition, two factors have been presented that determine cognitive interaction strategies in the information environment: a strategy with a flexible approach to searching, selecting and testing the data, and a strategy for work with information, taking account of the target and practical components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the experimental research of efficiency of solving psychodiagnostic tasks by the students-psychologists with different thinking styles. In the theoretical part a style of thinking as a determinant of successfulness is concerned. The hypothesis is the supposition that efficiency and ways of diagnostic tasks made by the students-psychologists are determined by a dominating thinking style. For the examination of the hypothesis the following methods were used: questionnaire “Styles of thinking” by Brams Harrison, the method of experiment (solution of 6 tasks from real consultative practice), content-analysis of protocols and correlation analysis by Ch. Spirman. The research has been done during some years with students of 4 and 5 courses in South-Russian Humanitarian Institute. The results are the following. Students-analysts are rather successful. They demonstrate good diagnostic process, put forward adequate hypothesis and choose adequate methods, but they don’t formulate recommendations. For the students-realists it is important to render support to the client and give feedback. The quality analysis showed that they are inclined to individual forms of work. Pragmatics are characterized by chaotic behavior, they don’t put forward hypotheses, offer standard methods. Idealists are the worst. They have difficulties in logics and formulating questions to the client. Synthetics on the whole display insufficient success, but they can solve the task correctly due to guessing or hypotheses. Synthetics operate with the methods poorly. Experimental data demonstrate that the thinking style often defines diagnostic search; variety and quality of put forward hypotheses, adequacy of choosing methods of research.

Abstract: In this paper I discuss the bearing of Hacking’s ideas about Scientific Styles on traditional debates in the philosophy of science concerning rationality and realism. I argue that a kind of deflationary position with regard to realism debates is a natural consequence of Hacking’s claim that styles are self-authenticating. I then go on to argue, using an example of van Fraassen’s, that Hacking should allow a methodological role for realism debates and hence they are not idle, as he has claimed, although their resolution may not be important. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]