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

XXXVI Samy Friedman
only hypotheses that can be verified by everyone, by furnishing in his carefully
differentiated techniques the means of control, the philosopher works on the
notion that he knows himself by means of a series of supposedly primary intuitions
pre-existent to all psychological knowledge.’ But though psychology
has won its freedom and its independence is henceforth established, it may well
be wondered whether the psychologist himself has always succeeded in freeing
himself from philosophical presuppositions. The survival within the discipline
of diverging schools of thought, to which Jean Piaget calls attention in the Introduction
to the present volume, surely implies the survival of philosophical
ties, which may perhaps equally be imolicit in his own approach to this chapter.
Jean Piaget has discussed this elsewhere4 (philosophical thought, in his view,
serves to propound problems but is not sufficient to solve them on its own),
and it would perhaps have been pointless to revert to the matter in a study
situated wholly in the scientific field.
Be this as it may, the author presents a striking epitome of the major trends in
contemporary psychology in the light of the various interpretations proffered. He
shows the limitations of the organicist trend, which is concerned to relate mental
processes and behaviour with physiological processes, for it is impossible to
reduce mental life to organic life. Intelligence does not emerge ready-made, as
something contained in the organism. It is fashioned little by little, by successive
graduated reconstructions. The temptation to link mental and physical processes
(Fechner) is likewise rejected. Recent work on perception and intelligence
has shown that the forms of equilibrium involved are closer to a regulatory
system than to a balance of forces. The relations between mental and social
factors lead on to a discussion of the importance of social psychology, which is
also dealt with in a chapter mentioned earliers, and at the same time to rejection
of any tendency to reduce one to the other, the relations between them
being those of interdependence and kinship rather than of dependence. Lastly,
on the subject of behaviour, learning and memory, he shows how inseparable
these are, being governed by the individual’s development. The author’s approach
is that of psychological structuralism, giving him the opportunity to reformulate
his famous views on the theory of intelligence. Over and above the part
played by the maturation of the nervous system, by the social environment, and
by experience in the development of intelligence, there is also a factor of coordination,
of equilibration, which is reflected in the familiar structures of
groups, networks, rings, etc. These are natural and take form spontaneously in
the course of the operations themselves, bearing on objects, space, time, causality.
This analysis of modern trends in psychology, based on the interpretations
offered, is most forceful. It highlights the many links between psychology and
the other social sciences and also certain natural sciences, such as biology. The
remarkable developments in new sectors of scientific psychology are not neglected,
however, though lack of space has, unfortunately, prevented Jean Piaget
from giving modern research on motivation, neuro-psychology, psycho-linguistics
and perhaps also psycho-pharmacology the full coverage that he could
have done. What may be called the strategic position occupied by psychology
within the system of sciences is likewise implicitly recognized, in relation to the