Center for Applied Dialectics

Manifesto

  • There is a fascinating emerging body of knowledge in the field of adult development.
  • Notably, the insights around cognitive development are not fully accessible yet.
  • How would our world look if we applied these evolving insights to the fields of businesses, education, politics etc?
  • CAD, the Center of Applied of Dialectics, opens up a platform for practitioners in the field of adult development, integrating research into their practice, exchanging findings and thereby nourishing each other, empowering others to do likewise.
  • Our mission is to grow the understanding of dialectical thinking, not as something that is abstract and of use only to high-minded philosophers, but as a practical tool for all adults to apply in thinking about the complex problems that surround us in today’s world. 

Future Salons:

  • March 19th at 1900 CET, Thomas Jordan: Using generative AI to scaffold perspective-related skills in managing complex issues
    Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/4078847969?pwd=K1ZxbWxEdi9aaXdJdGJKaTVuTEk0QT09
    Thomas will report on a series of experiments and ongoing projects on how generative AI can be used to scaffold perspective awareness, and, more importantly, to integrate contributions from very dissimilar perspectives in developing strategies for wicked problems and other complex challenges. In this context, the particular meaning assigned to “perspectives” encapsulates (but is not limited to) durable systems of meaning-making composed of assumptions, values, convictions about causality, conceptual frameworks, and worldviews. "Perspective awareness” means the cognitive ability to take one’s own and others’ perspectives as objects of awareness and reflection. Well developed perspective awareness is indicated by actively seeking out and making use of the contrasting effect of different (and sometimes incommensurable) perspectives to elucidate complex issues and develop more integrative approaches when solving problems and realizing visions. Thomas will describe several projects where he has used AIs to expand his own perspective awareness as well as to draw on diverse perspectives to generate more integrative strategies and text. Examples include:– Contextualizing the Inner Development Guide framework– Creating a master template comprehensively describing the meaning-making patterns of 19 diverse “social ontologies”, i.e. basic assumptions about what a society is and about what change mechanisms can be used to influence societal development. – Co-authoring a book on right-wing populism with the LLM Claude, starting out from adult development theory, but incorporating multiple other perspectives.After the presentation, participants will be invited to share their own experiences, questions and concerns. Thomas Jordan spent almost 40 years as a senior lecturer and associate professor at Gothenburg university, but is now an independent educator and consultant. He holds a PhD in economic geography, but left that field in the late 1990s in order to specialize in the fields of adult development, conflict management and methods for managing complex societal issues. He was the lead analyst in developing the first version of the framework Inner Development Goals, which is to a considerable extent grounded in adult development frameworks. You can see some of Thomas’ work at http://thomasjordan.se and https://chatbotar.thomasjordan.se

The zoom link
for all salons:  https://zoom.us/j/4078847969?pwd=K1ZxbWxEdi9aaXdJdGJKaTVuTEk0QT09
 
Calendar:
Use this link to integrate the CAD calendar into your google calendar - no more misunderstanding about time zones :-) https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=d2VhdmVyQHByby1hY3Rpb24uZXU

Past Salons: 

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The Reading list - please recommend more :  https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/68149330?shelf=cad-center-for-applied-dialectics

Our youtube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@cad-centerforapplieddialec9451

The current expert practitioners holding the platform:

 

Some of the people at least loosely connected with CAD and their resources (in progress):

 

CAD - Otto Laske / interdevelopmentals.org 

The setup of CAD is financially supported by the EU, as it is part of the CADRA project - Cognitive Adult Development, from Research to Application - see https://fraendi.org/cadra/