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Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:New book on spiritual Piaget and transpersonal psychology |
Posted by: | Leslie Smith |
Date/Time: | 2014/12/17 3:00:26 |
Taking Cambridge scientists, Newton regarded his work in theology as more important than his Principia. Francis Crick regarded himself as a humanist. The trend in the past was for scientists to be religious (Galileo!). Today, the trend is in the other direction. But such trends settle nothing as to some distinct questions: Q1: was Piaget religious? Yes, initially his plan was to work in the Church. But by the 1920s, he had a change of mind with his 2nd chair in 1929 (Professor of the History of Scientific Thought, University of Geneva) - where he remained till the end of his career. Smith, L. (2009). Jean Piaget: from boy to man. In U. Müller, J. Carpendale, & L. Smith (eds.). Cambridge companion to Piaget. [pp. 18-27]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Q2: is knowledge scientific knowledge? Piaget’s initial answer in 1918 was No. His ‘final?answer in 1930 was Yes - ‘final?in that, after 1930, Piaget did not seriously/systematically re-address his initial No-answer in his published work. That is one reason why, as to immanence, Chapman’s book ‘stops?with his 1930 paper. One way to track this is via Piaget’s initial interest in Boutroux (who argued that religious knowledge is knowledge, even though different in kind from scientific knowledge) , and his later interest in Brunschwicg’s work on the history of scientific knowledge. When he was awarded his 1929 chair, the?focus of his work was on scientific knowledge in line with his Inaugural Lecture. Three things stand out. He defined knowledge as scientific knowledge. This implied that non-scientific knowledge is a contradiction in terms. You might say: I don’t accept that definition. Fair enough - but Piaget did: this definition was explicitly stated, and it matched his subsequent work. Over half a century afterwards, all of Piaget’s empirical studies dealt with scientific knowledge or its related aspects. There were no empirical studies of children’s trans-personal experiences. His research programme was epistemological. Such was his own characterisation of his work, and it implied that all knowledge had an origin [genesis] along with a structured organisation, both of which required explanation. If trans-personal experiences were to count as knowledge, contrary to his anwer to Q2, the absence of empirical studies dealing with their formation from child to adult was a major omission in his own research programme. Q3: what is life? Aristotle gave a superb answer (different kinds of soul - Latin ANIMA). Piaget was fascinated by the question and with A’s answer that, he argued, failed to follow this through (e.g. the advance from animal to rational). But A did present a version of monism, contra the dualism/pluralism rampant in many positions (Plato, Descartes, Bergson, Frege, Popper). Piaget’s aim was to do better than A by providing a version of monism in which living processes were immanent in, an intrinsic part of, reality. Q4: what is reality? Re-visit his answer at the outset of?The Essential Piaget: ‘Je m’en fous de la realité’. His epistemology had no answer other than via the answer to Q2. Q5: is there more to the mind than knowledge? Yes, of course. Q5a And in Piaget’s work? Yes! But en garde:?the great theories of knowledge (Plato, Kant, etc) accepted that. They accordingly addressed the major problem: how to demarcate (using Piaget’s language in his 1924 book) “le moi et la realité”, the self and reality. He realized that the mind is very capable of “false ideas and fantasies? and not only knowledge implying the truth of what is known. Thereby arises Q6: how are subjectivities demarcated from their objective counterparts? A sketch of Piaget’s answer is here: it requires two ‘bridges' to be crossed Smith, L. (2009). Piaget's developmental epistemology. In U. Müller, J. Carpendale, & L. Smith (eds.). Cambridge companion to Piaget. [pp. 64-93]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The sole references to TRANS that I can find in Piaget are: - see my earlier email with references to Sociological Studies - transduction a fallacious kind of inference in his 1924 book - intra/inter/trans mechanism in scientific theories (late in emergence in his 1983 book with Garcia), and not applicable to human experiences as such. |