CEFISES Seminar: Philemon Kongo, « Paraemic Intelligence: Toward a Contextual and Socially Situated Model of Reasoning for Artificial Intelligence »

Livestream https://www.youtube.com/@CEFISES

Series: Work-in-Progress

Speaker: Philemon Muanda Kongo

Title: “Paraemic Intelligence: Toward a Contextual and Socially Situated Model of Reasoning for Artificial Intelligence”

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence has made remarkable progress in modeling deductive reasoning, probabilistic inference, belief revision, and large-scale pattern recognition. However, contemporary systems continue to encounter significant difficulties in contextual interpretation, socially grounded explanation, and collective validation. This paper introduces the concept of Paraemic Intelligence as a theoretical framework for addressing these limitations.

Drawing upon the cognitive structure of paraemic reasoning, the paper argues that proverbs should not be viewed merely as linguistic artifacts or repositories of traditional wisdom. Rather, they constitute sophisticated mechanisms of contextual inference capable of supporting decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. Four fundamental dimensions of paraemic intelligence are identified: analogical recognition, contextual selection, interpretive negotiation, and collective validation.

The paper situates these mechanisms within contemporary debates concerning non-monotonic reasoning, explainable artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, contextual computing, and socially situated cognition. It further proposes a preliminary computational architecture capable of integrating symbolic knowledge, contextual interpretation, social reasoning, and explainability.

The central thesis defended here is that paraemic reasoning embodies a form of contextual intelligence whose inferential principles remain only partially represented within current AI paradigms. Consequently, paraemic intelligence may provide valuable conceptual resources for the development of next-generation intelligent systems capable of producing socially meaningful and contextually intelligible explanations.