Project Leader: Dr. hab. Tomasz Jarmużek, Prof. UMK
Human social activity, both scientific and non-scientific, is based on interactions. Within interactions, people process information encoded in language—that is, they make inferences.
Information processing occurs in individual interactions, group interactions, social and intercultural interactions, as well as interactions mediated by new technologies (computers, social networks, artificial intelligence, etc.). In other words, it is ubiquitous.
Any scientific discourse that aims to accurately describe the world—including human activity—must address the question of which criteria should be used to accept or reject information used in reasoning. While these criteria may change, they should be transparent and intersubjective to ensure that inferences are neither arbitrary nor incomprehensible.
The scientific discipline whose primary focus—from its inception—has been to provide criteria for the correctness of reasoning is logic. The application of abstraction and formal methods has enabled logic to achieve remarkable success, resulting in limitative theorems and model theory. These results hold wherever mathematical logic is applied, providing criteria for correctness and a deeper understanding of the sciences that rely on it. However, this success came at the cost of distancing logical reasoning from users and their interactions.
The starting point of our project is a return to the roots of information processing: human interactions and their contexts, while simultaneously maintaining the methodological rigor characteristic of logical studies.
Different scientific discourses and interactional phenomena introduce new qualities to the context of reasoning, which influence the criteria for correct information processing. Contemporary developments—such as social network interactions, group interactions with differing notions of rationality, and large-scale intercultural interactions—further complicate these dynamics. Accounting for all these qualities presents an ambitious yet necessary challenge for research on reasoning criteria.
This project is therefore maximally, horizontally interdisciplinary. It naturally requires the participation of researchers from multiple disciplines, each differing in either the context of information processing or the subject matter of the information. All these elements can influence the understanding of why people draw certain conclusions and which logic they apply in a given context. For this reason, the project involves researchers from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and formal sciences.
To increase internationalization and research quality, we have successfully invited two leading research institutions to collaborate, both of which conduct similar projects on a global scale. One is affiliated with the top university in Asia, and the other with one of Europe’s best universities. Thus, our research is positioned within an intercultural discourse and interaction between East and West.