The Problem of Ineffability in Dewey's Theory of Inquiry

A Deweyan inquiry begins with an indeterminate situation and terminates, when successful, with a determinate situation, both of which Dewey holds to be unique and therefore ineffable. This ineffability requirement has the disastrous consequences that Dewey's beloved collective inquiry is impossible and that there are no objective criteria for the success of inquiry. It is found that Dewey's ineffability requirement results from his misbegotten attempt to aestheticize inquiry so that it is an act of artistic creation. It is suggested that things would go better if he dropped the ineffability requirement.     

Pragmatic Democracy: Inquiry,Objectivity, and Experience

This essay argues that to understand Dewey's vision of democracy as “epistemic” requires consideration of how experiential and communal aspects of inquiry together produce what is named here “pragmatic objectivity.” Such pragmatic objectivity provides an alternative to absolutism and self‐interested relativism by appealing to certain norms of empirical experimentation. Pragmatic objectivity, it is then argued, can be justified by appeal to Dewey's conception of primary experience. This justification, however, is not without its own complications, which are highlighted with objections regarding “radical pluralism” in political life, and some logical problems that arise due to the supposedly “ineffable” nature of primary experience. The essay concludes by admitting that while Dewey's theory of democracy based on experience cannot answer all of the objections argumentatively, it nevertheless provides potent suggestions for how consensus building can proceed without such philosophical arguments.     

Harré on Piaget's Sociological Studies

Piaget's Sociological Studies is largely taken up with questions of sociology, epistemology, moral, political and legal theory. Roughly, these are by-passed in Harré's (2000, this journal) interpretation of Piaget's social account. Our critique is in two parts. In the first part, we explain the basis of our disagreement with Harré's interpretation of six specific issues. These are Piaget's model of social exchange, sociology, concept of egocentrism, response to Wallon, psycho-social parallelism, distinction between the concrete and the abstract. In the second part, we challenge two central theses invoked in Harré's review, namely (A) all psychological activity is a joint activity, and (B) any society is based on irreducible differences in psychological activity. We have tried to set the record straight as far as Piaget's social account is concerned. Harré's review shows a general lack of acquaintance with Piaget's account and our aim has been to compensate for this.     

Wilhelm Wundt's contribution to John Dewey's functional psychology

John Dewey's functionalism and instrumentalism arose from his defense of a teleological understanding of human activity and intelligence. E. B. Titchener's counterdefense of structuralism in the late 1890s placed Wundt's psychological methodology in opposition to functionalism. However, investigations that convincingly re-interpret Wundt instead permit the disclosure of much fundamental agreement. Examination of Dewey's earliest work shows that his commitment to teleology, with its attendant organicist and voluntarist orientation, arose from an early allegiance to G. S. Morris's Aristotelianized neo-Hegelianism and an inspirational debt to Wundt's psychology and philosophy. William James's influence on Dewey's development toward instrumentalism must be accordingly de-emphasized.     

From Piaget's Epistemic Subject to Pascual-Leone's Metasubject: Epistemic Transition in the Constructivist—Rationalist Theory of Cognitive Development

The explanation of the transition from one epistemic theory to another is an important part of Piaget's genetic epistemology. It is argued that this epistemic transition leads to a retrodictable orthogenetic tendency toward optimizing equilibration. The objective of this paper is to establish a relationship between Piaget's epistemic subject and Pascual-Leone's metasubject and to demonstrate that the postulation of the latter can be considered as an epistemic transition between two constructivist—rationalist theories, which leads to the development of a theory with greater explanatory power. Epistemic transition in this paper refers to a progressive problemshift (cf. Lakatos, 1970), between the theories of Piaget and Pascual-Leone. Piaget builds a “general model” by neglecting individual differences, that is, studies the epistemic subject, whereas Pascual-Leone by incorporating a framework for individual difference variables, studies the metasubject—the psychological organization of the epistemic subject. Empirical evidence is presented to demonstrate that Pascual-Leone's theory of constructive operators is a model of the psychological organism (the metasubject), which is at work inside Piaget's epistemic subject. Finally, it is concluded that the greater explanatory power of Pascual-Leone's theory can be interpreted as an epistemic transition between Piaget's epistemic subject and Pascual-Leone's metasubject.     

Private blog reflections connecting course content with field experiences: preservice teachers grapple with teacher identity

A challenge experienced within teacher preparation programs is the ability to help preservice teachers connect educational theory with teaching practice. Guided by Dewey's phases of reflective thinking and Schön’s reflection on action as an ethic for inquiry, we embedded a systematic reflection of written responses, recorded in a private weblog over the course of a 15-week intermediate reading methods course. Inductive thematic analysis of responses revealed the following themes: visceral thought, vulnerability, interpretation of course content, and identity formation toward becoming a classroom teacher. Our findings exemplify how systematic reflection in a private digital space contributed to the development of preservice teachers’ professional identities.     

Developmental stages,Piagetian stages in particular: A critical review

Developmental stages in general and Piaget's stages in particular have given rise to considerable controversy. Much of this controversy revolves around the responses that have been given to the following five central questions: (1) Do developmental stages exist? (2) If they exist, where are they? (3) What features define a developmental sequence as a sequence of developmental stages? (4) What psychological processes underlie developmental change? (5) Should we abandon the concept of developmental stages? The main goal of this paper is to present a critical review of such responses, while arguing for a strong conception of development and a “non-received” view of Piaget's theory. After an introduction section, we elaborate on each of the five questions. Finally, we present several reasons why this paper often appeals to Piaget's theory, and why his theory has been greatly misunderstood.     

Jean piaget and george kelly: Toward a stronger constructivism

Among constructivist metatheoretical approaches, a strong version is defined as that which reveals reality to be actively and subjectively constructed rather than passively incorporated as objective environmental or innate “facts” by the subject. Given this definition, however, ambiguities arise concerning the potential and limits of construct integration over the course of development. Piaget's stronger constructivist model is offered as a means of clarifying and broadening the strong constructivist position on knowledge evolution. Piaget's genetic epistemology model places dramatic emphasis on the organizational capacity of the subject, specifying personal development as a strongly continuous and subsuming process. Discussion of commonalities between Piaget's position and Kelly's personal construct theory concludes this article.     

Eco on Dewey

This study seeks to examine Umberto Eco's views of the key ideas in John Dewey's Art as Experience. Eco's proferred suggestion of transactional psychology as a corrective to Dewey's views is criticized as a misreading of Dewey's position.     

Primitive religious thought and the evolution of religion

In an article in this journal about the ideas of Levy-Brühl, Don Wiebe reviewed ideas from anthropology to argue that there is indeed a primitive mentality, and that mythopoeic religious thought is an instance of this mentality. Wiebe ends by declaring religious thought generally to be mythopoeic. The anthropological literature does support well Wiebe's thesis that primitive thought is primitive, in particular those studies which use Piaget's theory of cognitive development as a guide for interpreting primitive and other thought styles. But Piaget's theory can be extended to interpret other stages of culture and thought. This aids in recognizing that religious thought develops in stages also, from primitive folktales to archaic complex myths, and then to classical rationalized theologies and most recently to symbolic theologies.     

Dewey and the Question of Realism

An interpretation is given of John Dewey's views about “realism” in metaphysics, and of how these views relate to contemporary debates. Dewey rejected standard formulations of realism as a general metaphysical position, and interpreters have often been taken him to be sympathetic to some form of verificationism or constructivism. I argue that these interpretations are mistaken, as Dewey's unease with standard formulations of realism comes from his philosophical emphasis on intelligent control of events, by means of ordinary action. Because of his views about relations, Dewey's views in this area do risk collapsing into an overly holistic position. I discuss how these problems might be avoided, and consider also how Dewey's views about naturalism and realism might usefully inform ongoing work.     

Eight good questions for developmental epistemology and psychology

My reply to eight good questions arising from commentary is an elaboration of my main argument that there are parallels in the epistemologies of Frege and Piaget and that these parallels have distinctive implications for developmental psychology. The eight questions are: (i) was Piaget really an epistemologist? (ii) is Piaget's epistemic subject psychological or epistemological? (iii) is Frege's non-modal logic consistent with Piaget's account of necessity? (iv) does Piaget's constructivism entail realism? (v) what is the relation between thinking and thought? (vi) is Frege's concept of mind too narrow? (vii) how are cause and reason related in the interpretation of thought? (viii) what is the status of an act of judgment in the interpretation of thought? These questions are productive, and can be developed.     

Epistemological principles for developmental psychology in Frege and Piaget

My main aim is to identify and discuss parallels between the epistemologies of Gottlob Frege and Jean Piaget. Although their work has attracted massive attention individually, parallels in their work have gone unnoticed. My discussion is in four parts and covers psychologism and epistemology; five epistemological criteria in Frege's rational epistemology under an AEIOU mnemonic, namely autonomy, entailment, intersubjectivity, objectivity and universality; the elaboration of these same criteria in Piaget's developmental epistemology; their implications for developmental psychology and epistemology. One main conclusion is that the same criteria fit both Frege's and Piaget's epistemology. A second conclusion is that Piaget's developmental epistemology can be regarded as an elaboration of Frege's rational epistemology in each of these five respects on both methodological and substantive grounds. Both conclusions are compatible with non-psychologism, which was accepted by both Frege and Piaget.     

Updating the Baldwin effect : The biological levels behind Piaget's new theory

In 1964, Conrad Waddington (1905–1975) presented a paper in Geneva that led to an internal reassessment of the biological underpinnings of Jean Piaget's (1896–1980) theory. This in turn resulted in an overhaul of the theoretical framework upon which his stage theory of child development had been based, including his appeals to James Mark Baldwin's (1861–1934) “circular reaction.” In addition to leading to the emergence of what has elsewhere been called “Piaget's new theory,” this renovation also resulted in the update of the famous “Baldwin Effect.” Because aspects of the subsequent framework are of contemporary significance, this essay will review some of the work leading up to those updates. In reaching behind the translations to trace the sources of the arguments to which Piaget appealed, the resulting examination fills some of the gaps found in the secondary literature without quibbling over the “correct” English interpretation of translated French terms. We also go beyond how Piaget's writings have been understood in English and extract some useful additional ideas from his sources, including how to conceive of the social context in which development takes place. We see as a result how Waddington and his colleagues, including Paul Weiss (1898–1989), provided a constructive “existence proof” for the formal hierarchy of levels that Piaget had come to by other means.     

Genocide,Diversity, and John Dewey's Progressive Education

This article discusses how John Dewey's “Report and Recommendation upon Turkish Education” (published in 1924) and some of Dewey's related travel narratives reflect “civilizing mission” imperatives and involve multiple utopian operations that have not yet attracted political‐philosophical attention. Such critical attention would reveal Dewey's misjudgments concerning issues of diversity, geopolitics, and global justice. Based on an ethicopolitical reading of the relevant sources, the aim here is to expose developmentalist and colonial vestiges, to raise searching questions, and to obtain a heightened view on the stakes of Dewey's utopianism and progressive pragmatism. The article concludes that the acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide constitutes a major challenge to Dewey scholarship.     

Are family therapists listening to the young? A psychological perspective*

This paper sets out to examine the family therapist's relationship to young children from a psychological perspective. Earlier contributions to the literature regarding the involvement of children in family sessions are reviewed briefly. Aspects of attachment theory and Piaget's theory of cognitive development are considered in terms of their implications for family therapy. It is argued that family therapists should be mindful of parents’ responsibilities for meeting their children's needs, particularly their need to experience predictability and to have a coherent story about their lives. The importance of exploring the effects of adult choices on the children is also emphasized.     

Public Art and Dewey's Democratic Experience: The Case of John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls

The aesthetic and political sides of public art have recently been examined from different theoretical vantage points. Pragmatist accounts, however, have been largely absent from the discussion. This article develops a theory of public art on some central ideas of John Dewey's aesthetics and social philosophy. From a pragmatist perspective, the best cases of public art turn out to have high social significance, for they are means of promoting the sense of community, which Dewey saw as foundational for well‐functioning democracies. The Deweyan account of public art developed in this article is set against theories that explain its social value by public artworks’ ability to disrupt people's everyday routines and beliefs, as well as by the political alertness they often raise. Diana Boros's recent treatment of what she calls “visionary public art” serves as the main specimen of this approach. The Deweyan understanding of public art is illuminated and defended with the help of a reading of John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls—a piece composed in memory of the victims of 9/11—that highlights its capacity to generate such communal experiences that have a fundamental role in Dewey's theory of democracy.     

From qualitative differences to a continuum of development: commentary on Leslie Smith's epistemological principles for developmental psychology

In his article Epistemological principles for developmental psychology Leslie Smith helps to re-open some of the key issues Piaget explored through his genetic epistemology. Smith shows the important parallels between logician Gottlieb Frege's understanding of rational thought, and the way in which Piaget developed such notions in his own theory. But while Frege's theory helps set the parameters for whether thought can be judged as rational, or if it even should be judged as rational, it also shows the logicians' disdain for exploring anything resembling development of rationality. Thus Frege might have an important, but necessarily mediated impact on the field of human development. Piaget's carefully crafted theory of epistemological development potentially serves as such a mediating device. It can be argued that Piaget crafted together arguments of logicians such as Frege, and epistemologists such as Lévy-Bruhl, to develop his extraordinary achievement of a genetic epistemology that leads to an understanding of the human condition. One of Piaget's accomplishments was to develop a continuum out of the logicians' dichotomy between non-logical and logical in which the non-rational flows into the rational.     

ORGANISMIC PROCESSES FOR NEO-PIAGETIAN THEORIES: A DIALECTICAL CAUSAL ACCOUNT OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

The paper criticizes some epistemological presuppositions of Piaget's and of neo-Piagetian's work, in particular, the psycho-Logical principle. This principle is contrasted with a more valid psycho-dialectical one. It is suggested that a dialectical-constructivist (i.e., causal-dynamic) perspective offers a causal theoretical framework for cognitive development that is superior to that of Piaget and many neo-Piagetians. I outline criteria for evaluating causal developmental theories, and point out deficiencies in Piaget's and neo-Piagetian's stage theories vis-à-vis the criteria. An organismic theory of constructive operators - a dialectical/causal theory - is introduced as a remedy for these deficiencies. I focus on a modular model of mental attention that is constituted by four dynamically interacting functional systems. These systems together explain the ‘beam’ of mental attention and its phenomenological/behavioural effects. I claim that the stages of cognitive development are caused by growth of mental attention. The validity of this model is supported by data on a motor performance task (Rho task). The Rho data show: (a) the existence of stage-wise plateaus in children's performance at ages congruent with the redefined Piagetian stages; (b) the psychological structures which, driven by mental attention (M-capacity), are responsible for performance on the task, appear to be located in the left hemisphere of the brain. These findings, predicted by the dialectical theory of mental attention, highlight its causal-predictive power.     

LE CARACTÈRE TOPOLOGIQUE DES PREMIÈRES REPRÈSENTATIONS SPATIALES DE l'ENFANT

The topological nature of the child's early spatial representations. Piaget's hypotheses revisited. — Three experiments bearing on Piaget's hypotheses on the topological nature of the child's early concepts of space are reported. The results of the first experiment, replicating Piaget's stereognostic technique on a larger scale, were shown to confirm the earliness of topological discriminations, but it was found also that some simple Euclidian discriminations (curvilinear vs rectilinear, indented vs non-indented forms) were not more difficult. The second experiment has shown that the child relied rather on topological than on simple Euclidian attributes when both types of attributes were presented in a conflictual situation; otherwise, the simple Euclidian discriminations were easier. In a third experiment, using a drawing technique along with visual exploration, topological discriminations proved easier than Euclidian discriminations in one instance only (open-closed vs curvilinear-rectilinear forms). It is suggested in conclusion that the child's early discriminations are not based on topology as such, but on certain geometrical properties which are fundamental to topology itself.