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

IO Jean Piaget
which implies methods of observation and experiment that will be discussed
later.
If we compare the many developments of macro-economics (and of micro-
economics, to which we shall revert in connexion with the theory of games) in
the early days of economic science with Adam Smith‘s Inquiry into the Nature
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations or, in more general terms, Rousseau’s
Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inigalite‘, we cannot help being struck
by the decentration that has taken place since the time of that abstraction, homo
oeconomicus - an image of the individual in certain restricted and very specialized
social situations. Whether in the Marxist doctrine of alienation, the probabilistic
and statistical analyses of Keynes, or modem econometrics, we cannot fail to
notice this basic phenomenon of the comparative and centrifugal approach.
It should also be pointed out that this phenomenon, which makes for increas-
ed objectivity in sociology and economics, is often dependent on the evolution
of society itself. For instance, the problem of social classes (which was noticed
by Thierry, Mignet and Guizot as early as at the beginning of the 19th century)
only achieved its full expression in the light of the well-known economic trans-
formations that took place later.
II. Several of the examples just quoted show that a second trend must neces-
sarily be added to the first: the historical or genetic tendency. One of the main
differences between the pre-scientific stage of our disciplines and their establish-
ment as autonomous and methodical sciences lies in the gradual discovery that
directly-experienced individual or social states which appear to give rise to
intuitive or immediate knowledge are in fact the product of an historical process
or development which has to be known before its results can be understood.
This is again a form of decentration, in a sense, but in addition to providing
an opportunity for comparison, it also offers a means of explanation in so far
as the developments in question are related causally.
Linguistics was naturally the first of the sciences of man to benefit from this
historical approach, since enough of the text of the mother languages has been
preserved in written documents to make it possible to reconstruct the history of
the principal modern civilized languages. The links are sufficiently obvious to
have led very early, even in the absence in certain cases of proved methods, to
etymological research, which seemed to be the basis of linguistic science long
before de Saussure systematically distinguished between synchronic and dia-
chronic questions.
Being based on history, sociology has likewise had access to numerous docu-
ments concerning the past of our societies and civilizations. Nevertheless, in
this field where facts are relatively accessible, it is surprising to note that the
problem of evolution was not grasped until a late stage, owing to the fact that
all attention was initially focused on the supposedly unchanging nature of man
and the standards governing social life, also regarded as an equally constant
emanation of human nature. Following in the wake of certain predecessors, in-
cluding perhaps Comenius4 and Vico, Hegel was no doubt the first to perceive,
on a still essentially conceptual rather than factual basis, the sociological