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Some Reflections on Discrete Mathematical Models in Behavioral, Cognitive and Social Sciences

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Proof, Computation and Agency

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 352))

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Abstract

From times immemorial, man has wondered about nature and has tried hard to understand it in order to be able to use the knowledge gained through his incessant endeavours to his advantage. This very spirit underlies his progress, right up to what we see all around us today. Of course, his ability to conceive of alternative ways to look at things has led him to diversify fields of his knowledge; principally, while on hand he analysed an observed phenomenon he synthesized various pieces of information about the phenomenon towards developing an integrated view of the phenomenon. These two approaches are in some sense complementary to each other in accordance with modern system theory, a central theme of cybernetics the essential feature of which is control of communication processes taking place amongst various modules that constitute the system. As Stafford Beer [18] put it,

* The second author is currently visiting the Department of Studies in Mathematics, University of Mysore, Manasagangotri, Mysore - 570 005

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Acknowledgements

The second author wishes to express her thanks to the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India for supporting this work under their project SR/S4/MS: 132/2002, especially its Principal Investigator Prof. E. Sampathkumar for bringing to her notice the notion of complement of an arbitrarily edge-colored graph which likely to find its application in addressing the problem of structural stability of a social system endowed with a multitude of interpersonal interaction attributes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Science and Technology, Government of India,“Technology Bhawan”, New Delhi, 110 016, India

    B.D. Acharya

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, 211 002, India

    S. Joshi*

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  1. B.D. Acharya
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  2. S. Joshi*
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Correspondence to B.D. Acharya or S. Joshi* .

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  1. , Institute for Logic, Language and, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, Amsterdam, 1098 XH, Netherlands

    Johan van Benthem

  2. Adi Shankaracharya Marg, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Amitabha Gupta

  3. Graduate Center, Department of Computer and, City University of New York, Fifth Avenue 365, New York, 10016, New York, USA

    Rohit Parikh

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Acharya, B., Joshi*, S. (2011). Some Reflections on Discrete Mathematical Models in Behavioral, Cognitive and Social Sciences. In: van Benthem, J., Gupta, A., Parikh, R. (eds) Proof, Computation and Agency. Synthese Library, vol 352. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0080-2_16

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