An abductive approach to assessing success
An abductive approach to assessing success
Recent weeks I have been pondering how an abductive approach to evidence and success for a foundation like ours would look like. I was inspired to explore this thought by a few presentations by other foundations at a recent community of practice meeting at Philea.
In the relevant Wikipedia article, I found the following definition of abductive reasoning:
Abductive reasoning (also called abduction, abductive inference, or retroduction) is a form of logical inference that seeks the simplest and most likely conclusion from a set of observations.
I used ChatGPT to compare abductive reasoning to deductive and inductive reasoning, respectively:
1. Deductive Reasoning: Deductive reasoning starts with a general premise or set of premises and derives a specific, certain conclusion. It is characterized by a strong emphasis on logical validity. For example: * All humans are mortal. (Premise) * Socrates is a human. (Premise) * Therefore, Socrates is mortal. (Deductive conclusion)
2. Abductive Reasoning: Abductive reasoning starts with observations or data and generates a hypothesis or explanation that best fits those observations. It is often used in situations with incomplete information or uncertainty. For example: * You find a wet umbrella by the door. * The ground outside is wet. * Therefore, it might be raining outside. (Abductive hypothesis)
3. Inductive Reasoning: Inductive reasoning, in contrast, involves making generalizations or predictions based on specific observations or evidence. It doesn't guarantee certainty but suggests that a pattern observed in specific cases may hold true for general cases. For example: * Every day for the past month, you've observed the sun rising in the east. * Therefore, you induce that the sun always rises in the east. (Inductive generalization)
Applied to a body of evidence collected by multiple projects that have a shared aim, abductive reasoning would allow us infer the simplest, and most likely explanation for patterns we see in the evidence, and this in the absence of any pre-existing theory of change or change hypothesis. Induction, in contrast, would allow us to make some general predictions on whether similar patterns of change could be reproduced in other contexts. Or in other words, an abductive approach would help us to learn and adapt in the same context, while an inductive approach would allow us to learn across contexts. At least this is how I understand it. While this seems useful, I have not come across the idea of using an abductive approach in many discussions around evidence and learning. Most approaches seem to use more of an inductive logic.
Why is this relevant? At Fondation Botner, we generally try to find organisations that have a similar aim and co-create our grants with such partners on the ground. We place a high level of emphasis on allowing success to be defined in a way that is relevant for the people in a specific context, rather than by us in a way so it fits our overall Theory of Change. This means that the projects we fund do their monitoring, evaluation and learning work in a way that fits them and generates the insights that they need to say whether what they tried worked and what effect it had – and to learn and adapt in their contexts. This means for our strategic learning and evaluation that we will have to work with a very heterogeneous collection of fragments of evidence generated by all our partners in their projects, rather than evidence that is neatly reported against our top-down defined results framework. Hence, we won't be able to neatly aggregate the results of all of those projects and present this as our success (which it isn't anyway). But, what we can do is to spot patterns across these fragments of evidence and, abductively, try to find the simplest and most likely explanation for these patterns.
While we don't have a Theory of Change in the form of a causal chain from our funding to the change we want to see, we still have clearly formulated strategic intents for each of the systemic inquiries we engage in, which give the heterogeneity of our partners and projects a certain amount of coherence (in the sense of Dave Snowden's coherent heterogeneity). Also, we aim to define a set of Domains of Change, indicating where we expect change, to see if our assumptions about what change is needed in order to move in a certain direction are accurate or not.
By the way, Gregory Bateson had a bit of a different approach to abduction, which he often called abductive process. For him, it was the way in which one context is a picture of another context. For example, the snow fox is a picture of the white landscape or the stick-insect is a picture of the plant it lives on. Something to explore another time ... but I dedicate my photo on top of this article to Nora and Gregory. More to explore here. I got a book about abduction as a gift from a friend recently and also found an interesting article titled Modalities of Abduction: a Philosophy of Science-Based Investigation of Abduction which I need to find a way to get out from behind a paywall.
The Paper Museum
This is from an interview with the philosopher Corine Pelluchon in the Swiss Magazine Republik about climate depression, eco-anxiety, and hope. The interview was in German, so I'm copying the German original and then a translation.
Weil der Optimismus eine Form der Verleugnung ist. Optimismus tut so, als könnten wir alles kontrollieren und als hätten wir die Lösung für alle Probleme. Hoffnung hingegen verleugnet das Negative nicht, sie bedeutet vielmehr die Akzeptanz des Verlusts und die Anerkennung des Leids. Hoffnung erfordert, dass wir der Wirklichkeit ins Auge sehen. Deshalb sagte der Schriftsteller Georges Bernanos: Die höchste Form der Hoffnung ist überwundene Verzweiflung. Das bedeutet, die Erfahrung des Negativen steht am Anfang. Hoffnung ist die Fähigkeit, trotz aller Widrigkeiten auch die schwachen Anzeichen einer grundlegenden Veränderung in die richtige Richtung wahrzunehmen; als das, was einen Horizont eröffnen könnte. Hoffnung kommt nach der Erfahrung des Verlusts, nach der Verzweiflung; sie setzt erst ein, wenn wir uns bewusst gemacht haben, dass die Zukunft ungewiss und bedrohlich ist. Wer hofft, benutzt nicht psychologische Strategien zur Angstvermeidung. Vielmehr hat der Hoffende eine Art Mut, aber dieser Mut ist nicht heroisch, nicht pompös, nicht spektakulär.
Der französische Schriftsteller Charles Péguy hat Hoffnung mit einem kleinen Mädchen verglichen, das kaum jemand wahrnimmt und beachtet. Hoffnung hat nichts mit dem klassischen Heldenmut zu tun, dieser Mut ist eher das Gegenteil davon. Hoffnung bedeutet Anerkennung unserer Ohnmacht, Anerkennung unserer Fehlbarkeit, Anerkennung des Negativen, das uns überflutet. Aber Hoffnung ist die Durchquerung dieses Negativen. Das braucht Zeit, und es verlangt, einzugestehen, dass vieles für immer verloren sein wird. Das gilt auf der persönlichen Ebene ebenso wie mit Blick auf die Klimaerwärmung. Um der Hoffnung einen Platz einzuräumen, ist es allerdings wichtig, die Hindernisse zu beseitigen.
Zunächst einmal das Gefangensein in uns selbst: wenn wir nicht mehr fähig sind, etwas Gutes anzuerkennen; wenn wir nur noch in der Verzweiflung gefangen sind, die letztlich Hass auf das Leben, den anderen oder uns selbst bedeutet. Diese Eigendynamik der Verzweiflung ist sehr destruktiv, eine Form der Besessenheit, ein Gefängnis. Hoffnung hingegen kommt, nachdem du alle deine falschen Illusionen verloren hast, sei es auf der individuellen oder der kollektiven Ebene. Sie kommt, wenn wir unsere Allmachtsfantasien aufgegeben und aufgehört haben, von Prestige oder Ruhm zu träumen. Erst dann ist Platz für etwas anderes. Um für die Hoffnung bereit zu sein, muss man lernen zu verlieren.
English translation - Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version).
Because optimism is a form of denial. Optimism pretends that we can control everything and that we have the solution to all problems. Hope, on the other hand, does not deny the negative; rather, it means accepting the loss and acknowledging the suffering. Hope requires that we face reality. That is why the writer Georges Bernanos said: "The highest form of hope is despair overcome. This means that the experience of the negative is at the beginning. Hope is the ability to perceive, despite all adversity, even the faint signs of a fundamental change in the right direction; as that which might open a horizon. Hope comes after the experience of loss, after despair; it only sets in when we have become aware that the future is uncertain and threatening. Those who hope do not use psychological strategies to avoid fear. Rather, the hopeful has a kind of courage, but this courage is not heroic, not pompous, not spectacular.
The French writer Charles Péguy compared hope to a little girl that hardly anyone notices or pays attention to. Hope has nothing to do with classic heroism, this courage is rather the opposite of it. Hope means acknowledging our powerlessness, acknowledging our fallibility, acknowledging the negativity that floods us. But hope is the traversal of this negativity. This takes time, and it requires admitting that much will be lost forever. This is as true on a personal level as it is with regard to global warming. To give hope a place, however, it is important to remove the obstacles.
First of all, being trapped in ourselves: when we are no longer able to acknowledge anything good; when we are only trapped in despair, which ultimately means hatred of life, the other or ourselves. This momentum of despair is very destructive, a form of obsession, a prison. Hope, on the other hand, comes after you have lost all your false illusions, whether on the individual or collective level. It comes when we have given up our fantasies of omnipotence and stopped dreaming of prestige or fame. Only then is there room for something else. To be ready for hope, one must learn to lose.
Why have I added this to my Paper Museum? I find this differentiation between optimism and hope useful and helpful. I have come across it before. Essentially I find it quite liberating to think that I don't need to be optimistic to be hopeful. Because I'm not very optimistic at the moment about the future of the human species. Yet I'm hopeful that things happen that we aren't able to comprehend or imagine now, which will still give humanity a future.