Social Interaction and the Development of Knowledge

Jeremy I.M. Carpendale, Ulrich Mller, Jeremy I.M. Carpendale, Ulrich Mller

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415651783
• eBook ISBN: 9781135637996
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
• Index: Psychology

Written by highly respected theorists in psychology and philosophy, the chapters in this book explicate and address fundamental epistemological issues involved in the problem of the relationship between the individual and the collective. Different theoretical viewpoints are presented on this relationship, as well as between the nature of rationality and morality, relativism and universalism, and enculturation and internalization. Many chapters also highlight similarities and differences between these alternative frameworks and Piaget's theory, and thus correct the misperception that Piaget had nothing to say about the social dimension of development. Other chapters focus on the implications of these debates for the important topic areas of pedagogy, moral development, and the development of social understanding in infancy and childhood. Although Piaget's theory is presented and evaluated by some of the chapters in this collection, the authors remain critical and do not shy away from revising or extending Piaget's theory whenever it is deemed necessary.

Though the topic covered in this book is of fundamental importance in the social sciences, it is rarely addressed in a sustained way as it is in this collection of chapters. The book benefits social scientists interested in fundamental epistemological issues, especially as these concern the relationship between the individual and the collective, with implications for the conceptualization of morality and rationality.

1 Social Interaction and the Development of Rationality and Morality

An Introduction

Jeremy I. M. Carpendale

Ulrich Müller

Simon Fraser University & Pennsylvania State University

DOI: 10.4324/9781410609649-1

One of the most important questions that can be asked about development is how the psychological development of the individual is influenced by society. Any complete developmental theory must address this issue, and the task of conceptually clarifying the role of society in development raises many important epistemological questions. Chief among these are the multifaceted problems of how to conceptualize (a) the relation between the individual and society or collective, and (b) the contribution of society to the emergence of rational and moral norms. A major goal of this book is to elaborate on the process of socialization and the epistemological issues involved in this process. These issues are the topics of a number of chapters of this book and are dealt with from a variety of theoretical perspectives.

Another goal of this book is to present and evaluate Piaget’s (1977/1995) unique but still widely bypassed treatment of these issues (Kitchener, 2000). Piaget is considered one of the giants of developmental psychology, but his theoretical and empirical contributions are mostly placed in the domain of individual cognitive development. Serious consideration of the social dimension of development is not credited to Piaget. In fact Piaget’s theory has been and still is considered by many psychologists (e.g., Bruner, 1997; Tappan, 1997) to be the avatar of an individualist approach to development. A number of chapters in this book (e.g., Amin & Valsiner, chap. 5; Boom, chap. 4; Döbert, chap. 7; Kitchener, chap. 3; Smith, chap. 9; Lourenço, chap. 12) show that Piaget’s theory is fundamentally social. Piaget’s ideas about social interaction and development are, however, complex and need to be examined and evaluated.

In this introductory chapter, we begin with a few words on the social dimension in Piaget’s theory. Next we describe and critically assess different ways in which the relation between the individual and collective has been conceptualized. Then we sketch different approaches to explaining the role of social interaction in development. Finally, we examine the issue of how society contributes to the development of rational and moral norms, which raises the problem of relativism. We also outline how Piaget and the contributing authors address these topics.

The Social Dimension in Piaget’s Theory

As mentioned earlier, it is still common to think that Piaget ignored the social dimension of development. Although this view has become entrenched in textbooks, it is incorrect (Chapman, 1988, 1992; Lourenço & Machado, 1996; Smith, 1982, 1993, 1996). In fact in Piaget’s (1923/1955, 1924/1928, 1932/1965) early work, social factors were clearly important. The early Piaget assumed that reasoning originates in interpersonal argumentation, and autonomous morality is the product of cooperation. Even in his later work, Piaget was not silent on the social dimension of development. This is clear from Piaget’s statements that, “the need to belong to a particular society is one of the essential parts of ‘human nature’” (Piaget, 1970a, p. 3) and the individual is a socialized entity “from the time of his birth until he dies” (Piaget, 1970b, p. 27; see also Piaget, 1977/1995, pp. 33, 35, 217, 278, 287). However, at a surface level, the social dimension of psychological functioning did not receive the same attention in Piaget’s later writings. One reason for Piaget’s apparent neglect of the role of social factors in development may have been his rejection of social transmission as sufficient in accounting for the development of new knowledge (Chapman, 1988). In addition, Piaget’s thinking about how social factors contribute to development changed considerably in his later work. Döbert (chap. 7) argues that this change in Piaget’s thinking represents an advance rather than a retreat because at a deeper level the social dimension became a more integral part of Piaget’s theory.

Because the social dimension of Piaget’s writings is largely unfamiliar, Piaget’s theory is frequently pitted against Vygotsky’s, with the assumption that Piaget neglected and Vygotsky emphasized social factors in development. Amin and Valsiner (chap. 5, this volume), however, refer to the debate between Piaget (1962/2000) and Vygotsky (1934/1986) over the phenomenon of egocentric speech to show that Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories are complementary, merely differing in what they emphasized. Piaget emphasized the operative aspect of knowledge, whereas Vygotsky emphasized the figurative aspect. Amin and Valsiner suggest that Piaget’s interest in the social dimension in development was largely formal, and that he was not concerned with the specific content of social conventions. In contrast, Vygotsky emphasized the influence of the specific content of external structuring resources; although he acknowledged that internalization is a constructive process, he did not elaborate on this process. Amin and Valsiner propose that an integrative framework, giving equal emphasis to both components, raises new questions and generates new ideas about the process of development. They illustrate this framework with examples from recent theory and research on semantics. However, their integrative framework has yet to be applied within developmental psychology.

Neither Individual Nor Collective: A Third Alternative

With respect to the conceptualization of the relations between the individual and society, three different positions can be distinguished: (a) methodological individualism, (b) sociological or dualistic holism, and (c) relational structuralism or systemism (Bunge, 2000; Moessinger, 2000; Piaget, 1977/1995). For Piaget, the question of how to conceptualize the relation between the individual and society is part and parcel of the larger problem of how to conceptualize the relation between elements or parts and wholes (Piaget, 1968/1971b; see Chapman, 1988, pp. 11–30). Accordingly, Piaget (1968/1971b) found the same types of solutions being suggested to the problem of the relation between the individual and society as to the problem of the relation between part and whole.

According to methodological individualism, all phenomena in the social sciences must eventually be reducible to individuals and their properties, and individuals should be used as the units of analysis for explanation (Bunge, 2000; Lenk, 1987). Methodological individualism has been endorsed by Weber (1978) and Homans (1961) among others.

Dualistic or sociological holism argues that social facts are irreducible to the behavior and cognition of the individual and thus constitute supraindividual entities. Accordingly, societal phenomena should be explained in terms of the properties of the whole societies analyzed. Piaget believed that Durkheim (1982; see Giddens, 1977, for a discussion) endorsed dualistic holism. According to Durkheim, sociological phenomena cannot be reduced to individual behavior because they possess the power to exert outside pressure on individual consciousness. In addition, Durkheim (1982) claimed that, in some unknown way, the fusion of members constitutes a whole with a psychic life of its own: “By aggregating together, by interpenetrating, by fusing together, individuals give birth to a being, psychical if you will, but one which constitutes a psychical individuality of a new kind” (p. 129). For Durkheim (1953, p. 26) psychical individuality of a new kind is manifest in supraindividual cognitive phenomena such as collective representations.

Closely tied to the individualist and collectivist positions are specific views on whether the individual or the collective should receive major force in explaining social facts (Dahlbäck, 1998). Whereas for many individualistic approaches individual behavior is the primary force, proponents of collectivist approaches often declare all aspects of persons inherently and completely social (i.e., they reduce the psychology of the person to the “fusion” with the social world [Lave, 1988] or to rhetorics [Shotter, 1990]; see Lawrence & Valsiner [1993]). Furthermore, in collectivist approaches, the collective is viewed as imposing itself on and structuring individuals (Piaget, 1970/1973, p. 21), and individuals’ behavior patterns and mental activities are reduced to functions of the collective (Piaget, 1977/1995, p. 39).

Both methodological individualism and sociological holism have been criticized for a variety of reasons (see e.g., Bunge, 2000; Elias, 1978; Lenk, 1987; Piaget, 1977/1995). Methodological individualism has been criticized for failing to take into account the internal relation that exists between the individual and society: Our actions are often formed and guided by anticipations of the reactions of others, which cannot be captured by the reduction of society to properties of individuals (Lenk, 1987). In addition, by reducing society to properties of individuals, methodological individualism does not provide any possibility to study and compare different cultures and institutions—the macroscopic analysis of culture and society is essentially ruled out by methodological individualism. Furthermore, moral rules and duties are social phenomena and cannot be reduced to factors of a purely individual psychology (Piaget, 1932/1965, p. 196). Finally, as Piaget (1977/1995) remarked, methodological individualism leads to the “attribution to individual consciousness of a set of readymade faculties” (p. 40), thereby ignoring that socialization is constitutive of and transforms individual consciousness.

Sociological holism has also drawn numerous criticisms (Bunge, 2000). First, it has been remarked that sociological holism reifies and mystifies structures (e.g., institutions). Reification has been defined as “the apprehension of human phenomena as if they were things, that is, in nonhuman or possibly supra-human terms…. The reified world is, by definition, a dehumanized world” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 89). Durkheim’s notion of collective representations as supraindividual entities provides an example of reification because representations are by necessity always individual because they can only be localized within individual persons and their brains (Boesch, 1989; Bunge, 2000). Reification leads to overlooking the point that social facts and phenomena are produced and continuously reproduced by human beings; they depend on human action and cannot be considered independent of human actions (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Elias, 1978).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• 1 Social Interaction and the Development of Rationality and Morality: An Introduction
• 2 A Relational and Embodied Perspective on Resolving Psychology’s Antinomies
• 3 Piaget’s Social Epistemology
• 4 Individualism and Collectivism: A Dynamic Systems Interpretation of Piaget’s Interactionism
• 5 Coordinating Operative and Figurative Knowledge: Piaget, Vygotsky, and Beyond
• 6 The Social Ontology of Persons
• 7 The Development and Overcoming of “Universal Pragmatics” in Piaget’s Thinking
• 8 A Bridge too Far: On the Relations Between Moral and Secular Reasoning
• 9 Developmental Epistemology and Education
• 10 Social Interaction and the Construction of Moral and Social Knowledge
• 11 From Joint Activity to Joint Attention: A Relational Approach to Social Development in Infancy
• 12 Piaget’s Theory and Children’s Development of Prosocial Behavior: The Force of Negation
• 13 Wittgenstein’s Intemalistic Logic and Children’s Theories of Mind
• Author Index
• Subject Index