- Email: [email protected]
The structure of paradigm change
ARTICLE IN PRESS
New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220 www.elsevier.com/locate/newideapsych
The structure of paradigm change Wouter van Haaften Radboud University of Nijmegen, Spinoza Building No. 4.27, P.O. Box 9104, NL 6500 Nijmegen, The Netherlands Available online 1 March 2007
Abstract I propose a concise picture of the core structure of paradigm change. It consists of the three basic steps which, I suggest, are common to all forms of paradigm change, individual as well as collective and in every conceptual domain. These steps are formularized so as to stimulate more precise theorizing about, and comparisons between various alleged forms of paradigm change. I explain the idea and give evidence for it using examples from the fields of cognitive psychology, moral psychology, and the history of science. r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Paradigm change; Conceptual change; Judgment criterion; Moral development; Science education; Philosophy of science
1. Introduction Different forms of conceptual change can be structurally distinguished by the judgment criteria typical of the conceptualizations before and after the change (Van Haaften, 2007). In this approach, conceptual change is characterized in terms of the specific relation between the successive kinds and compositions of judgment criteria. One particular form of conceptual change is paradigm change. In my previous paper, I thus proposed a strict definition of paradigm change, as opposed to other types of conceptual change. In the present paper, I suggest that paradigm change so defined occurs in three basic steps which can be specified much more exactly than has been done so far. My bold hypothesis will be that these three steps are typical of all forms of paradigm change, individual as well as collective and in every conceptual domain. Tel.: +31 24 3612293; fax: +31 24 3616211.
E-mail address: [email protected]. 0732-118X/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2006.12.001
ARTICLE IN PRESS 208
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
I begin by explaining the basic idea underlying this proposal. Then I will discuss some examples in order to clarify and more precisely delineate what is involved in each step of the paradigm change. My first example is the paradigm change in the history of science from Newton to Einstein, taken from Kuhn’s original Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). I will show how I follow up on his lead and try to add to his ideas. Next, I discuss a form of individual paradigm change, namely how children change their view of the earth as flat into the culturally induced view that the earth is spherical, as researched by Vosniadou and Brewer (1992). Here I hope to show that paradigm change in individual cognitive development occurs along the same basic steps that could be defined and formularized for paradigm change in the history of science. My last example will be from the rather different sphere of moral development, namely the transition from conventional to principled morality, as put forward in the theory of Kohlberg (e.g., 1981). Although this is nothing more than just one example, I hope it may help to support my claim that paradigm change with the same structure can happen in a wide variety of domains. By way of conclusion I will summarize the three basic steps of paradigm change in one compact formula. 2. Conceptual change and paradigm change in terms of judgment criteria Very briefly, the basic idea is this. We (human beings) are constantly making judgments. From childhood on, in all kinds of situations we have to learn or find out what is the case and what ought to be done. Of course, these are not always highly reflective activities, but either explicitly or implicitly we thus come to use particular judgment criteria in making our decisions as to what is the better thing to believe or what is the better thing to do. Usually, more or less complex sets of judgment criteria are involved, guiding our understanding of how (in diverse domains) the world fits together or how (in various situations) we should act. Now, these sets of criteria are at the same time typical of how the relevant domains are conceptualized. In other words, our conceptualization of a certain domain (including moral or also aesthetic domains) can be characterized in terms of the judgment criteria we typically use in that domain. Therefore, we can represent a conceptual change in any domain in terms of the differences between the criteria that are typically used before and after that change. Naturally, the specific criteria involved will be very different in each particular case, but various types of conceptual change can now be portrayed, and can thus be made systematically comparable in terms of the typical structures of the relations between the sets of judgment criteria used before and after the change. This characterization makes it also possible to express the various kinds of conceptual change in exact formulae. In Van Haaften (2007), I have shown how we can in this way distinguish several forms of conceptual change by the different compositions of the judgment criteria at issue. Next, I have argued that paradigm change is one very special form of conceptual change that can be defined along the same lines. Paradigm change results from a criterion mutation leading to local incommensurability between the conceptualization stages, when (at least) one feature that was typically required as a central judgment criterion in the relevant domain before the change is explicitly rejected after the change. In the following, I will extend this argument (though without presupposing the foregoing article) by showing how we can give a neat structural description of what generally may be taken to constitute the three basic steps of paradigm change, in which at least one previously characteristic judgment criterion comes to be turned into precisely the reverse
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
209
judgment criterion. That is, I will take for granted that paradigm change can be represented in terms of judgment criteria and give some (simplified) examples of how this can be done; and then I will, for three specific domains, in the fields of cognitive psychology (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992), moral psychology (Kohlberg, 1981; Piaget, 1932), and the history of science (Kuhn, 1962, 2000), show how each of the three steps is required for, and contributes to, the accomplishment of a real paradigm change. Three further preliminary remarks need to be made here. First, in the conceptual change literature of the last decades the attention has shifted from logical structures to actual processes and environmental influences, particularly also in the context of science education (e.g., Schnotz, Vosniadou, & Carretero, 1999). However, I think process and structure are complementary. Understanding what really happens in the processes of conceptual change is most important, but the logical reconstruction of these constructive processes can help us to see precisely what the change at issue consists in, an thereby also contribute to finding effective ways to support this kind of radical changes in the conceptualization of the relevant (smaller or larger) part of reality (cf. Van Haaften, Korthals, & Wren, 1997). Second, with the exception of a final note, I will discuss conceptual change and paradigm change here without making or implying any value judgment on my part as to whether or not some of these changes are for the better, even though some of my examples are taken from developmental theory where the changes are often seen as an advance, and even though the persons actually involved in the change will often stick to it precisely because they are convinced that it is for the better. Third, I will, for the sake of convenience, in my reconstructions below use the term ‘stage’ for the different successive conceptualizations before, during, and after the change; but this is emphatically not meant to bind us to any notion of rigid empirical stages, let alone to the idea of sudden shifts. Not only Kuhn but also Piaget and Kohlberg have clearly seen that the change processes usually are protracted, laborious, often even seemingly aimless. However, this can only be the more reason to supplement the study of such processes with a structural analysis of what exactly the change in question eventually amounts to. 3. Paradigm change in the history of science: from Newton to Einstein Let us begin where the story of paradigm change began: with Thomas Kuhn’s groundbreaking The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962, 1970). Kuhn’s ideas have been vehemently discussed since, and they have been amended on many points by himself as well as by others, but that is not our concern here. What I want to bring out is that, however ambiguous his notion of paradigm change may be have been in other respects at that time, he does in fact already introduce the one criterion that I suggested is crucial for the distinction between paradigm change and all other forms of conceptual change. For Kuhn, Newton’s Principia constitutes a paradigmatic scientific paradigm. ‘No other work known to the history of science has simultaneously permitted so large an increase in both the scope and precision of research.’ (Kuhn, 1970, p. 30). Likewise, the shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian dynamics is a paradigmatic paradigm change for him. ‘From the viewpoint of this essay these two theories are fundamentally incompatible (y): Einstein’s theory can be accepted only with the recognition that Newton’s was wrong.’ (Kuhn, 1970, p. 98).
ARTICLE IN PRESS 210
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
Kuhn then continues to acknowledge that the latter point does not represent the generally embraced view—and this was certainly true at the time when his book appeared. One of the common objections to the idea that acceptance of Einstein would imply admitting that Newton was wrong, Kuhn explains, is that Newtonian dynamics is still being used with great success, and can, at least under certain conditions (such as that the relative velocities of bodies considered must be small compared with the velocity of light), be interpreted as constituting a special case of, or ‘derivable from’ Einstein’s theory. In the—limited, as is now admitted—terrestrial circumstances it works just as well as it has always done. Moreover, Newtonian theory has never claimed wider than terrestrial validity. So, the argument goes, in so far as it ever was a truly scientific theory supported by valid evidence, it still is! Kuhn refutes this kind of reasoning in defense of the idea that Newton’s theory can be saved as partial within, and derivable from, the encompassing theory of Einstein along two lines (Kuhn, 1970, pp. 99ff.). First, he makes the general and fundamental point that by so restricting a theory’s range of application to only specific phenomena and to only a specific degree of precision of observation, scientific research is prohibited in fact to address any new evidence beyond these limits that might undermine the theory in question, which in turn virtually amounts to denying this field the possibility of progress through scientific revolution. Second, Newton cannot be seen as a theoretical derivative of Einstein because the meaning of some of the core terms still being used has fundamentally changed. Any attempt to ‘derive’ Newton’s theory from, and interpret it as partial within, Einstein’s will therefore be doomed to founder from the moment that the new theory is really accepted. ‘Successive paradigms tell us different things about the population of the universe and about that population’s behavior.’ (Kuhn, 1970, p. 103). This is, in brief, why Kuhn holds on to the idea that acceptance of Einstein’s theory demands the recognition that Newton’s theory was wrong. Structurally, this is also precisely what differentiates paradigm change from other forms of conceptual change, according to Kuhn. Note that in so opposing Einstein against Newton (‘accepting the one requires recognizing that the other is wrong’) Kuhn is here using the word ‘theory’ in a very broad sense. His notion of paradigm does not imply that the one is somehow directly true and the other false. Rather, it is a pointed way to say that their pictures, or models (cf. Giere, 1999), of the world—only within which theories can become meaningful—are incompatible. Or, as we may formulate it more precisely now, it is to say that at least one typical judgment criterion of the one is contrary to at least one typical judgment criterion of the other. Now let me show how the disagreement between Kuhn and his opponents can be articulated in terms of judgment criteria indeed, and how this can clarify what Kuhn considered essential for paradigm change. Roughly, at first, in the Newtonian stage, the things we might want to say about ‘the population of the universe’ would have to be in accordance with Newton’s laws. This is the broad criterion that our judgments about physical reality should meet. In formula we may let P stand for this ensemble of laws, and /P for the criterion that judgments A, B, y should be in accordance with P. Then A4B/P means that A more than B satisfies criterion /P, or that A is better than B on criterion /P (this is just very rough for now; the criteria might be refined and detailed to any degree; for a more elaborated ‘logic of development’, see Van Haaften, 1998, 2007). Next, Einstein comes in, with his new judgment criterion for the adequacy of what we say about the universe; and it soon becomes clear that the two judgment criteria are at least not entirely compatible. We now have /P for Newton and /Q for Einstein, say, and
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
211
attempts are being made to de-generalize /P so that /Q is for the entire universe (Einstein) and /P only for the limited terrestrial part of it (Newton). Thus, it is hoped, can /P be made compatible with the new /Q and kept in force for the sublunary condition. In brief, using 4 for ‘and’ and : for ‘not’, we first had judgment criterion /P; next we got: /Q 4 /P (Einstein besides Newton); and now it becomes: /Q 4 /Pa or, more precisely, /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb). This is to say that part of /P, namely /Pa (the earthly part) is kept in function, but the other part, /Pb (for any claim beyond that reach) is abandoned. In other words, judgment criterion /Pa remains; while /Pb is no longer in use, which we write as: :/Pb. This is precisely what Kuhn’s opponents defend: Newton is made compatible with Einstein by restricting his (Newton’s) area of application: our judgments must be in accordance with /Q, and with the limited /Pa but they need not be in accordance with any farther /Pb. Altogether, we therefore write: /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb). However, Kuhn rejects this view. Accepting Einstein, he argues, implies rejecting Newton. This is the crucial step beyond his opponents, and this is what makes it a paradigm change. It is to see that, on further consideration, the room for /Pa shrinks giving place to an increasing /Pb that cannot be applicable (:/Pb). And precisely this insight eventually leads to the recognition that P and Q are incompatible indeed, which means that Q implies :P, and that accepting judgment criterion /Q involves accepting the judgment criterion /:P. Now notice the slight but crucial difference here between :/P and /:P: it has to be acknowledged not only that criterion /P must be abandoned (written as :/P), but that /:P must be accepted. Kuhn: ‘Einstein’s theory can be accepted only with the recognition that Newton’s was wrong.’ (p. 98). For Kuhn, the essential characteristic of paradigm change is this single element: /P D /:P (with D for ‘changes into’ or ‘develops into’), as opposed to other forms of conceptual change such as those characterized by /P D :/P. In other words, structurally the initial judgment criterion /P must have been replaced by no less than /:P for the paradigm change to have taken place. And in Van Haaften (2007) I have argued that— with some minor qualifications to be discussed below—Kuhn has held on to this defining characteristic through all of his later revisions (cf. Kuhn, 2000). His most important adjustment has been that the element /P D /:P, contrary to the wrong impression arisen from his original book, is to be understood as ‘local’ in its effects rather than ubiquitous— which makes it no less radical but surely has helped to dispel much of the irrationality initially appertaining to the notion of paradigm change. The essential idea remains, however, which is that /P is at least one core criterion in the conceptualization of the relevant part of reality before the change, and /:P is at least one core criterion in the conceptualization after the change. Several authors have proposed more or less similar ideas, but never with so precise and strict a distinguishing feature, and it is only very unfortunate that there has been so much confusion about his notion of paradigm change in other respects. In line with the foregoing we can now also clearly formularize the three steps that may be taken to constitute the basic structure of paradigm change, effecting that strong transition /P D /:P. These steps are: ðaÞ =P D =Q ^ =P ðbÞ =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ ðcÞ =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P:
ARTICLE IN PRESS 212
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
At first, there was the Newtonian paradigm, considered by many as the obvious and more or less definitive worldview. For the sake of brevity, we summarized this in one judgment criterion /P. The first step (a) then is the appearance, and cautious acceptance, of Einstein’s theory of relativity besides Newton’s theory: /Q 4 /P. The next step (b) is the recognition that Einstein’s theory ‘tells us different things about the population of the universe and about that population’s behavior’ (Kuhn, 1970, p. 103). Therefore, while Einstein is maintained, various attempts are made to salvage as much of Newton as possible (/Pa) by relinquishing the other part of /P, namely, what is now interpreted as its improper generalization (/Pb): /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb). Finally then, at least sometimes step (c), the step that Kuhn so strongly advocates, is taken with the recognition that accepting Einstein (/Q) involves not only to partly or wholly abandon Newton (:/P) but to accept that, strictly speaking, Newton’s picture was wrong after all (/:P), resulting in: /Q 4 /:P. Only thereby the paradigm change involving /P D /:P is completed. 4. Individual paradigm change: from flat to spherical earth Now let us for a second example look at how children come to change their natural view of the earth as flat—not necessarily so flat as the Netherlands perhaps, but even if with mountains as an extended plain surface—into the culturally induced contrary view that the earth in fact is spherical. Vosniadou and Brewer (1992), in line with several earlier studies on the subject, show that children find the information from parents and teachers that the earth is a sphere difficult to believe. Therefore, children develop various alternative models of the earth which they feel keep up more of their initial idea that it is flat, before accepting that it is spherical. Vosniadou and Brewer argue that, from early age on, we try to integrate our experience (including what we are being told) into coherent mental models of the relevant parts of reality. In this way, our ‘constructivist mind’ represents the daily experience that the ground around us is flat, and that unsupported things fall down, into our initial model of a flat earth. And precisely because of the relative coherence of this model, as time and again confirmed by experience, it is difficult for children to accept that the earth should be spherical. Similarly, it is difficult for them to understand how people could live on a spherical earth without (at the underside) falling off. (In fact, this has also often been an argument against the spherical earth view in the history of science; cf. Kuhn, 1957.) The authors describe diverse intermediate models that different children invent, but I will here focus on the structure of the change process. The initial notion of a flat earth need not be very clear or even conscious. Rather, it is just a tacit idea of how things are, in accordance with which children interpret what they see. In this way it functions as an implicit judgment criterion, that we will represent as /P, which again means that any (comparative) judgment in this field should, directly or indirectly, make reference to the feature or quality P to decide what is more or less correct to think or say about these matters (cf. Van Haaften, 1998, 2007). Now, let us say that /P is typical of the child’s first stage. We might distinguish several criteria here, for instance separate ones for gravity and the risk of falling off, but I will simplify matters by subsuming all such aspects under the undifferentiated criterion /P. But then, children are informed that the earth is spherical; so that their thinking about the earth should be in accordance (also) with this new judgment criterion, let us call it /Q. The first step in our reconstruction may then again be rendered as: /P D /Q4/P.
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
213
When a child tries to incorporate this new, strange criterion, some awareness may arise of /P as somehow conflicting with /Q that has now also come into play. Then we see the various attempts to reconcile /P and /Q. Some children think that the earth is spherical but flattened, so that people can stand upon it; others that the earth is a hollow sphere with people living on flat ground inside it; others again represent the earth as a limited flat disc; some even use a dual model, one ‘earth’ being spherical and located up in the sky and one flat ‘ground’ on which people live (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992, pp. 549ff). What all these models have in common is that the new criterion /Q is accepted while /P is being adapted in such a way that the original notion of a flat ground on which we live is retained to a limited extent but its implicit generalization to the total earth is now abandoned. In terms of judgment criteria this can be rendered as: /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb), in which /Pa now stands for the partially valid criterion still to be satisfied (some flat ground) while /Pb is the farther reaching part of the criterion that is given up (the entire earth is flat). Thus, the second step in our reconstruction is: /Q4/P D /Q4(/Pa4:/Pb). But then, again, this is realized to be unsatisfactory. It (gradually or suddenly) becomes clear that the contradiction between P and Q remains, however much of /P will be relinquished. This might be considered tolerable for practical purposes so that judgments assuming some local flat ground are accepted but judgments presupposing an entirely flat earth are not. But strictly, or theoretically, this cannot be acceptable anymore. As soon as this is recognized, there is only one way out, which is to acknowledge that the criteria /P and /Q are really incompatible. Fully accepting /Q means fully rejecting /P. From now on, every judgment we make must not only be in accordance with the condition that the earth is spherical, but this condition also implies that no part of the earth is non-spherical. We do not only abandon (i.e., cease to use) /P as a judgment criterion, which should be written as :/P; but we have to accept the criterion that, strictly speaking, no part of the earth is really flat (in the sense of non-spherical), which should be written as /:P (i.e., the criterion is: not-flat). Therefore, the third step is: /Q4(/Pa4:/Pb) D /Q4/:P. This makes it a case of paradigm change according to the definition given above, with its inherent criteria mutation /P D /:P achieved in the three basic steps described. Notice that a step from /P to :/P does not necessarily require metaconceptual awareness, whereas the step from /P to /:P does. A judgment criterion can just be dropped (:/P) without our noticing it: attention shifts to some other criterion and the original one is simply lost to sight. A step from /P to /:P, by contrast, cannot be made without metaconceptual awareness. This is because /:P involves an explicit rejection of what was a core feature in the prior stage and its dominant judgment criterion. By the same token, the reconstruction given in the latter case (/P D /:P ) represents not only the theorist’s analysis of the conceptual change at issue, but also the (at least to some degree present) metaconceptual awareness of that change in the person(s) concerned. In sum, the transition children make from a flat earth to a spherical earth view may be seen as an example of individual paradigm change—supporting my suggestion as to how we may here again represent its essential structure composed of the three steps leading from /P to /:P: ðaÞ =P D =Q ^ =P ðbÞ =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ ðcÞ =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P:
ARTICLE IN PRESS 214
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
Initially, there was a natural, unquestioned and perhaps even hardly conscious feeling that /P is the right judgment criterion, which is at the same time typical of how the world is conceptualized. Then came the new information, introducing the strange and contrary /Q. Then followed the stage in which some reconciliation is attempted, by partly sacrificing /P in order to save what is considered to be its indispensable core (at least part of the earth must be flat!). This stage may be protracted and, as Vosniadou and Brewer argue, it may take various quite robust shapes. Finally, in these attempts to keep-but-reduce /P, it is recognized that full acceptance of /Q implies the full rejection of the feature or quality P that was constitutive of the original stage and its characteristic judgment criterion. That is, the original /P is finally turned into a /:P. Recently, Vosniadou and her colleagues have been criticized on methodological grounds (for an overview of the discussion see e.g. Panagiotaki, Nobes, & Banerjee, 2006). Vosniadou and Brewer’s open questions approach was found to favor the incidence of the intermediate mental models they propose, while Siegal, Butterworth, and Newcombe (2004) and other researchers, using forced-choice questions, elicited more scientifically correct answers, on the one hand, and more inconsistent answers that had little to do with the models of Vosniadou et al., on the other hand. Panagiotaki et al. conclude that the robust mental models may turn out to be largely artifactual. Vosniadou and colleagues, in turn, acknowledge the different results from different questioning methods but see no reason to give up the mental models children appear to construct in their struggle with the conflicting experience (flat) and information (spherical). They suggest it is the forcedchoice method that might inhibit the generation of internal models. However this may be, the children will have to make the transition from their conviction that the ground on which they live is flat to the insight that the earth on which they live is in fact spherical. In that process the initial /P is (at first partially) given up, in favor of the new /Q which is then finally acknowledged to imply /:P. Thus, in some form that clearly merits further research, /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb) is part of that transition. On the other hand, this conclusion makes clear that what we have given here is no more than a minimal structure of paradigm change. 5. Moral paradigm change: from serving one’s own community to principled morality This minimal structure is essential, however, and I suggest, is essential for every conceptual domain. So let us now turn to an entirely different sphere, the field of morality. I will refer to some well-known examples from the work of Piaget and Kohlberg. At first sight, they may seem structurally equivalent, but they are not. Thus we can see why not every conceptual change, however radical, is a paradigm change—but some are. A famous passage in Piaget’s The moral judgment of the child (1932) is about how children aged six to seven respond differently to stories in which a boy either (A) causes serious material damage (e.g., breaking 15 cups on a tray), though unintentionally; or (B) causes slight damage (1 cup), though in an attempt to get something that was forbidden to him (e.g., reach some jam out of the cupboard). Some of the children, who are in the ‘heteronomous’ stage of moral development, will judge the first boy (of story A) to be naughtier than the other boy (of story B), because their judgment criterion regards only the objective consequences of the act. Other children, often only a bit older but then in the predominantly ‘autonomous’ stage of moral development, will come to a reverse verdict, because their primary criterion makes judgments of right and wrong depend more on the
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
215
actors’ subjective intentions than on the objective consequences of their acts. What kind of change is this? Piaget’s theory has been criticized for underestimating the moral capacities of young children as it could be shown that in general they may understand moral rules much earlier than Piaget assumed them to be able to. Also it has been shown that already 3- to 5-yearolds may consider the actors’ intentions when making moral judgments, although the younger children will indeed give more weight to consequences and less to intentions than the older children do (see, e.g., Lapsley, 1996). However, even if children would start with exclusively the consequences criterion there would be no paradigm change with the advent of the intentions criterion. This is not because the consequences criterion is not abandoned, but because it need not be. The consequences criterion can remain fully in operation because it is not incompatible with the intentions criterion. They can be applied together. The two may certainly be considered representative of fundamentally different conceptualizations of morality. Intentionality may be seen as prerequisite for any morality in the more strict sense. Intentions are subjective and they are more of a qualitative nature while consequences are more objective and quantitative. But they are not in conflict. They cannot really conflict and therefore need not make way for one another—which would be a necessary condition of paradigm change as defined above. There is, however, a paradigm change later on in moral development, as can be seen in Kohlberg’s theory. Kohlberg (e.g., 1969, 1981), building on Piaget’s work, showed that moral development continues after the age Piaget focused on. I think that the transition from the second to the third ‘level’ (i.e., from the fourth to the fifth stage) in Kohlberg’s theory is the most radical one involving a real paradigm change. This is the change from the community perspective to principled morality. The first level, of preconventional morality, is self-oriented. Rules are experienced as external. Right is what the child can get away with, avoiding punishment, or what is personally rewarding. The second level, of conventional morality, is community-oriented. Perspectives of other persons are now clearly recognized. Mutual respect and approval, praise and blame, are motivating factors in moral conduct. Rules are seen as important to maintain the social order, at first in the smaller community of the family (stage 3) and later in the broader community of the group or the institution or, in the form of laws, of society as a whole (stage 4). At the third level, of post-conventional morality, what is right or wrong is determined by principles of justice, which may be of a more utilitarian (stage 5) or perhaps of a more Kantian (stage 6) tailoring. Now the rules and laws of stage (4) may come into conflict with the moral principles of stage (5) or (6). Whereas at stage (4) morality and the law in the society almost coincide, at stage (5) a deep discrepancy may become manifest between what is legal and what is moral. In this transition, from the second to the third level, we can find again the three steps that are constitutive of the basic structure of paradigm change. First, there is the community-oriented judgment criterion /P (for the sake of brevity I will again take just one criterion as representative of each level), according to which, among other things, the smaller (stage 3) or larger (stage 4) community should be fostered and its welfare promoted. Then, the transition to principled morality brings in an entirely different criterion /Q which—even though this can be done in quite diverse ways in turn—aims at impartially furthering the rights of all human beings. This is the first step: /P D /Q4/P.
ARTICLE IN PRESS 216
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
In Kohlberg’s theory, postconventional morality involves principles of universal justice and respect for the rights of all human beings, transcending any community-related social contracts or laws that might conflict with them. Now, at first it would seem no more than reasonable to try to combine at least part of the stage (4) criteria with those of stage (5) so that where the interests of one’s own community are not in conflict with the requirements of principled morality, both can be kept in force. This may be tried in various ways, but structurally this is precisely our second step again: /Q4/P D /Q4(/Pa4:/Pb). Such reasonings can be maintained—until it is recognized that the principled morality of the third level by definition is not directed at preferential treatment of anybody or any group or society. Moral principles not only can conflict with our social rules and laws. Strictly, principled morality is directed precisely against the favoring of any particular interests—including our own. That is the main thrust of this new conception of morality. And here we see again that this step requires metaconceptual awareness or reflection, namely about how group interests may conflict and how moral principles can overcome these problems, though at a price. This insight, that /Q implies /:P, is to take the third step; in our reconstruction: /Q4(/Pa4:/Pb) D /Q4/:P. With these three steps the paradigm change is completed. The second and third level of moral development, as analyzed by Kohlberg, are incommensurable indeed: they involve a criterion mutation of the form /P D /:P. Compare this with the step from stage (3) to (4) within the second level. The stage (3) child typically tries to comply with the expectations of the small circle of the family or other close personal relationships. This is the ‘good boy’ or ‘good girl’ orientation. The child is concerned to maintain the good atmosphere. At stage (4) this is broadened into doing one’s duties and helping preserve the extended community of the group or the society of which the individual is a member. What we see here is a criterion extension, of the basic form /P D /P3Q, in which (again simplifying for brevity) /P stands for the interests of the family and /Q for the interests of the larger group or society as a whole. There is no basic conflict, as the smaller community (family) the child is a member of, is part of the larger community that he or she also belongs to, and both have to be fostered. The original /P is kept in force but it is supplemented with the new criteria /Q of the more extensive community. A priority rule, written /P*/Q for: /P has precedence over /Q, may sometimes be needed. And children in the transition from stage (3) to (4) may at first, while recognizing /Q, give priority to their family, so /P3Q [/P*/Q], before giving priority to the larger community: /P3Q [/Q*/P], as is characteristic of Kohlberg’s fourth stage. This is an important conceptual change, therefore, but it clearly is not a paradigm change. In Kohlberg’s theory there is no real conflict between the stages (3) and (4). Rather, they are supplementary. We may say that in this case the stages are commensurable. Their judgment criteria can be combined because they are of the same kind, which is why they are compatible or reconcilable. The two stages we discussed from Piaget’s theory (focusing on objective consequences or more on subjective intentions of the acts) then are a-commensurable. That is, they apply judgment criteria that are totally different, however in such a way that no conflict can arise between them. Finally, Kohlberg’s stages (4) and (5), representative of his second and third level of community-oriented and principled morality respectively, are really in-commensurable. They involve judgment criteria that are incompatible (even though they do not exhaust the moral domain). Only in that case we use the term ‘paradigm change’, and here we saw its basic structure again, with /P turning
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
217
into its reverse /:P: ðaÞ =P D =Q ^ =P ðbÞ =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ ðcÞ =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P: At the second level of morality, there was the more or less natural idea that /P is the right judgment criterion, typical of how people relate to one another. Then came the new information or new insight, introducing the moral principles /Q. This led to attempts to reconcile /P and /Q, by restricting /P so as to maintain what is considered its indispensable core: the basic interests of one’s own community. This stage may again be protracted and wavering. But finally, in these attempts to somehow combine /Q and /P, it is seen that the serious acceptance of /Q implies the acknowledgement of /:P. Only then the paradigm change has been accomplished. Kuhn has until his last days been thinking over the notion of incommensurability, that lay at the heart of his enterprise from the very start, as becomes very clear in his papers collected in Kuhn (2000). According to Kuhn, incommensurability has never implied total incommunicability but rather involves a localized untranslatability of lexicons, and in particular between certain (interdefined) kind terms of the languages of scientific theories. My proposal in terms of judgment criteria comes fairly close to this; I only claim to give a more precise indication of what exactly constitutes the difference between the successive conceptualizations in case of a paradigm change, also by distinguishing acommensurable (/P D :/P) from incommensurable (/P D /:P) conceptualizations, and I suggest a broader application of this structural definition; which in turn makes possible a more exact formulation of its three main steps. 6. Logical causality I would like to make one final observation. Looking at the foregoing examples, we might say that all of them show something like the causal power of consistent thinking. At the beginning of this paper I have emphasized that my aim was a logical reconstruction of paradigm change, not a description, let alone a causal explanation of the actual change processes involved. But the three steps we have structurally distinguished demonstrate a kind of what might be called logical causality. For it is logical compulsion, the pure drive for consistency, forcing us to perform these steps. This is particularly true of the third, metaconceptual and in fact meta-reflective step from an evading :/P into an eventual /:P. Look once more at the moral development example. At the preconventional level, we were confronted with the heteronomy of our parents’ and other authorities’ do’s and don’ts. Norms are sacrosanct. At the conventional level, we come to see that we can devise a system of rules of our own, as Piaget has already shown so beautifully in his book of 1932: children may be so busy inventing the rules of a game that no time is left for playing it according to the rules. Similarly, we come to understand that we need to think up agreements on how to handle conflicts of interests, and so to contribute to the shape and welfare of our group or society whose current system defines the mutual roles and rules. And at the postconventional or ‘prior to society’ level, we become aware that these systems may conflict in turn, notably in a plural society. So we are, quite literally, almost ‘forced’ to the conclusion that what we need is principled morality; which then, however, is directed
ARTICLE IN PRESS 218
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
against the favoring of any particular community’s interest; which then, we are ‘forced’ to see, implies: including our own. It is an example of what I believe Piaget searched for in his genetic epistemology, his ‘dynamic kantianism’ (cf. Smith, 1993; and particularly also Smith, 2006). In the present context, Piaget’s intriguing epistemological question may be formulated as: how can individual moral autonomy develop from social heteronomy? How can any individual develop his or her own normative judgment, a normativity that is neither ‘individual fancy’ nor ‘external authority’ (Piaget, 1932, p. 374)? And how can any individual do so productively leading to ‘norms capable of purifying the contents of [socially introduced] common laws themselves’ (p. 401)? I think we may say that, without thereby reducing morality to rationality, it is precisely the above-mentioned ‘logical causality’ that enables us to transform our pre-conventional, socially induced heteronomous morality into our post-conventional, individually assumed principled autonomous morality. This is not just an empirical possibility, however, but also from the moment of its realization a moral or philosophical necessity. For sometimes a conceptual change brings not only new and qualitatively different judgment criteria but at the same time a new, meta-conceptual understanding of the required character of those judgment criteria at stake. Kohlberg’s moral development ‘levels’ are a good example. In the step from preconventional to conventional morality, we come to see that our moral judgment criteria are not just a given to be accepted from external authorities; but rather are, or can be, our own communal produce, depending on mutual acceptance. And in the step from conventional to postconventional morality, we come to see that when such judgment criteria are liable to conflict, we will need principles (i.e., meta-criteria) to regulate their use. Now, the point is that, once we have gained such a new metaconceptual insight into the required character of the relevant criteria, it is hardly possible in reason to relapse into the previous level of metaconceptual understanding (or: lack of it). Our further judgment criteria will have to be in accordance with this new view. Persons who have accomplished the last step of such a conceptual change cannot, on penalty of logical inconsistency, argue on the basis of the previous kinds of judgment criteria anymore. ‘Heteronomy steps aside to make way for a consciousness of good, of which the autonomy results from the acceptance of the norms of reciprocity.’ (Piaget, 1932, p. 411). In this way, paradigm change can really be a change for the better. Clearly, all this, and in particular also the last-mentioned point, needs a lot of elaboration. But it should be possible along these lines more precisely to locate the respective components in the construction (in Piaget’s sense) of moral autonomy; and similarly of the construction of our conceptualizations in all other fields. 7. Conclusion In this paper I hope to have shown that it is possible to draw the basic structure of paradigm change in a sharp and concise way. Again, its components are, of course, not new; they have been pointed out in more or less similar forms by various authors in various contexts. However, I think that the picture presented here is more precise, and at the same time more strict, and yet more broadly applicable, than many others. I have argued, in line with Kuhn (1962, 1970), that an essential characteristic of paradigm change is the shift of a (at least one) central judgment criterion /P into its strong denial /:P. Next, I discussed three examples, taken from different fields, in order to
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
219
explain, and provide some evidence for, the idea that the basic structure of paradigm change so defined, both individual and collective, comprises the three steps: ðaÞ =P D =Q ^ =P ðbÞ =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ ðcÞ =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P: Initially, the relevant part of reality is viewed under the operation of an often ‘deep’ judgment criterion /P. The appropriateness of this criterion may be found so obvious that its acceptance goes unnoticed. Criterion /P is deep-rooted and broadly generalized, supported by recurrent experience. It is through the advent of /Q that /P’s naturalness comes to be questioned. /Q is new, and strange. However, its force is acknowledged. At the same time it becomes perceptible that /Q and /P somehow conflict. The search for a solution to this problem will often be laborious and may take a long time. But its ingredients are clear. First, /Q is accepted even though its impact is not yet fully transparent. Second, /P’s reach is limited so that what is now seen as its essential part (/Pa) is kept in force whereas what is now considered as a perhaps undue generalization (/Pb) is abandoned, in an attempt to salvage both /Q and as much as possible of /P while doing justice to both of them. In this step, the relative extent of /Pa and /Pb may shift. Finally, in this attempt to de-generalize and reduce /P to its core so as to make it compatible with /Q, it is then recognized that /Q and /P cannot be reconciled this way because feature Q in fact implies the denial of the originally central P. Only with this last, meta-conceptual step, the paradigm change, involving the mutation from /P to /:P, is carried through. Summarizing the foregoing in one formula, we may represent the basic structure of paradigm change as: =P D =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P:
Acknowledgments I am very grateful to special editor Leslie Smith, and to David Moshman and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and stimulating comments. References Giere, R. N. (1999). Science without laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research (pp. 347–480). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on moral development, Vol. I: The philosophy of moral development. Moral stages and the idea of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harper & Row. Kuhn, T. S. (1957). The copernican revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. International encyclopedia of unified science: Foundations of the unity of science (Vol. 2). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kuhn, T. S. (2000). In J. Conant, & J. Haugeland (Eds.), The road since structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lapsley, D. K. (1996). Moral psychology. Boulder, CO: Westview. Panagiotaki, G., Nobes, G., & Banerjee, R. (2006). Children’s representations of the earth: A methodological comparison. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24, 353–372.
ARTICLE IN PRESS 220
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child (M. Gabain, transl.). London: Routledge (Original published as Le jugement moral chez l’enfant, 1932). Schnotz, W., Vosniadou, S., & Carretero, M. (Eds.). (1999). New perspectives on conceptual change. Amsterdam: Pergamon. Siegal, M., Butterworth, G., & Newcombe, P. (2004). Culture and children’s cosmology. Developmental Science, 7, 308–324. Smith, L. (1993). Necessary knowledge: Piagetian perspectives on constructivism. Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum. Smith, L. (2006). Norms and normative facts in human development. In L. Smith, & J. VonE`che (Eds.), Norms in human development (pp. 103–137). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Haaften, W. (1998). Preliminaries to a logic of development. Theory & Psychology, 8, 399–422. Van Haaften, W. (2007). Conceptual change and paradigm change: What’s the difference? Theory & Psychology, 17, 59–85. Van Haaften, W., Korthals, M., & Wren, T. E. (Eds.). (1997). Philosophy of development: Reconstructing the foundations of human development and education. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer. Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental models of the earth: A study of conceptual change in childhood. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 535–585.
New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220 www.elsevier.com/locate/newideapsych
The structure of paradigm change Wouter van Haaften Radboud University of Nijmegen, Spinoza Building No. 4.27, P.O. Box 9104, NL 6500 Nijmegen, The Netherlands Available online 1 March 2007
Abstract I propose a concise picture of the core structure of paradigm change. It consists of the three basic steps which, I suggest, are common to all forms of paradigm change, individual as well as collective and in every conceptual domain. These steps are formularized so as to stimulate more precise theorizing about, and comparisons between various alleged forms of paradigm change. I explain the idea and give evidence for it using examples from the fields of cognitive psychology, moral psychology, and the history of science. r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Paradigm change; Conceptual change; Judgment criterion; Moral development; Science education; Philosophy of science
1. Introduction Different forms of conceptual change can be structurally distinguished by the judgment criteria typical of the conceptualizations before and after the change (Van Haaften, 2007). In this approach, conceptual change is characterized in terms of the specific relation between the successive kinds and compositions of judgment criteria. One particular form of conceptual change is paradigm change. In my previous paper, I thus proposed a strict definition of paradigm change, as opposed to other types of conceptual change. In the present paper, I suggest that paradigm change so defined occurs in three basic steps which can be specified much more exactly than has been done so far. My bold hypothesis will be that these three steps are typical of all forms of paradigm change, individual as well as collective and in every conceptual domain. Tel.: +31 24 3612293; fax: +31 24 3616211.
E-mail address: [email protected]. 0732-118X/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2006.12.001
ARTICLE IN PRESS 208
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
I begin by explaining the basic idea underlying this proposal. Then I will discuss some examples in order to clarify and more precisely delineate what is involved in each step of the paradigm change. My first example is the paradigm change in the history of science from Newton to Einstein, taken from Kuhn’s original Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). I will show how I follow up on his lead and try to add to his ideas. Next, I discuss a form of individual paradigm change, namely how children change their view of the earth as flat into the culturally induced view that the earth is spherical, as researched by Vosniadou and Brewer (1992). Here I hope to show that paradigm change in individual cognitive development occurs along the same basic steps that could be defined and formularized for paradigm change in the history of science. My last example will be from the rather different sphere of moral development, namely the transition from conventional to principled morality, as put forward in the theory of Kohlberg (e.g., 1981). Although this is nothing more than just one example, I hope it may help to support my claim that paradigm change with the same structure can happen in a wide variety of domains. By way of conclusion I will summarize the three basic steps of paradigm change in one compact formula. 2. Conceptual change and paradigm change in terms of judgment criteria Very briefly, the basic idea is this. We (human beings) are constantly making judgments. From childhood on, in all kinds of situations we have to learn or find out what is the case and what ought to be done. Of course, these are not always highly reflective activities, but either explicitly or implicitly we thus come to use particular judgment criteria in making our decisions as to what is the better thing to believe or what is the better thing to do. Usually, more or less complex sets of judgment criteria are involved, guiding our understanding of how (in diverse domains) the world fits together or how (in various situations) we should act. Now, these sets of criteria are at the same time typical of how the relevant domains are conceptualized. In other words, our conceptualization of a certain domain (including moral or also aesthetic domains) can be characterized in terms of the judgment criteria we typically use in that domain. Therefore, we can represent a conceptual change in any domain in terms of the differences between the criteria that are typically used before and after that change. Naturally, the specific criteria involved will be very different in each particular case, but various types of conceptual change can now be portrayed, and can thus be made systematically comparable in terms of the typical structures of the relations between the sets of judgment criteria used before and after the change. This characterization makes it also possible to express the various kinds of conceptual change in exact formulae. In Van Haaften (2007), I have shown how we can in this way distinguish several forms of conceptual change by the different compositions of the judgment criteria at issue. Next, I have argued that paradigm change is one very special form of conceptual change that can be defined along the same lines. Paradigm change results from a criterion mutation leading to local incommensurability between the conceptualization stages, when (at least) one feature that was typically required as a central judgment criterion in the relevant domain before the change is explicitly rejected after the change. In the following, I will extend this argument (though without presupposing the foregoing article) by showing how we can give a neat structural description of what generally may be taken to constitute the three basic steps of paradigm change, in which at least one previously characteristic judgment criterion comes to be turned into precisely the reverse
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
209
judgment criterion. That is, I will take for granted that paradigm change can be represented in terms of judgment criteria and give some (simplified) examples of how this can be done; and then I will, for three specific domains, in the fields of cognitive psychology (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992), moral psychology (Kohlberg, 1981; Piaget, 1932), and the history of science (Kuhn, 1962, 2000), show how each of the three steps is required for, and contributes to, the accomplishment of a real paradigm change. Three further preliminary remarks need to be made here. First, in the conceptual change literature of the last decades the attention has shifted from logical structures to actual processes and environmental influences, particularly also in the context of science education (e.g., Schnotz, Vosniadou, & Carretero, 1999). However, I think process and structure are complementary. Understanding what really happens in the processes of conceptual change is most important, but the logical reconstruction of these constructive processes can help us to see precisely what the change at issue consists in, an thereby also contribute to finding effective ways to support this kind of radical changes in the conceptualization of the relevant (smaller or larger) part of reality (cf. Van Haaften, Korthals, & Wren, 1997). Second, with the exception of a final note, I will discuss conceptual change and paradigm change here without making or implying any value judgment on my part as to whether or not some of these changes are for the better, even though some of my examples are taken from developmental theory where the changes are often seen as an advance, and even though the persons actually involved in the change will often stick to it precisely because they are convinced that it is for the better. Third, I will, for the sake of convenience, in my reconstructions below use the term ‘stage’ for the different successive conceptualizations before, during, and after the change; but this is emphatically not meant to bind us to any notion of rigid empirical stages, let alone to the idea of sudden shifts. Not only Kuhn but also Piaget and Kohlberg have clearly seen that the change processes usually are protracted, laborious, often even seemingly aimless. However, this can only be the more reason to supplement the study of such processes with a structural analysis of what exactly the change in question eventually amounts to. 3. Paradigm change in the history of science: from Newton to Einstein Let us begin where the story of paradigm change began: with Thomas Kuhn’s groundbreaking The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962, 1970). Kuhn’s ideas have been vehemently discussed since, and they have been amended on many points by himself as well as by others, but that is not our concern here. What I want to bring out is that, however ambiguous his notion of paradigm change may be have been in other respects at that time, he does in fact already introduce the one criterion that I suggested is crucial for the distinction between paradigm change and all other forms of conceptual change. For Kuhn, Newton’s Principia constitutes a paradigmatic scientific paradigm. ‘No other work known to the history of science has simultaneously permitted so large an increase in both the scope and precision of research.’ (Kuhn, 1970, p. 30). Likewise, the shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian dynamics is a paradigmatic paradigm change for him. ‘From the viewpoint of this essay these two theories are fundamentally incompatible (y): Einstein’s theory can be accepted only with the recognition that Newton’s was wrong.’ (Kuhn, 1970, p. 98).
ARTICLE IN PRESS 210
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
Kuhn then continues to acknowledge that the latter point does not represent the generally embraced view—and this was certainly true at the time when his book appeared. One of the common objections to the idea that acceptance of Einstein would imply admitting that Newton was wrong, Kuhn explains, is that Newtonian dynamics is still being used with great success, and can, at least under certain conditions (such as that the relative velocities of bodies considered must be small compared with the velocity of light), be interpreted as constituting a special case of, or ‘derivable from’ Einstein’s theory. In the—limited, as is now admitted—terrestrial circumstances it works just as well as it has always done. Moreover, Newtonian theory has never claimed wider than terrestrial validity. So, the argument goes, in so far as it ever was a truly scientific theory supported by valid evidence, it still is! Kuhn refutes this kind of reasoning in defense of the idea that Newton’s theory can be saved as partial within, and derivable from, the encompassing theory of Einstein along two lines (Kuhn, 1970, pp. 99ff.). First, he makes the general and fundamental point that by so restricting a theory’s range of application to only specific phenomena and to only a specific degree of precision of observation, scientific research is prohibited in fact to address any new evidence beyond these limits that might undermine the theory in question, which in turn virtually amounts to denying this field the possibility of progress through scientific revolution. Second, Newton cannot be seen as a theoretical derivative of Einstein because the meaning of some of the core terms still being used has fundamentally changed. Any attempt to ‘derive’ Newton’s theory from, and interpret it as partial within, Einstein’s will therefore be doomed to founder from the moment that the new theory is really accepted. ‘Successive paradigms tell us different things about the population of the universe and about that population’s behavior.’ (Kuhn, 1970, p. 103). This is, in brief, why Kuhn holds on to the idea that acceptance of Einstein’s theory demands the recognition that Newton’s theory was wrong. Structurally, this is also precisely what differentiates paradigm change from other forms of conceptual change, according to Kuhn. Note that in so opposing Einstein against Newton (‘accepting the one requires recognizing that the other is wrong’) Kuhn is here using the word ‘theory’ in a very broad sense. His notion of paradigm does not imply that the one is somehow directly true and the other false. Rather, it is a pointed way to say that their pictures, or models (cf. Giere, 1999), of the world—only within which theories can become meaningful—are incompatible. Or, as we may formulate it more precisely now, it is to say that at least one typical judgment criterion of the one is contrary to at least one typical judgment criterion of the other. Now let me show how the disagreement between Kuhn and his opponents can be articulated in terms of judgment criteria indeed, and how this can clarify what Kuhn considered essential for paradigm change. Roughly, at first, in the Newtonian stage, the things we might want to say about ‘the population of the universe’ would have to be in accordance with Newton’s laws. This is the broad criterion that our judgments about physical reality should meet. In formula we may let P stand for this ensemble of laws, and /P for the criterion that judgments A, B, y should be in accordance with P. Then A4B/P means that A more than B satisfies criterion /P, or that A is better than B on criterion /P (this is just very rough for now; the criteria might be refined and detailed to any degree; for a more elaborated ‘logic of development’, see Van Haaften, 1998, 2007). Next, Einstein comes in, with his new judgment criterion for the adequacy of what we say about the universe; and it soon becomes clear that the two judgment criteria are at least not entirely compatible. We now have /P for Newton and /Q for Einstein, say, and
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
211
attempts are being made to de-generalize /P so that /Q is for the entire universe (Einstein) and /P only for the limited terrestrial part of it (Newton). Thus, it is hoped, can /P be made compatible with the new /Q and kept in force for the sublunary condition. In brief, using 4 for ‘and’ and : for ‘not’, we first had judgment criterion /P; next we got: /Q 4 /P (Einstein besides Newton); and now it becomes: /Q 4 /Pa or, more precisely, /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb). This is to say that part of /P, namely /Pa (the earthly part) is kept in function, but the other part, /Pb (for any claim beyond that reach) is abandoned. In other words, judgment criterion /Pa remains; while /Pb is no longer in use, which we write as: :/Pb. This is precisely what Kuhn’s opponents defend: Newton is made compatible with Einstein by restricting his (Newton’s) area of application: our judgments must be in accordance with /Q, and with the limited /Pa but they need not be in accordance with any farther /Pb. Altogether, we therefore write: /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb). However, Kuhn rejects this view. Accepting Einstein, he argues, implies rejecting Newton. This is the crucial step beyond his opponents, and this is what makes it a paradigm change. It is to see that, on further consideration, the room for /Pa shrinks giving place to an increasing /Pb that cannot be applicable (:/Pb). And precisely this insight eventually leads to the recognition that P and Q are incompatible indeed, which means that Q implies :P, and that accepting judgment criterion /Q involves accepting the judgment criterion /:P. Now notice the slight but crucial difference here between :/P and /:P: it has to be acknowledged not only that criterion /P must be abandoned (written as :/P), but that /:P must be accepted. Kuhn: ‘Einstein’s theory can be accepted only with the recognition that Newton’s was wrong.’ (p. 98). For Kuhn, the essential characteristic of paradigm change is this single element: /P D /:P (with D for ‘changes into’ or ‘develops into’), as opposed to other forms of conceptual change such as those characterized by /P D :/P. In other words, structurally the initial judgment criterion /P must have been replaced by no less than /:P for the paradigm change to have taken place. And in Van Haaften (2007) I have argued that— with some minor qualifications to be discussed below—Kuhn has held on to this defining characteristic through all of his later revisions (cf. Kuhn, 2000). His most important adjustment has been that the element /P D /:P, contrary to the wrong impression arisen from his original book, is to be understood as ‘local’ in its effects rather than ubiquitous— which makes it no less radical but surely has helped to dispel much of the irrationality initially appertaining to the notion of paradigm change. The essential idea remains, however, which is that /P is at least one core criterion in the conceptualization of the relevant part of reality before the change, and /:P is at least one core criterion in the conceptualization after the change. Several authors have proposed more or less similar ideas, but never with so precise and strict a distinguishing feature, and it is only very unfortunate that there has been so much confusion about his notion of paradigm change in other respects. In line with the foregoing we can now also clearly formularize the three steps that may be taken to constitute the basic structure of paradigm change, effecting that strong transition /P D /:P. These steps are: ðaÞ =P D =Q ^ =P ðbÞ =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ ðcÞ =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P:
ARTICLE IN PRESS 212
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
At first, there was the Newtonian paradigm, considered by many as the obvious and more or less definitive worldview. For the sake of brevity, we summarized this in one judgment criterion /P. The first step (a) then is the appearance, and cautious acceptance, of Einstein’s theory of relativity besides Newton’s theory: /Q 4 /P. The next step (b) is the recognition that Einstein’s theory ‘tells us different things about the population of the universe and about that population’s behavior’ (Kuhn, 1970, p. 103). Therefore, while Einstein is maintained, various attempts are made to salvage as much of Newton as possible (/Pa) by relinquishing the other part of /P, namely, what is now interpreted as its improper generalization (/Pb): /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb). Finally then, at least sometimes step (c), the step that Kuhn so strongly advocates, is taken with the recognition that accepting Einstein (/Q) involves not only to partly or wholly abandon Newton (:/P) but to accept that, strictly speaking, Newton’s picture was wrong after all (/:P), resulting in: /Q 4 /:P. Only thereby the paradigm change involving /P D /:P is completed. 4. Individual paradigm change: from flat to spherical earth Now let us for a second example look at how children come to change their natural view of the earth as flat—not necessarily so flat as the Netherlands perhaps, but even if with mountains as an extended plain surface—into the culturally induced contrary view that the earth in fact is spherical. Vosniadou and Brewer (1992), in line with several earlier studies on the subject, show that children find the information from parents and teachers that the earth is a sphere difficult to believe. Therefore, children develop various alternative models of the earth which they feel keep up more of their initial idea that it is flat, before accepting that it is spherical. Vosniadou and Brewer argue that, from early age on, we try to integrate our experience (including what we are being told) into coherent mental models of the relevant parts of reality. In this way, our ‘constructivist mind’ represents the daily experience that the ground around us is flat, and that unsupported things fall down, into our initial model of a flat earth. And precisely because of the relative coherence of this model, as time and again confirmed by experience, it is difficult for children to accept that the earth should be spherical. Similarly, it is difficult for them to understand how people could live on a spherical earth without (at the underside) falling off. (In fact, this has also often been an argument against the spherical earth view in the history of science; cf. Kuhn, 1957.) The authors describe diverse intermediate models that different children invent, but I will here focus on the structure of the change process. The initial notion of a flat earth need not be very clear or even conscious. Rather, it is just a tacit idea of how things are, in accordance with which children interpret what they see. In this way it functions as an implicit judgment criterion, that we will represent as /P, which again means that any (comparative) judgment in this field should, directly or indirectly, make reference to the feature or quality P to decide what is more or less correct to think or say about these matters (cf. Van Haaften, 1998, 2007). Now, let us say that /P is typical of the child’s first stage. We might distinguish several criteria here, for instance separate ones for gravity and the risk of falling off, but I will simplify matters by subsuming all such aspects under the undifferentiated criterion /P. But then, children are informed that the earth is spherical; so that their thinking about the earth should be in accordance (also) with this new judgment criterion, let us call it /Q. The first step in our reconstruction may then again be rendered as: /P D /Q4/P.
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
213
When a child tries to incorporate this new, strange criterion, some awareness may arise of /P as somehow conflicting with /Q that has now also come into play. Then we see the various attempts to reconcile /P and /Q. Some children think that the earth is spherical but flattened, so that people can stand upon it; others that the earth is a hollow sphere with people living on flat ground inside it; others again represent the earth as a limited flat disc; some even use a dual model, one ‘earth’ being spherical and located up in the sky and one flat ‘ground’ on which people live (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992, pp. 549ff). What all these models have in common is that the new criterion /Q is accepted while /P is being adapted in such a way that the original notion of a flat ground on which we live is retained to a limited extent but its implicit generalization to the total earth is now abandoned. In terms of judgment criteria this can be rendered as: /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb), in which /Pa now stands for the partially valid criterion still to be satisfied (some flat ground) while /Pb is the farther reaching part of the criterion that is given up (the entire earth is flat). Thus, the second step in our reconstruction is: /Q4/P D /Q4(/Pa4:/Pb). But then, again, this is realized to be unsatisfactory. It (gradually or suddenly) becomes clear that the contradiction between P and Q remains, however much of /P will be relinquished. This might be considered tolerable for practical purposes so that judgments assuming some local flat ground are accepted but judgments presupposing an entirely flat earth are not. But strictly, or theoretically, this cannot be acceptable anymore. As soon as this is recognized, there is only one way out, which is to acknowledge that the criteria /P and /Q are really incompatible. Fully accepting /Q means fully rejecting /P. From now on, every judgment we make must not only be in accordance with the condition that the earth is spherical, but this condition also implies that no part of the earth is non-spherical. We do not only abandon (i.e., cease to use) /P as a judgment criterion, which should be written as :/P; but we have to accept the criterion that, strictly speaking, no part of the earth is really flat (in the sense of non-spherical), which should be written as /:P (i.e., the criterion is: not-flat). Therefore, the third step is: /Q4(/Pa4:/Pb) D /Q4/:P. This makes it a case of paradigm change according to the definition given above, with its inherent criteria mutation /P D /:P achieved in the three basic steps described. Notice that a step from /P to :/P does not necessarily require metaconceptual awareness, whereas the step from /P to /:P does. A judgment criterion can just be dropped (:/P) without our noticing it: attention shifts to some other criterion and the original one is simply lost to sight. A step from /P to /:P, by contrast, cannot be made without metaconceptual awareness. This is because /:P involves an explicit rejection of what was a core feature in the prior stage and its dominant judgment criterion. By the same token, the reconstruction given in the latter case (/P D /:P ) represents not only the theorist’s analysis of the conceptual change at issue, but also the (at least to some degree present) metaconceptual awareness of that change in the person(s) concerned. In sum, the transition children make from a flat earth to a spherical earth view may be seen as an example of individual paradigm change—supporting my suggestion as to how we may here again represent its essential structure composed of the three steps leading from /P to /:P: ðaÞ =P D =Q ^ =P ðbÞ =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ ðcÞ =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P:
ARTICLE IN PRESS 214
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
Initially, there was a natural, unquestioned and perhaps even hardly conscious feeling that /P is the right judgment criterion, which is at the same time typical of how the world is conceptualized. Then came the new information, introducing the strange and contrary /Q. Then followed the stage in which some reconciliation is attempted, by partly sacrificing /P in order to save what is considered to be its indispensable core (at least part of the earth must be flat!). This stage may be protracted and, as Vosniadou and Brewer argue, it may take various quite robust shapes. Finally, in these attempts to keep-but-reduce /P, it is recognized that full acceptance of /Q implies the full rejection of the feature or quality P that was constitutive of the original stage and its characteristic judgment criterion. That is, the original /P is finally turned into a /:P. Recently, Vosniadou and her colleagues have been criticized on methodological grounds (for an overview of the discussion see e.g. Panagiotaki, Nobes, & Banerjee, 2006). Vosniadou and Brewer’s open questions approach was found to favor the incidence of the intermediate mental models they propose, while Siegal, Butterworth, and Newcombe (2004) and other researchers, using forced-choice questions, elicited more scientifically correct answers, on the one hand, and more inconsistent answers that had little to do with the models of Vosniadou et al., on the other hand. Panagiotaki et al. conclude that the robust mental models may turn out to be largely artifactual. Vosniadou and colleagues, in turn, acknowledge the different results from different questioning methods but see no reason to give up the mental models children appear to construct in their struggle with the conflicting experience (flat) and information (spherical). They suggest it is the forcedchoice method that might inhibit the generation of internal models. However this may be, the children will have to make the transition from their conviction that the ground on which they live is flat to the insight that the earth on which they live is in fact spherical. In that process the initial /P is (at first partially) given up, in favor of the new /Q which is then finally acknowledged to imply /:P. Thus, in some form that clearly merits further research, /Q 4 (/Pa 4 :/Pb) is part of that transition. On the other hand, this conclusion makes clear that what we have given here is no more than a minimal structure of paradigm change. 5. Moral paradigm change: from serving one’s own community to principled morality This minimal structure is essential, however, and I suggest, is essential for every conceptual domain. So let us now turn to an entirely different sphere, the field of morality. I will refer to some well-known examples from the work of Piaget and Kohlberg. At first sight, they may seem structurally equivalent, but they are not. Thus we can see why not every conceptual change, however radical, is a paradigm change—but some are. A famous passage in Piaget’s The moral judgment of the child (1932) is about how children aged six to seven respond differently to stories in which a boy either (A) causes serious material damage (e.g., breaking 15 cups on a tray), though unintentionally; or (B) causes slight damage (1 cup), though in an attempt to get something that was forbidden to him (e.g., reach some jam out of the cupboard). Some of the children, who are in the ‘heteronomous’ stage of moral development, will judge the first boy (of story A) to be naughtier than the other boy (of story B), because their judgment criterion regards only the objective consequences of the act. Other children, often only a bit older but then in the predominantly ‘autonomous’ stage of moral development, will come to a reverse verdict, because their primary criterion makes judgments of right and wrong depend more on the
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
215
actors’ subjective intentions than on the objective consequences of their acts. What kind of change is this? Piaget’s theory has been criticized for underestimating the moral capacities of young children as it could be shown that in general they may understand moral rules much earlier than Piaget assumed them to be able to. Also it has been shown that already 3- to 5-yearolds may consider the actors’ intentions when making moral judgments, although the younger children will indeed give more weight to consequences and less to intentions than the older children do (see, e.g., Lapsley, 1996). However, even if children would start with exclusively the consequences criterion there would be no paradigm change with the advent of the intentions criterion. This is not because the consequences criterion is not abandoned, but because it need not be. The consequences criterion can remain fully in operation because it is not incompatible with the intentions criterion. They can be applied together. The two may certainly be considered representative of fundamentally different conceptualizations of morality. Intentionality may be seen as prerequisite for any morality in the more strict sense. Intentions are subjective and they are more of a qualitative nature while consequences are more objective and quantitative. But they are not in conflict. They cannot really conflict and therefore need not make way for one another—which would be a necessary condition of paradigm change as defined above. There is, however, a paradigm change later on in moral development, as can be seen in Kohlberg’s theory. Kohlberg (e.g., 1969, 1981), building on Piaget’s work, showed that moral development continues after the age Piaget focused on. I think that the transition from the second to the third ‘level’ (i.e., from the fourth to the fifth stage) in Kohlberg’s theory is the most radical one involving a real paradigm change. This is the change from the community perspective to principled morality. The first level, of preconventional morality, is self-oriented. Rules are experienced as external. Right is what the child can get away with, avoiding punishment, or what is personally rewarding. The second level, of conventional morality, is community-oriented. Perspectives of other persons are now clearly recognized. Mutual respect and approval, praise and blame, are motivating factors in moral conduct. Rules are seen as important to maintain the social order, at first in the smaller community of the family (stage 3) and later in the broader community of the group or the institution or, in the form of laws, of society as a whole (stage 4). At the third level, of post-conventional morality, what is right or wrong is determined by principles of justice, which may be of a more utilitarian (stage 5) or perhaps of a more Kantian (stage 6) tailoring. Now the rules and laws of stage (4) may come into conflict with the moral principles of stage (5) or (6). Whereas at stage (4) morality and the law in the society almost coincide, at stage (5) a deep discrepancy may become manifest between what is legal and what is moral. In this transition, from the second to the third level, we can find again the three steps that are constitutive of the basic structure of paradigm change. First, there is the community-oriented judgment criterion /P (for the sake of brevity I will again take just one criterion as representative of each level), according to which, among other things, the smaller (stage 3) or larger (stage 4) community should be fostered and its welfare promoted. Then, the transition to principled morality brings in an entirely different criterion /Q which—even though this can be done in quite diverse ways in turn—aims at impartially furthering the rights of all human beings. This is the first step: /P D /Q4/P.
ARTICLE IN PRESS 216
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
In Kohlberg’s theory, postconventional morality involves principles of universal justice and respect for the rights of all human beings, transcending any community-related social contracts or laws that might conflict with them. Now, at first it would seem no more than reasonable to try to combine at least part of the stage (4) criteria with those of stage (5) so that where the interests of one’s own community are not in conflict with the requirements of principled morality, both can be kept in force. This may be tried in various ways, but structurally this is precisely our second step again: /Q4/P D /Q4(/Pa4:/Pb). Such reasonings can be maintained—until it is recognized that the principled morality of the third level by definition is not directed at preferential treatment of anybody or any group or society. Moral principles not only can conflict with our social rules and laws. Strictly, principled morality is directed precisely against the favoring of any particular interests—including our own. That is the main thrust of this new conception of morality. And here we see again that this step requires metaconceptual awareness or reflection, namely about how group interests may conflict and how moral principles can overcome these problems, though at a price. This insight, that /Q implies /:P, is to take the third step; in our reconstruction: /Q4(/Pa4:/Pb) D /Q4/:P. With these three steps the paradigm change is completed. The second and third level of moral development, as analyzed by Kohlberg, are incommensurable indeed: they involve a criterion mutation of the form /P D /:P. Compare this with the step from stage (3) to (4) within the second level. The stage (3) child typically tries to comply with the expectations of the small circle of the family or other close personal relationships. This is the ‘good boy’ or ‘good girl’ orientation. The child is concerned to maintain the good atmosphere. At stage (4) this is broadened into doing one’s duties and helping preserve the extended community of the group or the society of which the individual is a member. What we see here is a criterion extension, of the basic form /P D /P3Q, in which (again simplifying for brevity) /P stands for the interests of the family and /Q for the interests of the larger group or society as a whole. There is no basic conflict, as the smaller community (family) the child is a member of, is part of the larger community that he or she also belongs to, and both have to be fostered. The original /P is kept in force but it is supplemented with the new criteria /Q of the more extensive community. A priority rule, written /P*/Q for: /P has precedence over /Q, may sometimes be needed. And children in the transition from stage (3) to (4) may at first, while recognizing /Q, give priority to their family, so /P3Q [/P*/Q], before giving priority to the larger community: /P3Q [/Q*/P], as is characteristic of Kohlberg’s fourth stage. This is an important conceptual change, therefore, but it clearly is not a paradigm change. In Kohlberg’s theory there is no real conflict between the stages (3) and (4). Rather, they are supplementary. We may say that in this case the stages are commensurable. Their judgment criteria can be combined because they are of the same kind, which is why they are compatible or reconcilable. The two stages we discussed from Piaget’s theory (focusing on objective consequences or more on subjective intentions of the acts) then are a-commensurable. That is, they apply judgment criteria that are totally different, however in such a way that no conflict can arise between them. Finally, Kohlberg’s stages (4) and (5), representative of his second and third level of community-oriented and principled morality respectively, are really in-commensurable. They involve judgment criteria that are incompatible (even though they do not exhaust the moral domain). Only in that case we use the term ‘paradigm change’, and here we saw its basic structure again, with /P turning
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
217
into its reverse /:P: ðaÞ =P D =Q ^ =P ðbÞ =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ ðcÞ =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P: At the second level of morality, there was the more or less natural idea that /P is the right judgment criterion, typical of how people relate to one another. Then came the new information or new insight, introducing the moral principles /Q. This led to attempts to reconcile /P and /Q, by restricting /P so as to maintain what is considered its indispensable core: the basic interests of one’s own community. This stage may again be protracted and wavering. But finally, in these attempts to somehow combine /Q and /P, it is seen that the serious acceptance of /Q implies the acknowledgement of /:P. Only then the paradigm change has been accomplished. Kuhn has until his last days been thinking over the notion of incommensurability, that lay at the heart of his enterprise from the very start, as becomes very clear in his papers collected in Kuhn (2000). According to Kuhn, incommensurability has never implied total incommunicability but rather involves a localized untranslatability of lexicons, and in particular between certain (interdefined) kind terms of the languages of scientific theories. My proposal in terms of judgment criteria comes fairly close to this; I only claim to give a more precise indication of what exactly constitutes the difference between the successive conceptualizations in case of a paradigm change, also by distinguishing acommensurable (/P D :/P) from incommensurable (/P D /:P) conceptualizations, and I suggest a broader application of this structural definition; which in turn makes possible a more exact formulation of its three main steps. 6. Logical causality I would like to make one final observation. Looking at the foregoing examples, we might say that all of them show something like the causal power of consistent thinking. At the beginning of this paper I have emphasized that my aim was a logical reconstruction of paradigm change, not a description, let alone a causal explanation of the actual change processes involved. But the three steps we have structurally distinguished demonstrate a kind of what might be called logical causality. For it is logical compulsion, the pure drive for consistency, forcing us to perform these steps. This is particularly true of the third, metaconceptual and in fact meta-reflective step from an evading :/P into an eventual /:P. Look once more at the moral development example. At the preconventional level, we were confronted with the heteronomy of our parents’ and other authorities’ do’s and don’ts. Norms are sacrosanct. At the conventional level, we come to see that we can devise a system of rules of our own, as Piaget has already shown so beautifully in his book of 1932: children may be so busy inventing the rules of a game that no time is left for playing it according to the rules. Similarly, we come to understand that we need to think up agreements on how to handle conflicts of interests, and so to contribute to the shape and welfare of our group or society whose current system defines the mutual roles and rules. And at the postconventional or ‘prior to society’ level, we become aware that these systems may conflict in turn, notably in a plural society. So we are, quite literally, almost ‘forced’ to the conclusion that what we need is principled morality; which then, however, is directed
ARTICLE IN PRESS 218
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
against the favoring of any particular community’s interest; which then, we are ‘forced’ to see, implies: including our own. It is an example of what I believe Piaget searched for in his genetic epistemology, his ‘dynamic kantianism’ (cf. Smith, 1993; and particularly also Smith, 2006). In the present context, Piaget’s intriguing epistemological question may be formulated as: how can individual moral autonomy develop from social heteronomy? How can any individual develop his or her own normative judgment, a normativity that is neither ‘individual fancy’ nor ‘external authority’ (Piaget, 1932, p. 374)? And how can any individual do so productively leading to ‘norms capable of purifying the contents of [socially introduced] common laws themselves’ (p. 401)? I think we may say that, without thereby reducing morality to rationality, it is precisely the above-mentioned ‘logical causality’ that enables us to transform our pre-conventional, socially induced heteronomous morality into our post-conventional, individually assumed principled autonomous morality. This is not just an empirical possibility, however, but also from the moment of its realization a moral or philosophical necessity. For sometimes a conceptual change brings not only new and qualitatively different judgment criteria but at the same time a new, meta-conceptual understanding of the required character of those judgment criteria at stake. Kohlberg’s moral development ‘levels’ are a good example. In the step from preconventional to conventional morality, we come to see that our moral judgment criteria are not just a given to be accepted from external authorities; but rather are, or can be, our own communal produce, depending on mutual acceptance. And in the step from conventional to postconventional morality, we come to see that when such judgment criteria are liable to conflict, we will need principles (i.e., meta-criteria) to regulate their use. Now, the point is that, once we have gained such a new metaconceptual insight into the required character of the relevant criteria, it is hardly possible in reason to relapse into the previous level of metaconceptual understanding (or: lack of it). Our further judgment criteria will have to be in accordance with this new view. Persons who have accomplished the last step of such a conceptual change cannot, on penalty of logical inconsistency, argue on the basis of the previous kinds of judgment criteria anymore. ‘Heteronomy steps aside to make way for a consciousness of good, of which the autonomy results from the acceptance of the norms of reciprocity.’ (Piaget, 1932, p. 411). In this way, paradigm change can really be a change for the better. Clearly, all this, and in particular also the last-mentioned point, needs a lot of elaboration. But it should be possible along these lines more precisely to locate the respective components in the construction (in Piaget’s sense) of moral autonomy; and similarly of the construction of our conceptualizations in all other fields. 7. Conclusion In this paper I hope to have shown that it is possible to draw the basic structure of paradigm change in a sharp and concise way. Again, its components are, of course, not new; they have been pointed out in more or less similar forms by various authors in various contexts. However, I think that the picture presented here is more precise, and at the same time more strict, and yet more broadly applicable, than many others. I have argued, in line with Kuhn (1962, 1970), that an essential characteristic of paradigm change is the shift of a (at least one) central judgment criterion /P into its strong denial /:P. Next, I discussed three examples, taken from different fields, in order to
ARTICLE IN PRESS W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
219
explain, and provide some evidence for, the idea that the basic structure of paradigm change so defined, both individual and collective, comprises the three steps: ðaÞ =P D =Q ^ =P ðbÞ =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ ðcÞ =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P: Initially, the relevant part of reality is viewed under the operation of an often ‘deep’ judgment criterion /P. The appropriateness of this criterion may be found so obvious that its acceptance goes unnoticed. Criterion /P is deep-rooted and broadly generalized, supported by recurrent experience. It is through the advent of /Q that /P’s naturalness comes to be questioned. /Q is new, and strange. However, its force is acknowledged. At the same time it becomes perceptible that /Q and /P somehow conflict. The search for a solution to this problem will often be laborious and may take a long time. But its ingredients are clear. First, /Q is accepted even though its impact is not yet fully transparent. Second, /P’s reach is limited so that what is now seen as its essential part (/Pa) is kept in force whereas what is now considered as a perhaps undue generalization (/Pb) is abandoned, in an attempt to salvage both /Q and as much as possible of /P while doing justice to both of them. In this step, the relative extent of /Pa and /Pb may shift. Finally, in this attempt to de-generalize and reduce /P to its core so as to make it compatible with /Q, it is then recognized that /Q and /P cannot be reconciled this way because feature Q in fact implies the denial of the originally central P. Only with this last, meta-conceptual step, the paradigm change, involving the mutation from /P to /:P, is carried through. Summarizing the foregoing in one formula, we may represent the basic structure of paradigm change as: =P D =Q ^ =P D =Q ^ ð=Pa ^ :=Pb Þ D =Q ^ =:P:
Acknowledgments I am very grateful to special editor Leslie Smith, and to David Moshman and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and stimulating comments. References Giere, R. N. (1999). Science without laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research (pp. 347–480). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on moral development, Vol. I: The philosophy of moral development. Moral stages and the idea of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harper & Row. Kuhn, T. S. (1957). The copernican revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. International encyclopedia of unified science: Foundations of the unity of science (Vol. 2). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kuhn, T. S. (2000). In J. Conant, & J. Haugeland (Eds.), The road since structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lapsley, D. K. (1996). Moral psychology. Boulder, CO: Westview. Panagiotaki, G., Nobes, G., & Banerjee, R. (2006). Children’s representations of the earth: A methodological comparison. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24, 353–372.
ARTICLE IN PRESS 220
W. van Haaften / New Ideas in Psychology 25 (2007) 207–220
Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child (M. Gabain, transl.). London: Routledge (Original published as Le jugement moral chez l’enfant, 1932). Schnotz, W., Vosniadou, S., & Carretero, M. (Eds.). (1999). New perspectives on conceptual change. Amsterdam: Pergamon. Siegal, M., Butterworth, G., & Newcombe, P. (2004). Culture and children’s cosmology. Developmental Science, 7, 308–324. Smith, L. (1993). Necessary knowledge: Piagetian perspectives on constructivism. Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum. Smith, L. (2006). Norms and normative facts in human development. In L. Smith, & J. VonE`che (Eds.), Norms in human development (pp. 103–137). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Haaften, W. (1998). Preliminaries to a logic of development. Theory & Psychology, 8, 399–422. Van Haaften, W. (2007). Conceptual change and paradigm change: What’s the difference? Theory & Psychology, 17, 59–85. Van Haaften, W., Korthals, M., & Wren, T. E. (Eds.). (1997). Philosophy of development: Reconstructing the foundations of human development and education. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer. Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental models of the earth: A study of conceptual change in childhood. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 535–585.