Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

234 Jean Piaget
cess of learning, the part played by reinforcement, goal gradients, the hierarchy
of habits in ‘families’, etc. (see below under 7), undertook with the aid of the
logician, Fitsch, a formalized elaboration of these laws starting from a number
of postulates that could be considered as their reasons, since they were sufficient
and necessary for their deduction. Other authors are not concerned with making
deductions set out in logical form - but, whether their deductions are intuitive
or more or less formalized, whether explicit or even implicit, it is impossible,
once a number of laws are involved and especially when they involve different
scales (overall or increasingly local and particularized), not to include them in
a system in which some are dependent on others or are derived from them.
3. However, the deduction of laws is still only a logical operation and does
not explain enough by itself.IOThe deduction of such laws, if fully carried through,
certainly manages to show the necessity and sufficiency of the initial postulates,
which, in explicating ‘reasons’, help us on the way towards an explanation.
Adhering to the formal process of deduction, several deductive systems are
possible, some of which consider as a postulate that which is a consequence in
others, and vice versa. In order to arrive at an explanation, it is essential then to
concretize the deduction of laws in the form of ‘models’ that are supposed both
to represent the real processes and to express them in the form of deductive
operations, the aim being achieved when the deductive operations are matched
by the actual changes that have taken place (see below under 9, etc.).
The explanation is thus obtained when the laws (I) are matched by a possible
deduction (2) being concretized in a model (3). However, it is well known that
psychology more than any other subject, abounds in explanatory hypotheses.
Also, while present trends are incontestably towards unification, of which we
shall see some examples, the fact remains that such unification is more a pro-
gramme for the future than a present reality and that the study of psychology
still covers a fairly wide range of interpretative approaches. The cause does not
lie in the laws, on which it is more or less easy to agree in the more experimental
sectors and the verification of which gives rise to much endeavour in the more
clinical or psycho-social areas of research. Nor does the cause lie in the co-ordina-
tion or inference of laws, for if some stress more logicization and others do with
a more intuitive approach, the results are basically the same. The real cause is
to be sought in the diversity of possible models, since mental life has its origin
in organic life, develops in social life and manifests itself by means of a great
many structures (logical, psycho-linguistic, etc.). Hence a great diversity of
models, which vary according to the predominant approach: reductionist at-
tempts of an organicist (see under 3), physicalist (4) or sociological (5) nature,
attempts to attain psychological specificity in the transformations or the instinct
in a state of dialectics with the ego (a, in behavioural manifestations (7), or in
development in general (S), all this taking more or less concrete forms or turned
towards abstract models (9). It is the examination of these manifold forms of
interpretation that will best help to determine both current trends in psychology,
other than of the positivist kind, and the increasing connexions between this
discipline and the other sciences.