Jean Piaget: Genetic Epistemology

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Jean Piaget Genetic Epistemology

• The common postulate of various traditional
  epistemologies theories of valid knowledge is
  that knowledge is a fact and not a process and
  that if our various forms of knowledge are always
  incomplete and our various sciences still
  imperfect, that which is acquired is acquired and
  can therefore be studied statically.
• Hence the absolute position of the problems What
  is knowledge? or How are the various types of
  knowledge possible?...

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• Under the converging influence of a series of
  factors, we are tending more and more today to
  regard knowledge as a process, more than a
  state... Any being (or object) that sciences
  attempt to hold fast dissolves once again in the
  current of development.
• It is the last analysis of this development, and
  of it alone, that we have the right to state It
  is (a fact). What we can and should then seek is
  the law of this process. (We are well aware, on
  the other hand, of the fine book by Kuhn on
  scientific revolutions....

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• In fact, if all knowledge is always in a state of
  development and consists in proceeding from one
  state to a more complete and efficient one,
  evidently it is a question of knowing this
  development and analyzing it with the greatest
  possible accuracy.

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• This beginning does not unfold itself as a matter
  of chance, but forms a development, and since the
  cognitive domain has an absolute beginning and
  is a development, this domain itself is to be
  studied at the very stages known as formation....
• The first aim of genetic epistemology is,
  therefore, if one can say so, to take psychology
  seriously and to furnish verifications to any
  question which each epistemology necessarily
  raises, yet replacing the generally unsatisfying
  speculative or implicit psychology with
  controllable analyses

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• Upon what does an individual base his judgements?
  
• What are his norms?How is it that these norms are
  validated?
• What is the interest of such norms for the
  philosophy of science in general?
• (How does the fact that children think
  differently affect our presumption of fact
  itself?)

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Problems

• Number and space
• Time and speed
• Permanent objects, identity, and conservation
• Chance
• Moral concerns
• Play patterns and dreams
• Imitation of others

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Developmental course

• The stage theory equilibration
• adaptation assimilation and accommodation
  (Kuhn) TRANSFORMATION
• Whereas other animals cannot alter themselves
  except by changing their species, man can
  transform himself by transforming the world and
  can structure himself by constructing structures
  and these structures are his own, for they are
  not eternally predestined either from within or
  from without.
• The organism adapts itself by materially
  constructing new forms to fit them into those of
  the universe, whereas intelligence extends this
  creation by constructing mental structures which
  can be applied to those of the environment.

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• The notion of the developmental stage
• Constant orderly acquisition of behaviors
• Integration of such behaviors across succeeding
  levels
• with proviso that this integration completes
  earlier development, and sets the stage for
  further
• with proviso that integration appears total

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Motive for development disequilibria

• What is done does not produce the intended
  (desired) end.

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Constructivism

• There is no structure apart from construction,
  either abstract or genetic
• cognitive or physiological
• Knowledge does not begin in the I, and it does
  not begin in the object it begins in the
  interactions.... There is a reciprocal and
  simultaneous construction of the subject on the
  one hand, and the object on the other.

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Capacity for development analogy to LOGOS

• Heraclitus and the permanency of the river,
  despite its movement
• The Christian Logos -- the Word -- and the
  creation of the world
• decentration out of one scheme, into the domain
  of scheme construction (chaos)
• goodbye lovely rut (centration)

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Remember Swansons Motor Hierarchy
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1.0. Infancy

• Birth to age two
• The undifferentiated experience
• Egocentricity without ego

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1.1. Sensorimotor Period

• Practical intelligence without thought
• Action schemata (for mouth, eyes, hand, feet)
• New objects are explored with action schemata
• establishment of percepts

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1.2. Reflex action (first half of first year)

• Behavior limited to sucking, and then head
  turning
• Behaviors are practiced and generalized
• Child imitates own reflexes, and brings them
  under control the circular reaction the
  cybernetic loop (the feedback loop)
• The mind begins its development by interiorizing
  the (observable) structures of the body.

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Each object is assimilated as something to be
sucked, to be grasped, to be shaken, etc.,
and is at first that and nothing more (and if it
is to be looked at it is still being
assimilated to the various focusings and
movements of the eyes and acquires the shapes
which perceptive assimilation gives it)....
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it is by repeating his behaviors through
reproductive assimilation that the child
assimilates objects to actions, and that these
become schemas. These schemas constitute the
functional equivalent of concepts and of the
logical relationships of later development.

• Piaget, Explanation of Play. Play, Dreams and
  Imitation.

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1.2.1. The scheme

• What there is in common among several different
  and analogous actions.
• distance the fact of distance remains constant
  across situations
• shared schemes serve as the referents for
  language
• A structure would lose all truth value if it did
  not have this connection with the physical
  facts.
• as opposed to the concept which appears as a
  declarative representation

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We first act, and then form an image of what
needs doing.

• ... the whole process of development, starting
  out with perception and culminating in
  intelligence, demonstrates clearly that
  transformations continually increase in
  importance, as opposed to the original
  predominance of static perceptual forms.
• perception knowledge of an object from direct
  contact with it.
• intelligence uses the mental image the imitative
  schemata (representation)
• the concept is an abstracted image (semantic
  representation of an episodic representation)
• the Freudian symbol is mere use of earlier
  schemata

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1.3. Imitation (second half of first year)

• Assimilation of the motor schemata of the
  observed other prehension

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1.4. Sensorimotor intelligence includes

• Sense of distribution of surrounding space
• Perception of objects within that space
• Notion of causality as relationship between
  appearances, mediated by action
• Beginning of time

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1.5. Object permanence - end of second year.

• Another example of an unforeseeable encounter
  between the recent history of sciences and
  psychogenesis is furnished by the notion of
  object permanence.
• This permanence, which at the beginning of the
  century appeared evident and necessary, was, as
  we all know, questioned by contemporary
  microphysics, for which an object exists as an
  object (in opposition to its wave) only in so far
  as it is localizable.
• It can therefore be interesting to attempt to
  establish how the object notion has been formed,
  since it no longer appears enveloped in the same
  characteristic necessity its earlier history
  seemed to confer upon it.

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2.0. Early childhood Two to seven years
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2.1. Socialization of Action

• Establishment of verbal communication
• Facilitation of imitation thereby (the ego ideal)
• Lack of self-awareness
• No ability for discussion (collective monologue)

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2.2. Genesis of Thought

• Preoperational thought transition from
  sensorimotor intelligence to operational
  intelligence (abstraction)
• Concrete operations use of the thing, or the
  immediate imagination of the thing
• Precausality tendency towards anthropomorphizatio
  n Childhood animism
• The child does not think like the pre-empirical
  man the pre-empirical man thinks like the child.

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• Children of this age are practically unanimous
  in believing that the moon accompanies them on a
  walk, and their egocentricity impedes them from
  thinking what the moon would do in the presence
  of people strolling in the opposite direction.
• The universe operates like the human being
  things want to do things

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2.3. Moral realism attention to the letter of
the law.

• ... moral realism induces an objective
  conception of responsibility.... for since he
  takes rules literally and thinks of good only in
  terms of obedience, the child will at first
  evaluate acts not in accordance with the motive
  that has prompted them but in terms of their
  exact conformity with established rules.

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• The combined effect of precausality, childhood
  animism, and moral realism on the psychology of
  the child is to present a world of intentional
  beings and objects, all focusing on the child,
  doing things for the child, and yet conforming to
  a set of rules that have no special justification
  but exist merely to be obeyed.
• Rychlak, p. 694

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2.4. Intuition

• The use of a sensorimotor schema as basis for
  abstract thought

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A child of four or five years may be shown a
series of eight blue discs aligned in a row with
little spaces between each, and be asked to
reproduce the series by selecting red disks from
a pile.
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The child will intuitively construct an
arrangement of red disks in a row of exactly the
same length as the blue disks but without
bothering to keep the number of disks identical,
and without considering the matter of spacing
between the disks.

• Rychlak, p. 695

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O O O O O O O O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
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The child can not yet think about the different
ways (schemas) of analyzing and then duplicating
the structure of the row. Furthermore, the row is
analogous to a rod (a sensorimotor object).
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2.5. Semilogic two brothers. One is asked do you
have a brother? Does Paul (his brother) have a
brother? no

• egocentricity makes reversibility impossible

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2.6. Beginnings of self evaluation
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2.7. Necessity for environmental stability

• presuppositions must remain constant

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3.0. Late Childhood Seven to Twelve
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3.1. Elimination of egocentricity

• development of self-model, equivalent to the
  other
• more concentration on life tasks
• more ability to collaborate (facilitate social
  construction)

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3.2. Self-reflection emerges

• Reflection is nothing other than internal
  deliberation, that is to say, a dialogue which is
  conducted with oneself
• Relationship to Jungs notion of personification
  of the dissociated personality elements

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3.3. Conservation emerges

• Two identical glasses, one taller narrower glass.
• Two girls, Bridget (4) and Annette (7)

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Both are asked to place equal numbers of red
beads in the first glass, and blue beads in the
second.
Red beads are then poured into the third glass.
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When askedWhich has more beads (second or
third)? Bridget (4) says third Annette (7) says
neither.
Annette (7) interrelates volume and shape schema
Bridget (4) relies on notion of height to define
more.
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Conservation is possibility of rigorous return
to the point of departure
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3.4. Development of morality

• since all men, including primitive men,
  started by being children, childhood thinking
  preceded the thought of our own ancestors, just
  as it does our own!
• Piaget differentiates "morality of constraint"
  from "morality of cooperation," describing
  morality as a "system of rules that affective
  life makes use of to control behavior

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"...moral realism induces an objective concept of
responsibility.... For since he takes rules
literally and things of good only in terms of
obedience, the child will at first evaluate acts
not in accordance with the motive that has
prompted them but in terms of their exact
conformity with established rules."
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He associates morality of constraint with an
earlier level of cognitive development a level
that nonetheless serves as a necessary
precondition for further development. Piaget
states

• "For very young children, a rule is a sacred
  reality because it is traditional for the older
  ones it depends upon mutual agreement. "

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"From the point of view of the practice or
application of rules four successive stages can
be distinguished.
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A first stage of a purely motor and individual
character, during which the child handles the
marbles at the dictation of his desires and motor
habits. This leads to the formation of more or
less ritualized schemas, but since play is still
purely individual, one can only talk of motor
rules and not of truly collective rules.
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The second may be called egocentric for the
following reasons. This stage begins at the
moment when the child receives from outside the
example of codified rules, that is to say, some
time between the ages of two and five. But though
the child imitates this example, he continues to
play either by himself without bothering to find
play-fellows, or with others, but without trying
to win, and therefore without attempting to unify
the different ways of playing.
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In other words, children of this stage, even when
they are playing together, play each one "on his
own" (everyone can win at once) and without
regard for any codification of rules. This dual
character, combining imitation of others with a
purely individual use of the examples received,
we have designated by the term Egocentrism.
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A third stage appears between 7 and 8, which we
shall call the stage of incipient cooperation.
Each player now tries to win, and all, therefore,
begin to concern themselves with the question of
mutual control and of unification of the rules.
But while a certain agreement may be reached in
the course of one game, ideas about the rules in
general are still rather vague.
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In other words, children of 7-8, who belong to
the same class at school and are therefore
constantly playing with each other, give, when
they are questioned separately, disparate and
often entirely contradictory accounts of the
rules observed in playing marbles.
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Finally, between the years of 11 and 12, appears
a fourth stage, which is that of the codification
of rules. Not only is every detail of procedure
in the game fixed, but the actual code of rules
to be observed is known to the whole society.
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There is remarkable concordance in the
information given by children of 10-12 belonging
to the same class at school, when they are
questioned on the rules of the game and their
possible variations....
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If, now, we turn to the consciousness of rules we
shall find a progression that is even more
elusive in detail, but no less clearly marked if
taken on a big scale. We may express this by
saying that the progression runs through three
stages, of which the second begins during the
egocentric stage and ends towards the middle of
the stage of cooperation (9-10), and of which the
third covers the remainder of this co-operating
stage and the whole of the stage marked by the
codification of rules.
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During the first stage rules are not yet coercive
in character, either because they are purely
motor, or else (at the beginning of the
egocentric stage) because they are received, as
it were, unconsciously, and as interesting
examples rather than as obligatory realities.
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During the second stage (apogee of egocentric and
first half of cooperating stage) rules are
regarded as sacred and untouchable, emanating
from adults and lasting forever. Every suggested
alteration strikes the child as a transgression.
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• The megalithic constructions of western and
  northern Europe have fascinated investigators for
  over a century. Indeed, it is impossible to look
  at a good photograph of the alignments at Carnac
  or the gigantic trilithons of Stonehenge without
  wondering what their purpose and meaning could
  have been.
• Ca 2000 BC and earlier

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• The technological ability of these farmers of the
  Age of Polished Stone arouses astonishment.
• How did they manage to set 300 ton blocks in an
  upright position, and lift 100 ton slabs?
• Then, too, such monuments are not isolated. They
  form part of a whole megalithic complex, which
  extends from the Mediterranean coast of Spain,
  covers Portugal, half of France, the western
  seaboard of England, and continues into Ireland,
  Denmark, and the southern coast of Sweden
• All this undoubtedly testifies to a very
  important cult of the dead.
• Whereas the houses of the Neolithic peasants who
  raised these monuments were modest and ephemeral
  the dwellings for the dead were made of stone.
• Eliade, A history of religious ideas volume 1,
  pp. 114-115.

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Finally, during the third stage, a rule is looked
upon as a law due to mutual consent, which you
must respect if you want to be loyal but which it
is permissible to alter on the condition of
enlisting general opinion on your side.
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The correlation between the three stages in the
development of the consciousness of rules and the
four stages relating to their practical
observance is of course only a statistical
correlation and therefore very crude.
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But broadly speaking the relation seems to us
indisputable. The collective rule is at first
something external to the individual and
consequently sacred to him then, as he gradually
makes it his own, it comes to that extent to be
felt as the free product of mutual agreement and
an autonomous conscience.
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And with regard to practical use, it is only
natural that a mystical respect for laws should
be accompanied by a rudimentary knowledge and
application of their contents, while a rational
and well-founded respect is accompanied by an
effective application of each rule in detail.

• Piaget, J. (1932). The Moral Judgment of the
  Child. London Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and
  Company Ltd. pp. 16-18.

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This more abstract ability allows for answer to
the meta-problem of morality not "how to
behave?" but -- how can (or is or was) how to
behave be determined?"
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Paradoxically, perhaps, the answer to this
meta-problem also provides the final answer to
the (apparently) less abstract question "how to
behave?" or "what is the good?"
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3.5. Sociohistorical echoes
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The Ancient Isralites

• Subjugation to tyranny
• Escape into chaos
• Formalization of tradition
• Journey to the Promised Land
• Moses dies before he arrives, but is the only one
  to see it

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• The Biblical pattern for the purgatorial vision
  is the Exodus narrative, which is in three major
  parts.
• First is the sojourn in Egypt, the furnace of
  iron, a world visited by plagues, where the
  Egyptian desire to exterminate the Hebrews goes
  into reverse with the slaughter of the Egyptian
  firstborn sons.
• This episode concludes with the crossing of the
  Red Sea, the separation of Israel from Egypt, and
  the drowning of the Egyptian host.

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• The second episode is the wandering in the
  wilderness, a labyrinthine period of lost
  direction, where one generation has to die off
  before a new one can enter the Promised Land
  (Psalm 9511).
• This is one of several features indicating that
  we are in a world transcending history, and that
  it is in the more poetic language of the prophets
  that the true or symbolic meaning of Egypt,
  wilderness and Promised Land emerges more clearly.

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• The third stage is the entry into the Promised
  Land, where Moses, personifying the older
  generation, dies just outside it. In Christian
  typology...
• this means that the law, which Moses symbolizes,
  cannot redeem mankind only his successor Joshua,
  who bears the same name as Jesus, can invade and
  conquer Canaan.

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• Frye continues And yet Canaan seems a rather
  shrunken and anticlimactic form of the paradisal
  land of promise flowing with milk and honey that
  was originally promised to Israel. Perhaps Moses
  was really the only person to see the Promised
  Land perhaps the mountain outside it he climbed
  in his last hours was the only place from which
  it could be seen.
• Frye, N. (1990). Words with Power Being a Second
  Study of the Bible and Literature. New York
  Viking Press, p. 299.

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The state as promised land

• Morality as Tradition
• Custom
• Habit
• Procedure

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The promised land as ideal equilibration

• parts in harmonious relationship with whole
• the whole tends to conserve itself
• the parts tend to conserve themselves
• the ideal equilibration occurs when the parts,
  conserving themselves, conserves the whole
• and vice versa

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The Ten Commandments Morality as Rule

• thou shalt not -- kill, steal, covet, undermine
  tradition , etc.
• honour thy parents
• First order codification of tradition
• Represented/felt as divinely ordained

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Great men, like great epochs, are explosive
material in whom tremendous energy has been
accumulated their prerequisite has always been,
historically and physiologically, that a
protracted assembling, accumulating, economizing
and preserving has preceded them that there has
been no explosion for a long time. If the
tension in the mass has grown too great the
merest accidental stimulus suffices to call the
genius, the deed, the great destiny, into the
world.

• Nietzsche, F. (1888/1981). Twilight of the
  Idols/The Anti-Christ, translated by R.J.
  Hollingdale. New York Penguin Classics. p. 97,
  section 44.

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The process of engendering states as promised
land

• Christ's comments and actions on the sabbath
  And it came to pass on the second sabbath after
  the first, that he went through the corn fields
  and his disciples did eat, rubbing them in their
  hands. And certain of the Pharisees said unto
  them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on
  the sabbath days?

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And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read
so much as this, what David did, when himself
was an hungred, and they which were with him How
he went into the house of God, and did take and
eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that
were with him which it is not lawful to eat but
for the priests alone?
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And he said unto them, That the Son of man is
Lord also of the sabbath. And it came to pass
also on another sabbath, that he entered into the
synagogue and taught and there was a man whose
right hand was withered.
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And the scribes and Pharisees watched him,
whether he would heal on the sabbath day that
they might find an accusation against him. But
he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which
had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth
in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.
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Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one
thing Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do
good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy
it? And looking round upon them all, he said unto
the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so
and his hand was restored whole as the other. And
they were filled with madness and communed one
with another what they might do to Jesus. (Luke
61-11).
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There is an apocryphal insertion at Luke 64.
The insertion reads "Man, if indeed thou
knowest what thou doest, thou art blessed but if
thou knowest not, thou art cursed, and a
transgressor of the law". (Codex Bezae ad Lucam
(to Luke) 64

• James M.R. (1924). The Apocryphal New Testament.
  Oxford.

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For very young children, a rule is a sacred
reality because it is traditional for the older
ones it depends upon mutual agreement.

• Piaget, J.

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in order for a rule to work without authority
pressures, there must be feelings of mutual
respect among the persons who subscribe to the
rule.

• Rychlak, J.F., p. 698.
• Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
  Matthew 22

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For Piaget, morality is the sum of rules that our
affective life makes use of to control behavior.
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Will

• Rule of cognitively-organized affect over affect
  itself
• TV vs homework
• Will demands self-identity and moral conflict

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4.0. Final Stage Adolescence
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4.1. Formal Operations

• Use of the form of general ideas and abstract
  constructions rather than perception of concrete
  objects.
• Origination of abstract concerns - idealism.

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Formal thought is hypothetico-deductive in the
sense that it permits one to draw conclusions
from pure hypotheses and not merely from actual
observations.
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The representation of a representation of
possible action

• procedure to episode to semantics
• the verbal game
• the restructuring of fundamental presumptions
  (play and dream)
• emergence of dialectical reasoning
  (self-argument)
• the dialective spiral of development (like growth
  itself)

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Egocentricity of formal operations

• This conclusion is the only conclusion

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The messianism of adolescence

• Piagets creative illness
• formulation of a life plan
• discipline and goal

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Adulthood Adherence to a profession

• subjugation to a discipline
• creative endeavour within structure

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5.0. Psychopathology

• lack of formal operations
• refusal to accomodate to assimilated information

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6.0. Cure

• Accomodate to what you assimilate