Dear Terry,

The evolving question-and-answer between you and the others doesn’t make sense to me. What you are getting at isn’t clear. As Jon Sticklen wrote, “you are kind of getting wound around in circles by your phrasing.”

If you would simply dig in and read the material, you’d find that the issues are more clear than you seem to realise. 

While I follow the list from the corner of my eye, I don’t have the time this week to write out a properly careful reply. But I can tell you that the article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy bear close, careful reading. I’d start there instead of asking Stefanie about the difference between “guessing” and “educated guessing.”

You’ve applied your use of the word “guessing to these issues by defining the word “guessing” in your own specific way. You then mapping your personal usage of the word “guessing” onto abduction and onto these other issues. Guessing is a broader and far more loose word than your definition permits.

If you examine the definitions of the word “guess” in the Oxford English Dictionary you will see this:

“The action of guessing; an act of guessing, a conjecture, rough estimate; a supposition based on uncertain grounds. by guess: at haphazard, by rough estimation instead of calculation or measurement; by conjecture, without having proofs; also at, in, up, upon guess;  by guess and by God (or Godfrey) (slang, orig. Naval slang): (to steer) at hazard without a set course or without the guidance of landmarks; after (by, to) my guess: as I estimate; without guess: assuredly; the guess of the hand: a rough estimate of the weight of something taken into the hand; my guess is or it is my guess: I am tolerably sure;  to miss one's guess (U.S.), to be wrong in one's assumption; you have another guess coming: you are mistaken; your guess is as good as mine: a phrase used to indicate uncertainty about facts or circumstances or about the outcome of a set of events; anybody's guess (see  anybody pron. and n. Phrases 2); anyone's guess (see anyone pron. 1).”

There are additional definitions for other forms of the word.

The more succinct Merriam-Webster’s affords highly divergent usages. One form of guessing involves forming opinions or giving answers about something of which someone knows little or even nothing. Another is to reach a correct conclusion by chance. Yet another is to suppose or think. None of these definitions of guessing equate to hypothesis formation or to your usage of the word guess.

Guessing can involve reasoned estimation or estimation based in part on fact or evidence. This is the nature of an educated or informed guess. Guessing can also be random, or entirely off-the-wall. Do you remember Sean Penn’s early role as Jeff Spicoli in the movie Fast Times as Ridgemont High? The model for this role was the kind of student of whom teachers a question to which a student would simply throw an answer out — any answer — just to say something. It’s like asking “Who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1952?” to which a student might name the cricket champion Don Bradman.

While there is no definitive taxonomy of kinds of guessing, most of us recognise that guessing generally has little to do with reasoning. Your definition of guessing is specific to you and uncommon. 

So here we come to language. If I point to a “dog” and say “bird” when everyone else uses the word dog, there is no point in my asking “Why do you call this bird a cocker spaniel? What’s the difference between a cocker spaniel and a cockatoo?”

No one can properly respond to your questions on guessing, abduction, or the difference between educated guessing and guessing when you use the words in a highly personal way.  

To get “wound around in circles by your phrasing,” is to spend so much time trying to turn words into numbers that you fail to examine the words and what they mean. Instead of worrying about what the word “guessing” means, I’d suggest you spend some time reviewing the issues dealing with abduction and discovery. That is what the thread is about.

Abduction

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/

Peirce on Abduction

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/peirce.html

Scientific Discovery — including Hypothesis Formation

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-discovery/

For “guessing”, try the Oxford English Dictionary or Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary at Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.

Sorry to sound grumpy about this, but I become impatient with word games. Asking Stef about the difference between educated guessing and guessing is a word game. When you want to know the many ways that people use a word, check the dictionary.

Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University Press | Launching in 2015

Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia

Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 

—

Terry Love wrote:

—snip—

So what would be the difference between an educated guess and an ordinary guess?
 
—snip—


-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------