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

496 Jean Piaget
such as that of the theory of ‘general systems’ is of particular value (a system
being defined as a complex of elements in non-contingent interaction). In his
works on scientific thought A. N. Whitehead already supported the notion that
interpretations usually denounced as being ‘mechanical’ could not deal ex-
haustively with the analysis of the real and that the concepts of organism or
organization have specific characteristics which ought to be used. Proceeding
from biology (but also from a Gestalt-oriented psychological view), L. von
Bertalanffy studied this problem by seeking to derive from this ‘organicism’
certain general models whose interest is not merely biological (theory of ‘open’
systems and their specific thermodynamics) but also extends to a certain number
of the human sciences insofar as it is possible to generalize the notions of
homeostasis (inter alia for the theory of needs), differentiation, stratification,
etc.25 Experiments in the mathematical analysis of such structures having an
‘organized complexity’, with which A. Rapoport and others have been associat-
ed, rapidly showed the convergence between some of these anticipations and N.
Wiener’s26 cybernetics, especially in the field of ‘equihality’ (arrival at final
states which are relatively independent of initial conditions). But the central
problem remains that of relations between sub-systems and the total system
when (and this is the general case of structures not yet reducible to algebraic
forms) the composition of the whole is not additive or linear.
To return to functions, utility or values, it therefore seems evident that to the
extent that the structures under consideration are in process of development
(or of regression), questions of functioning are at the heart of the problems.
Any genetic process which results in structures undoubtedly consists of balanc-
ings alternating with imbalances followed by rebalancing (which may succeed
or fail), since human beings never remain passive but constantly pursue some aim
or react to perturbations by active compensations consisting in regulations. It
follows from this that every action proceeds from a need which is connected
with the system as a whole and that values likewise dependent on the system as
a whole are attached to every action and to every situation favorable or un-
favorable to its execution. In the sphere of cognitive structures, where needs and
values are relative to the activities of comprehension and invention, such a
model makes it possible to explain simultaneously the psychological progres-
sion of stages of mental development and the logical nature of the structures
thus achieved (since regulations lead to operations and balancing leads to their
reversibility; see section 7). This cognitive development is already a social
as much as a psychological or even a biological one, since the operations of the
individual are indissociable from inter-individual co-operation (in the most
etymological sense of the word). Thus the model seems to be partly open to
generalization in the social field as a whole (we shall return to this issue in
section 14), but only on condition that consideration is given to needs and
values of whatever nature, not only in their cognitive forms.
In this connexion reference should undoubtedly be made to a specific type of
research which may be called ‘praxeology’ (cf. Chapter IV, “Economics”)
and which is a theory, essentially interdisciplinary, of behaviours as relations
between means and ends from the viewpoint of yield as well as of choice.