Edward Berge
The members of the Yahoo Adult Development forum have been discussing Lakoff’s distinction between real and false reason. Membership in the forum is required to read the discussions so for those of you not members I’ve copied-and-pasted a few excerpts below. If interested further please join the group to read more and/or participate.
Me:
Building on the post below* regarding Lakoff’s embodied reason, he seems to call into question the type of abstract reasoning usually found at the formal operational level. This appears to be false reasoning based on the idea that reason is abstract, literal, conscious, can fit the world directly and works by logic (also see for example this article ). If formal reasoning is false wouldn’t this call into question some of the assumptions of the MHC? That perhaps this “stage” is a dysfunction instead of a step toward post-formal reasoning?
Now Lakoff has his own hierarchy of how embodied reason develops: image-schematic, propositional, metaphoric, metonymic, symbolic. (See for example “Metaphor, cognitive models and language” by Steve Howell.) So I’m wondering how the MHC takes into account Lakoff’s work here and how it answers his charge of false reason? Terri Robinett noted in his Ph.D. dissertation (at the Dare Association site) that “work has already begun by Commons and Robinett (2006) on a hierarchically designed instrument to measure Lakoff’s (2002) theory of political worldview.” So perhaps you can shed some light on this?
* This is the referenced post:
Since Michael brought up Lakoff as perhaps being “at right angles to the stage dimension” I read this by Lakoff this evening: “Why `rational reason’ doesn’t work in contemporary politics.”
He distinguishes between real and false reason, the former being bodily based and the latter existing is some sort of objective, abstract realm. Very interesting indeed. Here are a few excerpts:
“Real reason is embodied in two ways. It is physical, in our brain circuitry. And it is based on our bodies as the function in the everyday world, using thought that arises from embodied metaphors. And it is mostly unconscious. False reason sees reason as fully conscious, as literal, disembodied, yet somehow fitting the world directly, and working not via frame-based, metaphorical, narrative and emotional logic, but via the logic of logicians alone.”
“Real reason is inexplicably tied up with emotion; you cannot be rational without being emotional. False reason thinks that emotion is the enemy of reason, that it is unscrupulous to call on emotion. Yet people with brain damage who cannot feel emotion cannot make rational decisions because they do not know what to want, since like and not like mean nothing. ‘Rational’ decisions are based on a long history of emotional responses by oneself and others. Real reason requires emotion.”
Me:
I don’t think that Lakoff questions reason as a level per se, or that it grows out of and includes lower levels via hierarchical complexity. To the contrary he seems to agree as far as this goes. What he questions though is the worldview we use to interpret this data. For example he said in the PolicySpeak article (cited below):
“PolicySpeak is supposed to be reasoned, objective discourse. It thus assumes a theory of what reason itself is — a philosophical theory that dates back to the 17th Century and is still taught.”
I’m again reminded of what Herb said and what I referenced at this link
“We risk getting into ideological conversations if we accept the concepts used as they are offered. So rather than being bound by some theory or methodology, which is closed system, I am concerned about the thinking that is done with it and on account of it. It seems to me that before “classifying” human development in these terms or those, we need to be as presuppositionless as possible, being very aware of our biases and the history of our profession. ”
I’m just wondering about the presuppositions in theories like the MHC. For example, recall in the same link about that Robinett said the difference between MHC and prior research was that it was “objective and mathematical.” I asked some questions about these assumptions of mathematical objectivitiy. They seem to be the same assumptions inherent in the 17th century notions of reason. In fact logic is based on mathematical proofs, the latter taken as the ultimate in objectivity. It’s almost as if math is some self-existent thing in the world that we came along and “discovered.” And this objective math proves our objective modelling.
Lakoff has this to say about math, from Where Mathematics Comes From (Basic Books, 2000):
“But mathematics by itself does not and cannot empirically study human ideas; human cognition is simply not its subject matter. It is up to cognitive science and the neurosciences to do what mathematics itself cannot do—namely, apply the science of mind to human mathematical ideas” (xi).”
“In the course of our research we ran up against a mythology…a kind of `romance” of mathematics…that goes something like this:… mathematics has an objective existence… independent of and transcending the existence of human beings or any beings at all” (xv).
So this is were “false” reason comes from, from a philosophical system that holds a certain worldview about what reason is and means. And I’m just asking for us to take a look at our own perhaps unconscious assumptions underlying our logical, objective, mathematical proofs.
Me:
Tom Murray wonders about
“the limitations of models and relate that to hierarchically structured formal developmental models. Constructs such as reflective abstraction, hierarchical integration, subject-object transformations, and hierarchical complexity assume a particular… ‘mathematics’ of developmental growth” (343-4).
While he accepts that hierarchical complexity might suffice for certain measurements, he also wonders is things like wisdom and compassion might need a different type of modeling.
“We may need to rely more on human gestalt reasoning, which can recognize more complex or subtle patterns than current mathematical and computational tools can assess” (352).
Lakoff agrees the models such as HC assume a particular mathematics but seems to go even farther though in calling into question math as a valid basis for cognitive categories. For example David Mark in “Human Spatial Cognition” says the following:
“Lakoff (1987) argues that most cognitive categories are not well-modelled by mathematical sets, or even fuzzy sets. More often, a category has prototypical members, and other things are added to the category by resemblances of various sorts to things already in the category, which leads to an internal category structure that may have several distinct branches leading out from a core; things at the ends of different branches may have few if any objective properties in common.”
Citations:
Lakoff, G., (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mark, D. M. (1993).” Human spatial cognition.” In Medyckyj-Scott, D., and Hearnshaw, H. M., editors, Human Factors in Geographical Information Systems, Belhaven Press, 51-60.
Murray, Tom (2009). “Intuiting the Cognitive Line in Developmental Assessment: Do Heart and Ego develop through hierarchical integration?” Integral Review, December 2009, Vol. 5, No. 2
From the Adult Development Forum:
Michael Commons:
Who would defend fuzzy set theory and such flat models? Not me. This is what the MHC was to replace. The data shows otherwise. There is a large r = .5 and significant p = 0000 correlation between stages across domains.
Sara Ross:
I think the chronic confusion has multiple sources, but the paramount one appears to me to be that people have a hard time viewing *all* dynamics performed in and by entities that act as discrete tasks occurring on one to many different scales. Until we get more practiced at précising identifying the tasks/actions being performs, I think the confusion will continue. The formal stage and systematic stage concepts we use so often, e.g., wisdom, compassion, emotion, cognition, you name it, they’re all in the same basket, mask the nature of the actions that can be analyzed because they are vague labels (and only that, in my book). Any act or attitude that one might call wise, emotional, etc., can be analyzed in terms of task, so I disagree with Lakoff and Tom, simply because they seem to be adhering to static language labels rather than dynamic actions that comprise such gestalts, etc. We separate ourselves from the central behaviors/actions/dynamics with our language about them. That’s why I’m an unabashed proponent of hierarchical complexity theory – it gets beneath all that, at all scales. The math of MHC is so simple, so basic, that with a little scaffolding, most adults would be readily able to apply it to any/all of their life experience and things going on around them, if they were inclined to do so. I think this means we need to be willing to “do work” in the sense Herb often mentions. Conceptual labels require less work to apply than analyzing dynamics of tasks.
Me:
I am not an expert academic in either MHC or Lakoff, just an interested albeit bright layperson. Therefore I am not making definitive statements or judgments about MHC. I’m just trying to understand how MHC and the work of Lakoff & Johnson might fit together, or not, or somewhere in between. In that light is anyone is this list aware of any academic work in print or online that touches on such an interaction? I mentioned that Robinett said some work concerning MHC and Lakoff was forthcoming, so did that ever materialize?
Michael Commons:
Let me overstate the case.
Lakoff has made some assertions without data. He is a linguist thinking about politics and language. The Model of Hierarchical Complexity is a mathematical model about tasks has legions of data an a very large number of domains including the political. The order of hierarchical complexity predicts obtained difficulty with r’s roughly between .85 and .99. All stage models are a special cases of the Model of Hierarchical Completion, which is in some sense a meta model. The MHC is not connected to past computer, AI or mathematical models of complexity or stage with the exception of Fischer’s levels. Pascual Leone’s m-space is a compatible psychological model. Dawson showed that as far as scoring narrative or interviews, there is a large degree of agreement in the central range of many stage models. It is two stages away from the mean stage of formal that there are large differences.
If Lakoff had a systematic model of hardness of tasks and measuring tools to assess task difficulty, it would be possible to see the correspondence or lack thereof.
Me:
In the Lakoff quote about math he said that some cognitive categories cannot be represented by math, obviously that is a point of contention with MHC. And Murray wonders about uncertainty, what might be outside of math-based models. Uncertainty seems to be at least part of what Lakoff references when talking about “real” reason being largely unconscious, and that “false” reason assumes a fully conscious logical aspect. I’ve also wondered that about whether a more complex math might be needed to represent cognitive categories. As Sara noted, the math involved in the MHC is “simple.” (Though not to me, being math inept.)
I found an interesting article that seems to touch on the above issues: “Evidence sets: modelling subjective categories” by Luis Rocha at this link: http://informatics.iu.edu/rocha/ps/es_ijgs.pdf. He begins by noting that we should be aware of the kinds of limitations we impose of cognitive categories by using mathematical sets. He examines “radical” categories that Lakoff thinks are not well modelled by math. While Rocha agrees that the set theory might not be adequate he disagrees in that such categories can indeed by mathematically modelled. But this requires a different kind of math, one that can account for the “uncertainty” of radical categories. Rocha acknowledges that uncertainly is “clearly present in human cogntive processes” and must be accounted for in any mathematical model attempting to explain them.
Rocha explains all of this with a lot of math, all Greek to me. Is anyone familiar with this work? Or if not, willing to take a peek? Any thoughts? Feelings?
Michael Commons:
The MHC complexity does not use set or fuzzy sets in the manner of cognitive categories. It is not a cognitive theory but a behavioral theory about tasks and the required task actions. It has nothing to do with subjective categories or category theory. I am having a hard time following this conversation because Theurj is trying to fit the MHC into cognitive theory which it is not. That is like trying to comment on astrophysics using astrology. The Rasch analysis handles the probabilistic aspects. It is true that MHC is a mathematical model but that is like saying the big bang and steady state theory of the universe are the same. The big bang is right and the steady state is wrong even though they are both part of astrophysics.
Maybe you should learn the MHC and see what it assumes. There are just three conditions. 1. Higher order of complexity actions are defined in terms of lower order ones. 2. They organize them, and 3 that organization is non-arbitrary. Where are the cogitations, sets etc. is beyond me.
Maybe I can be a little clearer. There are no theories that the MHC is like other than Fischer’s theory and only to a degree. So comparisons to other theories will not work. There may be aspects of Lakoff that are stage like. But that will require some work and possibly some data. But to take his claims seriously about other theories when they do not address the MHC seems far fetched.
Me:
I am well aware of the 3 conditions of the MHC. I am not trying to fit it into cognitive theory but rather trying to use cognitive theory to point to some of the possible assumptions that might be inherent to the MHC worldview. As you admitted, “what are the cogitations is beyond me.” I like though how you used metaphors to illustrate what you thought I as doing.
Michael Commons:
But none of the cognitive theory assumptions are inherent to the MHC worldview. There is not one drop of mentalism in it. Task analysis comes from behavior analysis and computer science. The model is an application of Mathematical Measurement Theory. So I do not get your point.
Me:
To paraphrase Lakoff, where does mathematical measurement theory come from? It seems Lakoff suggests that any theory is derived from the way our “cognitive” processes are embodied. He references extensive neuroscientific research into how these processes develop in the ways we sense, move, feel, think. And in how we create philosophy, science and math via these processes. So in the sense even math is not something completely objective, existing in the world as something separate from how we cognitively process.
So Lakoff goes into how–sans an empircal, embodied understanding of math, science or philosophy construction (but not entirely or arbitrarily constructed)– one might mistake something like logic and reason as something inherently self-referential based on formal operations alone. Math is a prime example of a methodology that appears to be a direct, objective example of how things actually are in the world, rather than a constructed modelling of how brains process the input they receive from the world.
All of which is cognitively understood by us in terms of metaphors and worldviews. Even the so-called objective sciences are part of this metaphorical worldview process. So this is what I mean when I say that the math used to model task analysis is not entirely objective (nor entirely subjective, for that matter). And each mathematical model has its own inherent and oftimes unconscious assumptions arising from the foregoing cognitive processes.
Me:
Kurt Fischer has been mentioned as having some relation to the MHC, as far as cognitive models go. He notes in Chapter 21 of Handbook of Developmental Psychology (Sage, 2003) that different meta-metaphors have tremendous impact on scientific thinking , including adult cognitive development. Two such types of meta-metaphors are ladders and webs. The ladder model is typical of Piaget, where development proceeds in a straight line, step (stage) by step. Even though some researchers extend Piaget into postformal operations, like Commons et al 1998, he includes them in this type. Lakoff and Turner (More Cool Than Reason, U of Chicago Press,1989) call this the “Great Chain” metaphor, which has contemporary variants like the above.
The other type, webs, “portray cognitive development as a complex process of dynamic construction within multiple ranges in multiple directions” (492). This seems more in line with Lakoff’s more rhizome-like cognitive categories, and mathematical models that include uncertainty sets. It does seem though that since the above writing the MHC also includes some of Fischer’s web ideas, like differing levels of performance depending on domain, context, environmental support, etc. I’m reminded of Sara’s point about dynamic actions in gestalts.
But I disagree that Lakoff is guilty of using static cognitive labels. One of Lakoff’s main points is that cognitive categories are much more open-ended and variable and lack the kind of well-defined precision of logic. This is largely due to the vast majority of cognitive processes being unconscious, so when Sara claims that something like the MHC views “all dynamics” it seems to lend itself to Lakoff’s criticism of rationalism being completely conscious of all such dynamics.
As an example of our cognitive limits and the flexible nature of “self” see Mark Turner’s 9/28/09 blog post “Cognitive limits” at this link:
“A self is a complicated and dynamic outcome of complicated conceptual integration networks.”
Also see the comments for further exposition and references.