RESEARCH AREAS
Philosophical research at Georgia Tech is motivated by the challenge to develop philosophical contributions to societal problems. We collaborate in interdisciplinary projects with colleagues in public policy, environmental studies, law, health, biomedicine, economics, city planning, computer science, conflict research, computer science, and game studies.
Diagrammatic Reasoning
Michael Hoffmann, Associate Professor
Diagrammatic reasoning is reasoning by means of external representations which visualize in particular structures and relations. We are especially interested in the following questions: How can diagrammatic reasoning support reflection, learning, communication, conflict resolution, and creativity? How to design representational systems for diagrammatic reasoning that are optimized for these purposes? What are the cognitive and semiotic conditions of diagrammatic reasoning? ...more
Logical Argument Mapping, Argument Visualization, and Argumentation Theory
Michael Hoffmann, Associate Professor
Logical Argument Mapping (LAM) is a method of argument visualization that is supposed to fulfill the following functions:
- In educational settings: to acquire the ability to argue and to learn critical thinking and some basics in logic
- To facility communication, collaboration, and reflection on highly complex issues in science, across scientific disciplines, between science and the public, and in policy and decision making
- To support conflict resolution and cross-cultural understanding by visualizing the inferential structure of framing processes that determine how parties to a conflict make sense of what is going on
Our objective is to develop a general representational system for Logical Argument Mapping that is optimized for these functions, and more specific software applications that realize the ideas of diagrammatic reasoning (see above). ...more
Sustainability: Theory and Measurement
Bryan G. Norton, Distinguished Professor
The term "sustainable" has become a touchstone of contemporary environmentalism, but it seems that everyone—or at least every discipline—has their own meaning for the term. Philosophical research, being sensitive to language and meaning, can articulate principles and ideas that give sustainability both depth—by linking it to theories of justice and intergenerational obligations—and breadth, by developing cross-disciplinary understandings. Such research, based in theory, but shaped by the requirements of environmental discourse and deliberation, can then be the basis of a broad approach to environmental policy and management.
Biodiversity: Valuation and Protection
Bryan G. Norton, Distinguished Professor
How should we place a value on biological diversity and its various aspects? How should we set priorities in protecting species when resources are insufficient to save all species? There are also important issues about the scale at which to target biodiversity: should priority be on saving species? On saving habitats? Biodiversity hotspots? All of these questions involve a fascinating interaction of science with social values.
Environmental Ethics and Values
Bryan G. Norton, Distinguished Professor
Environmental ethics, since its inception in the 1970s, has concentrated on metaethical questions about who and what, in nature, has intrinsic value. More recently, however, more and more philosophers have turned their attention to "environmental pragmatism", a movement that emphasizes a more problem-oriented and hands-on kind of philosophy in which philosophers become enmeshed in networks of actors working to solve environmental problems. By embedding its PST program in a school of public policy, Georgia Tech has been a pioneer and continuing leader in this approach to practical philosophy.
Spatial Scaling in Environmental Policy Formation
Bryan G. Norton, Distinguished Professor
One general problem that is justifiably getting attention is the question of scale in environmental policy. The scalar problem has two aspects: first, environmental problems have a physical aspect, open to study by the sciences, and the task is to characterize a system, complete with processes and subsystems, which is the locus of a “problem”. At the same time, since environmental problems hardly ever "fit" any political jurisdiction, there is the problem of what level of government should be mobilized—and what special institutions should be developed to effectively deal with perceived problems. Because any situation considered to be problematic involves a social value that is being underserved, philosophical research, in conjunction with work by empirical social scientists, can clarify how individuals and groups, in the process of problem formulation, create bounded systems as the objects of intervention and management.