Philosophy of Development PDF Van Haafte

Philosophy of Development
michiel.korthals@wur.nl
Philosophy and Education
VOLUME 8
Series Editors:
C. J. B. Macmillan
College ofEducation, The Florida State University, Tallahassee
D. C. Phillips
School ofEducation , Stanford University
Editorial Board:
Richard J. Bernstein, New Schoolfor Social Research, New York
David W. Hamlyn, University ofLondon
Richard J. Shavelson, Stanford University
Harvey Siegel, University ofMiami
Patrick Suppes, Stanford University
The titles published in this series are listed at the end ofthis volume.
Philosophy of
Development
Reconstructing the Foundations of

Human Development and Education
Edited by
WOUTER VAN HAAFfEN

University ofNijmegen, The Netherlands
MICHIEL KORTHALS
Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands
and
THOMAS WREN
Loyola University ofChicago . U.S.A.
,•
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-4770-0 ISBN 978-94-015-8782-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8782-2
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved

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as specified on appropriate pages within.
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1997.
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No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
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Table of contents
Preface vii
PART ONE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1. Philosophy of development: an invitation

Wouter van Haaften and Thomas Wren 1
2. The concept of development
Woutervan Haaften 13
3. Models of human development
Guy Widdershoven 31
4. Foundational development
5. Reconstruction and explanation of foundational development
Michiel Korthals 55
6. Evaluative claims about foundational development
PART TWO THEORIES OF INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE

DEVELOPMENT
7. Dimensions of individual and collective development in various

domains
Michiel Korthals 93
8. Cognitive development
Jan Boom 101
9. Moral development
Michiel Korthals 119
10. Aesthetic development
Ioe de Mul 135
11. Scientific development
Guy Widdershoven 153
12. Societal development
Michiel Korthals 163
13. Artistic development
ioe de Mul 183
vi Philosophy of development
PART THREE DEVELOPMENTAND EDUCATION
14. Conceptual development and education

GerSnik 199
15. Education and the development of personal autonomy
GerSnik 211
PART FOUR PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT
16. Structuralist and hermeneutic approaches to development

ios de Mul 223
17. Developmental philosophy and postmodemism
Jos de Mul and Michiel Korthals 245
References 261
Index 283
About the authors 291
Preface
Philosophy of development has as its object a broad and fascinating area of

psychosocial research. It is a second order inquiry or metatheory concerned
with the philosophical foundations of theories about human development
and education, and its subject matter overlaps with philosophy, psychology,
and education. This volume combines a broad sketch of contemporary dev-
elopmental theory with detailed discussions of its central issues, in order to
construct a general framework for understanding and, where appropriate,
criticizing developmental theories of individual and collective development
in various domains. Using this framework, we analyze a number of devel-
opmental theories, discuss the rich relations between conceptual develop-
ment and education, and conclude by locating our approach in the land-
scape of current philosophical debate.
Our main focus is what we have chosen to call "foundational dev-
elopment," namely those forms of human development in which what
changes is the very way the relevant domain is conceived. We hope to show
that when developmental theories are understood and pursued along the
lines set forth in the metatheoretical analysis of our opening chapters, they
provide an indispensable and fruitful approach to human development and
education. Much has been achieved, but also much work remains to be
done, both in deepening our understanding of the many aspects of human
development, and in broadening the field in many directions.
This book has been written in close cooperation by seven authors, of
whom three also served as editors. Although we have tried to present the
individual chapters in such a way that each can be read separately, the book
is intended to be much more than a mere collection of articles. It offers a
coherent albeit rather elaborate prospectus or prolegomenon that shows
what a fully comprehensive philosophy of development would look like .
The present book is a thoroughly revised and much expanded version of a
Dutch edition published a decade ago (van Haaften, Korthals, Widders-
hoven, de Mul, & Snik, 1986). The authors of that volume were members of
the philosophy of education research group at the University of Nijmegen in
the Netherlands. Since then they have continued to work on various topics
in the philosophy of development, and in the writing of the present volume
have been joined by Jan Boom from Utrecht and Thomas Wren from
Chicago.
viii Philosophy of development
The individual chapters bear the names of the individuals primarily

responsible for them. However, each chapter is actually a multi-authored
work, since the other authors and the editors were intimately involved in
the production of the entire book. A study of this magnitude and scope runs
the risk of confounding its several levels of analysis. However, this risk was
avoided, thanks especially to the efforts of Tom Wren, whose philosophical
critiques, auctorial contributions, and editorial shaping of the final product
are everywhere. Unlike so many multi-authored books, this one really does
present a coherent argument, integrating the views of all the authors, of
whom some are philosophers, some are social scientists, and all are pro-
foundly interested in educational theory.
The chapters in this book are all original essays, though some of the
material has appeared in different form in several journals and books. Parts
of chapter 2 appeared in Pedagogiee (van Haaften & Snik, 1994); parts of
chapter 5 in Theory and Psychology (Korthals, 1994); parts of chapter 6 in the
Journal of Philosophy of Education (van Haaften, 1990, 1993) and in Studies in
Philosophy and Education (van Haaften & Snik, 1996); parts of chapter 10 in
the Journal of Aesthetic Education (de Mul, 1988); parts of chapter 12 in
Oosterling et al. (Korthals, 1990) and in Philosophy and Social Criticism (Kort-
hals, 1993); and parts of chapter 15 in Musschenga et al. (Snik & van Haaf-
ten, 1992).
Finally, we wish to extend our special thanks to Marian Bekker, who
with her great expertise and devotion helped us to prepare the manuscript,
often under great pressure but always with wonderfully cheerful humor,
and to Jethro Zevenbergen, who very generously and expertly prepared the
bibliography and the final layout of the manuscript.
Wouter van Haaften

Michiel Korthals
Thomas Wren
1 Philosophy of development: an invitation
Wouter van Haaften and Thomas Wren
People change in many ways. Most changes come about smoothly and
gradually, some are abrupt and vehement. In either case the result may be
far reaching, as when the change leads to a fundamentally new way of
seeing things. Sometimes we are aware of this, albeit perhaps only in retro-
spect: "Now I look at these things in a completely different way ..." In this
book we are particularly interested in such forms of conceptual develop -
ment by which certain aspects of reality come to be seen from a radically
different perspective.
This happened, for instance, in the history of science. A well-known ex-
ample is the so-called Copernican revolution, when people woke up to the
disconcerting fact that the earth is not the center of the universe, but just one
planet in our solar system. Not everyone immediately grasped the full im-
plications of this fact, but it really meant a profound change of view with
many ramifications. This was by no means an easy change - as Galileo
learned to his chagrin. In retrospect we can say: In that period a new world-
view came into being.
There are many other examples of fundamental change in the way peo-
ple see things, either individually or as members of a shared intellectual
tradition. Perhaps the most striking are those having to do with the way to
live, that is, with morality. Over the last three millennia, the world (espe-
cially but not only the Western world) has moved through many moral and
religious traditions or worldviews, emphasizing personal virtue, natural or
divine law, God's will, rationality, utility, justice, community, and so on.
Within each of these moral traditions individuals have had their own per-
sonal careers, advancing in wisdom and moral worth in ways that some-
times - though perhaps not always - can be understood not only as
change, but as structured change. However, it is important to recognize at
the outset that understanding morality (or any other important part of hu-
man life) in this way is not to cut it up and put it into little boxes . "The effort
to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force
that makes for muddlement," wrote Henry James (1934, p . 149), and his
words apply to those who study human development as well as to the
1
W. van Haaften et al. (eds .}, Philosophy ofDevelopment, 1-12.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2 Philosophy ofdevelopment
humans who develop. Moral thinking is a form of creative imagination, of

"seeing and really representing," and like other forms of creative imagina-
tion such as artistic or scientific thinking, it has its own structures and its
own surprises. Of those who investigate these ways of thinking, some
emphasize the surprises and others emphasize the structures.
A prime example of the latter can be found in the work of Jean Piaget on
the development of moral reasoning in children (Piaget, 1932). He noticed
that children around 6 or 7 years of age respond in fundamentally different
ways to moral stories like the following.
A. There was a littlegirl called Mary. She wanted to give hermother a nice
surprise, and cut out a piece of sewing for her. But shedid not know how to
use the scissors properly andcut a bighole in herdress.
B. There was a littlegirl named Margaret. One day, when her mother was
not at home, she took hermother's scissors and played with them for a while.
But shedid not know howto use them properly and made a little hole in her
dress.
When asked which one of the little girls should be punished more, children
react differently. Marilene (6 years) says: "The one who made the big hole."
"Why?" "She made a big hole in her dress." Peter (7 years) says: "The
second one should be punished more." "Why?" "Well, the first one wanted
to help her mother. The other one was just playing with the scissors and she
should not do that."
These answers of Marilene and Peter are characteristic of what cognitive
developmental psychologists have analyzed as different stages in the devel-
opment of moral judgment. Marilene's reaction is typical of a stage in which
acts are judged by the magnitude of their material consequences. Peter, on
the other hand, is able to perceive intention. He takes not only the material
consequences into account but also the intentions with which the actions
were done. His way of looking at these questions has changed in a funda-
mental way. He has gone through a process of conceptual transformation,
resulting in a new way of looking at moral questions and judging moral
actions. In fact he now applies another set of criteria in judging the same
situations. He takes into account what Marilene could not yet adequately
allow for in her reasoning, namely that persons are intentional beings. The
point is not merely that his judgments are different now, but that they are
different because the basis from which these judgments are made has
changed.
Philosophy ofdevelopment: an invitation 3
The younger child's experiences are no less intense and complex or at

least no less rich in detail. The point is that we should be aware that some
children's experiences are differently structured from those of others, and
different again from adults. This implies not only that the world looks differ-
ent to them in some respects, but that the things they say may have different
meanings, even when they use the same words. This is a central insight of
genetic structuralist theories, according to which at each stage a conceptual
structure creates, and at the same time restricts, our space of potential mean-
ing. In other words, at any given stage we can, without being aware of it,
experience things in certain ways and not in others, and our possible
thoughts are organized in particular ways. Even our basic conceptual struc-
tures can develop, that is, they can undergo qualitative restructuring.
1 Foundational development
We shall return to Piaget's developmental theory throughout this book. But

it should be recognized at the outset that, for all its importance, it is only one
of many very different theories about how human thought develops. More-
over, changes in perspective can be found in diverse domains, in both indi-
vidual and collective forms of development. Qualitatively different stages
have been distinguished in theories of individual development, for instance,
social developmental theories concerning how children become more and
more aware of differences between their own experiences and perspectives
and those of other people. The same point holds for theories of aesthetic and
religious development. Similarly, different stages can be reconstructed in the
historical (collective) development of several branches of science, of the arts,
of political systems, and so on. In the following chapters we shall discuss a
number of these theories under the rubric of what we will call foundational
development.
We will fully explain the notion of foundational development in chapter
4, but let us give a preliminary sketch here. In our everyday thinking we are
often guided by certain basic intuitions or models or ideas. Although they
remain implicit most of the time, these basic ideas may strongly influence
our thinking and acting in concrete situations. In education, for instance, it
makes quite a difference whether we look upon children in the way Locke
did, comparing them to blank slates or empty containers to be filled in by
adult teachings, or in the way Rousseau did, emphasizing the child's natural
and spontaneous learning and development. Such tacit assumptions struc-
ture the way we, as adults, parents or teachers, deal with children. In the
first case, we will be inclined to mold their behavior and thoughts as best we
can . We will take it to be our responsibility to instruct and drill them be-
cause we feel it is our task to shape their character and personality, and we
will take the results to be our personal achievement. In the second case, we
will instead let the children follow their own spontaneous interests. We will
provide the best possible opportunities for them to flourish and develop
according to their own inner capacities, and will have a more modest view
of our contribution to their development. In short, people can have fun-
damentally different basic intuitions about the child's mind, and such ideas
have far-reaching consequences for education.
Similarly, we have our deep rooted moral convictions, and they will
influence our judgments and actions in many everyday situations, often
without our being very much aware of them. And when we look at art or
listen to music, we have strong feelings about beauty and ugliness, which
are based on certain ideas and criteria in the back of our mind. In general
then, we are directed by certain intuitive basic ideas in the manifold ways
we understand reality and shape our everyday doings. These ideas help us
in organizing our experience and in getting a grip on our situation. They
function like "minimal" or "implicit theories" (Thomas, 1990, p. 40). Perhaps
the word "theory" is a bit misleading here. They do not constitute nice sys-
tems of well-formulated statements about these fields in our mind. Rather
these intuitive notions work as pre-theoretical models or metaphors. Even
science rests on such underlying intuitions, which suggest to scientists parti-
cular hypotheses or experiments, and so to a considerable degree determine
the direction of their research.
It is important to be clear at the outset about how we are using the terms
"foundation" and "foundational." In making the foregoing claim we do not
embrace any so-called foundationalist epistemology according to which there
are fixed, self-evident, or otherwise indubitable truths that serve as an un-
shakable basis or fundamentum inconcussum for the rest of our knowledge.
We hold a quite different view of the foundations of thought and experience
(van Haaften & Snik, 1996). As Arthur Danto (1973, p . 33) once observed in a
related context, the fact that everyone has some parent does not commit us
to the claim that someone is the parent of everyone. The fact that there are
intuitive ideas underlying our thinking in diverse fields does not mean that
these ideas need to be the same for all of us, or that they need to remain the
same for ourselves during our own lifetimes. Nor does it mean that they
should be self-evident or unquestionable. Yet they have a part to play in our
Philosophy ofdevelopment:an invitation 5
cognitive life, and it is one of the tasks of philosophy to unearth and analyze
hidden notions underlying both everyday and scientific thinking, to clarify
how they influence our conceptualizations of reality, and to explain what
their implications are. This philosophical task may be called foundational
analysis, since its aim is to lay bare such tacit and informal foundations of
our thoughts and actions.
Because we are not foundationalists in the epistemological sense just
described, we also assume it is possible for these basic ideas to change. Even
the most fundamental notions need not be fixed once and for all. When they
evolve, new perspectives on the relevant aspects of reality will result. For
instance, with the growth of our children we ourselves may come to look at
education in an entirely different way. Or, we may gain a new moral point
of view. In science a new model of molecular adhesion becomes dominant,
classical physics gives way to chaos theory, and so on. In short, sometimes
new fundamental insights are attained which are qualitatively different
from positions taken earlier, leading to new ways of approaching the sub -
ject. In such cases a foundational development takes place. Crises or conver-
sions are not necessarily involved. It is usually only in retrospect that we
come to see that we have gone through this kind of fundamental change of
viewpoint. In one or more steps really novel perspectives have arisen. For
instance, in the genetic structuralist theories of conceptual development
proposed by Piaget or Lawrence Kohlberg, up to six or seven different
stages have been distinguished with regard to individual cognitive and
moral development. Such stages, or at least some of them, can be counted as
stages in foundational development. Similarly, foundations of scientific the-
orizing may change through time, as has been argued by Thomas Kuhn.
There may be foundational development in ind ividual art appreciation, as
Michael Parsons has tried to show; and the same has been done for stages of
religious thinking by Fritz Oser and others. In this book we are interested in
these and other such theories about foundational development.
We shall discuss several of these theories in the following chapters. First,
however, we want to propose a general theoretical framework or meta-
theory for systematically analysing such theories and deal with a number of
questions that arise in this connection, such as: What is the character or con-
ceptual structure of such foundations of thought and action? How are our
everyday thoughts and actions related to these basic structures? What pre-
cisely is involved in this kind of foundational change? In what areas does
the change occur? How are various foundational structures related? Can
6 Philosophy of development
later stages be argued to be better than prior ones? If so, should we in educa-
tion try to further our students' development through the stages?
As we just noticed, several theories have been put forward about th is
kind of conceptual development in different domains. These theories show
interesting resemblances but they are also different from each other in
several respects. Most of them concentrate on the different judgments and
judgment criteria that are typical of the stages. But it should be emphasized
that the distinct stages in foundational development involve not only differ-
ent judgment criteria but also different conceptualizations of the relevant
aspects of reality. The children in Piaget's interview sample who give their
judgments about cutting the dress do not merely use different criteria in de-
ciding what is morally right or wrong. In a way, their basic ideas of morality
itself (what morality is or should be) are not the same. It is in this sense that
the older children have gone through a form of what we have called founda -
tionaI development. Perhaps such foundational developments are not only
to be found with children. Certainly they do not occur only in the field of
morality. We think that there are indeed many areas in which interesting
foundational developmental tracks or patterns can be reconstructed.
It may be helpful here to introduce a distinction, which we will elaborate
later on, between the reconstruction of (a pattern of) developmental stages on
the one hand, and the description (and explanation) of the processes by which
individuals go through that type of development, on the other. Clearly any
talk about developmental processes involves some differentiation between
two or more stages. This does not imply that these stages are disconnected,
but they must be somehow specifiable as different from each other. Thus
there is what throughout this book we will call a logical side and a dynamic
side to developmental theories. To speak roughly and with reference to Pi-
aget's example, the dynamic side - or more simply, "the dynamic" - is
that part of the theory which concentrates on the children, and the subtle
and multifaceted developmental changes they go through; whereas the
logical side of the analysis - "the logic" - concentrates on the stages. Most
developmental theories are primarily concerned with the dynamic process-
es, since they try to understand what makes children develop from one stage
to the next. They concentrate on the description and explanation of the many
factors involved in developmental processes, including what led 7-year-old
Peter to move beyond the younger Marilene's conception of moral right and
wrong in terms of material consequences, to his richer notion of morality as
including personal intention. Such theoretical explanations, however, presup-
pose a well-defined pattern of the stages in question and a clear idea about
the differences and the logical relations between them. In any developmen-
tal theory we might therefore look for two "subtheories," one dealing with
the definition of the stages and the character of their relations (the logic of
the theory) and one dealing with the processes of development and their
explanation (the dynamic). In actual fact, we never find them as two discrete
parts of any theory, but it may be helpful nevertheless to make the distinc-
tion - which is itself a metatheoretical claim . This distinction is especially
useful in the case of theories about human foundational development. Ques-
tions about the identification of stages, that is, about the specific character of
distinct forms of foundational intuitions and conceptualizations of reality,
are very different from questions about what makes concrete individuals
develop from one stage to the next. In this book we will attend primarily to
questions of the first type, concerning the distinction between stages in vari-
ous domains of reality, the logical relations between such stages, and the
ways in which one might argue that these forms of development constitute
progress or improvement. In the later chapters we will consider a variety of
developmental patterns to illustrate the general points made about develop-
ment in the first part of the book. We will not put forward concrete explana-
tions of specific developmental processes, but rather will analyze presuppo-
sitions implicit in such explanations and, in doing so, formulate the condi-
tions of their possibility.
In this connection we also want to deal with the complex relationship be-
tween development and education (as well as between the philosophy of
development and the philosophy of education). We should stress from the
outset that in using the term"development" we are not implicitly opting for
Rousseau's educational viewpoint, according to which the individual "natu-
rally" develops apart from - and in spite of - social institutions and prac-
tices. That is, we will often focus on the differences between developmental
stages, in particular from chapter 4 on, when we concentrate on various
forms of foundational development; but we do not want to prejudge the
question of what are the main factors in the coming about of any such devel-
opment. In particular, the relation between learning and development can
be, and has in fact been, conceptualized in many different ways, and we do
not want to opt for any particular viewpoint in advance. In this respect, the
theories of development we will discuss are quite different from each other.
For instance, interactions with the social environment are more prominent in
Kohlberg's theory of moral development than in Piaget's theories of moral
or cognitive development. And they are even more prominent in Vygotsky's
theory. Two points should be stressed here. First, the conceptual connections
between development and education are many and varied, especially in the
case of foundational development. Further, the concept of education should
not be interpreted as merely a corollary of whatever id eas one may hold
about development, as has been suggested in several developmental theo-
ries . On the contrary, the idea of human conceptual development in many
ways presupposes conceptions about education and other forms of social
interaction.
One of the first problems for a philosophy of development is that the
notion of development is itself unclear in several respects. We shall propose an
analysis of this notion in the next chapter. As remarked above, in this book
we will make some argued choices in order to find a pathway through the
many possibilities that are open here. In the course of the first part of this
book we will increasingly limit our scope. After the first rather general chap-
ters , we concentrate on conceptual development and, even more specifically,
on foundational development. In our approach we are interested in the
developing foundations of both thought and action. In general we will be
interested not so much in operational abilities as in the (at least partly)
unconscious rule systems underlying and making possible thinking, judg-
ment, and action itself. Thus our inquiry ranges over developmental theories
like Piaget's, which after his earliest books studied forms of action rather
than forms of thought (Chapman, 1988), those like Kohlberg's, which except
for a few essays (e.g., Kohlberg & Candee, 1984) studied moral judgment
apart from moral action, and tho se like Vygotsky's, which tried to focus on
thought and action together (Vygotsky, 1978).
In our view it is not important how broad or encompassing a theory or
its posited stages might be. Developmental "tracks" can sometimes be rather
narrow but they are not for that matter less interesting. Our question is
whether developmental stages can in principle be reconstructed (in conversa-
tions between parents, in biographical and autobiographical reports, etc., as
well as in scholarly treatises) in terms of the different conceptualizations of
whatever smaller or broader aspects of reality are under investigation, as
well as what such reconstructions imply (both in everyday life and in scien-
tific theories).
Many of the problems in philosophy of development concern conceptual
development claims. Such claims are made in all sorts of situations, but of
course particularly in the context of developmental theories. In fact they
usually combine two claims, the first of which is that certain stages can be
specified. In this respect, metatheoretical questions ha ve to do with the best
way to reconstruct these stages, to characterize their relations within the
proposed stage pattern, and to analyze their connections with stages in other
dimensions of development, as well as with other issues, such as the relation
between various forms of individual development and forms of collective
development. The second claim, though not always explicitly stated, is that
the stages can be validly portrayed as increasingly better or in certain re-
spects more adequate. In this regard we have to ask just what it is that such
evaluative claims imply. How can they be justified in the diverse domains?
What are the general conditions of the possibility of defending claims of this
type? Must there be a further, neutral standpoint from which these ques-
tions can be answered?
In sum, this book deals with a number of fundamental problems under-
lying theories of development, in particular theories of conceptual or (in the
sense indicated above) foundational development. It offers a framework for
systematically approaching such problems, and a number of recurring meta-
theoretical questions are analyzed and discussed. Several theories of both
individual and collective development are selected for special discussion.
The relations between education and development will be discussed sepa-
rately. In the final part of the book, we locate the place that a philosophy of
development as proposed here has within the landscape of contemporary
philosophic thought.
Before surveying the chapters, we should stress two points concerning
what we are not doing in this book. First, we emphatically do not want to
defend some variety of progressivism. One can perfectly well study and
discuss problems and criteria of development or progress, without believing
that history, or society, or an individual, or whatever, always develops
progressively, as was maintained in certain 19th century theories. It is now
commonplace to note, as several postmodernists have done, that progres-
sivism is an Enlightenment construction (see chapter 17). Secondly, we are
not suggesting that persons are merely or even mainly the product of struc-
tures, as has been the thesis of Marxism and some forms of structuralism
(see chapter 16). Although one can gain rich insights in human judgment
and experience by studying conceptual foundations and their development,
such structures do not exist in themselves. On the contrary, structures,
stages, and developmental patterns are only realized in the activities of
persons who are to a certain degree, or better, to varying degrees, auton-
omous and free.
2 Survey of the chapters
In the first part of this book (comprising chapters 2 to 6) we propose a gener-

al metatheoretical framework for analysing developmental theories. Starting
from some fairly broad definitions, we distinguish and interrelate a number
of aspects that we think theories of development in any area will have to
deal with. We also formulate some problems that no developmental theory
should ignore. We begin, in chapter 2, with an analysis of the concept of de -
velopment, comparing it to related terms like growth, with which it is often
used interchangeably. In contrast to the latter, we restrict the term "develop-
ment" to processes involving qualitative change. This move calls in tum for
the distinction of qualitatively different stages, and the equally important
distinction between the logic and the dynamic of developmental theories, as
mentioned above. Next we discuss the central notion of a (conceptual) de -
velopment claim, attending to the usually neglected distinction between its
descriptive or reconstructive aspects and its evaluative aspects. In chapter 3
we narrow our focus to human development, comparing three rather differ-
ent ways of thinking about it, namely, the mechanistic, the organismic, and
the narrative models. From chapter 4 on, we concentrate on the specific char-
acter and problems of conceptual development, particularly those of founda -
tional development. In this connection, we recognize three "hermeneutical"
levels of meaning: the level of expressions, the deeper level of reasons un-
derlying these expressions, and the still deeper level of foundational struc-
tures underlying both reasons and expressions. Special attention is given to
the "relative a priori" character of foundational stages. Chapter 5 deals with
the main principles and problems involved in the reconstruction and expla-
nation of developmental processes. We show that the relation between phi-
losophy and psychology in this respect is much more subtle than is usually
thought. The possibilities of justifying conceptual development claims are
discussed in chapter 6, where we concentrate on the often completely ne-
glected problems of justifying the (usually tacit) evaluative aspect of such
claims, according to which the later stages of a developmental pattern are
deemed better or more adequate than prior ones . We argue that such claims
can be successfully defended only under rather strict conditions.
In the second part of the book (chapters 7 to 13), we tum to a choice of
specific theories of individual and collective conceptual development, discussing
several metatheoretical issues with regard to each of them. These issues
derive from the analyses made in the first part of our book. Chapter 7
provides a survey of the relevant questions and goes into some connected
Philosophy ofdevelopment: an invitation 11
problems. Next, theories in three domains of individual development are

discussed, beginning with chapter 8. There we examine the work of the god-
father of genetic structuralism, Jean Piaget, concerning cognitive or intellec-
tual development, giving special attention to one of the most extensively
researched dimensions, that of object permanence. Piaget did not make a
clear distinction between logical and dynamic aspects of his theory, but he
was well aware of the difficulties involved. We give special attention to his
later works, in which he substantially elaborated on the notions of equilibra-
tion and reflective abstraction in developmental processes. Chapter 9 is
about theories in the domain of social and moral development, starting from
the work of Kohlberg and Gilligan. The relation between moral judgment
and action is also discussed here. In chapter 10, we examine aesthetic devel-
opment, drawing in particular from the theory of Michael Parsons on the
appreciation of paintings. Several dimensions of aesthetic experience and
judgment within this domain are distinguished and their relations dis-
cussed. These chapters on individual development are followed by three
chapters about theories of more or less parallel forms of collective develop-
ment: chapter It on development in science, chapter 12 on societal devel-
opment, and chapter 13 on development in the arts . In restricting ourselves
to these domains we certainly do not want to suggest that there are no other
interesting areas in which conceptual or foundational development theories
are or can be construed. There is religious development (Oser & Gmunder,
1991; Fowler, 1981) or, within the aesthetic domain, musical development
(Swanwick, 1988; d. Koopman, 1995), and so on. We think, however that
most of the interesting metatheoretical problems involved in those other
theories are also present in the theories we have selected for discussion in
this part of the book.
The third part (chapters 14 and 15) deals with the relations between educat-
ion and development. Chapter 14 addresses the relation between philosophy of
education and philosophy of development and the multifarious ways in
which conceptions of human development and education are interwoven in
the cognitive and the moral domains. Chapter 15 focuses on the education
and development of the autonomous person. It will be argued that auto-
nomous judgment should remain an educational objective; however, this
objective can only be reached through stages into which the child must be
carefully introduced and through which he or she becomes deeply involved
in the traditions and conventions of the community.
In the fourth part (chapters 16 and 17), the developmental approach put
forward in this book is placed within the context of recent philosophical debate.
In chapter 16, it is positioned between the two major movements of struc-

turalism and hermeneutics. Following Habermas we argue that our ap-
proach can bridge the gap between these two schools. In our discussion,
which starts from Kant and Dilthey, these schools are represented by Piaget
and Foucault on the one hand, and Heidegger and Gadamer on the other.
Finally, in chapter 17, we locate ourselves between modernism and post-
modernism. Some points of criticism from the side of anti-developmentalists
such as Lyotard and Derrida are discussed and rejected.
It is our conviction that any philosophical anthropology is seriously
defective so long as it takes adulthood as the only important form of human
life - as though children were not simply miniature adults but defective
ones at that. In this respect a comprehensive philosophy of development
might be thought of as itself constituting a new stage in the development of
this philosophical discipline.
This book covers a rather broad range of subjects, but most of the
chapters in the later parts of the book can be read independently of each
other, according to the interests of the reader. Nevertheless, the metatheoret-
ical framework set up in the first part serves as a background to the later
parts, and should be read beforehand even by those already familiar with
existing developmental theories. To some readers, certain sections in the
opening chapters may at first seem elementary, but we believe that a closer
look will reveal nuances and implications not found in works that are other-
wise extremely sophisticated. We have tried to accommodate the general
reader by keeping scientific jargon and empirical data to a minimum. How -
ever, we trust that even the most advanced readers will be challenged -
and we hope persuaded - by the philosophy of development presented in
these pages.
2 The concept of development
Wouter van Haafien
The term "development" is used in many different ways. This chapter be -

gins, therefore, by briefly delineating the referential range which the term
has throughout the book. We then propose some minimal criteria defining
"development" (as opposed to, e.g., growth) and indicate its internal rela-
tion to the concept of developmental stages. Next we discuss the formal
structure of development claims, taking as our prototype claims about
specifically cognitive, or, as we prefer to say, conceptual development. The
aim of this chapter is to explain the terminology used in this book and to
introduce a conceptual apparatus through we can avoid certain unnecessary
disputes in developmental theory.
1 The many faces of "development"
The term "d evelopmen t" is used in quite different contexts. For instance, we
can speak of developing countries and of developing children, a new hous-
ing development, the development of a photograph or the development of a
musical theme. Most of these uses are not our primary concern. This book is
about theoretical problems with respect to individual and collective forms of
development, especially conceptual development. It is not about foreign aid
programs, although some of our analyses may be useful in that context.
Even within the restricted context of conceptual development, there are
many different areas. Children develop, and we may distinguish their
intellectual, social, moral, political, religious, aesthetic, and other kinds of
development. We can also speak of developments in society. We may point
to scientific development in various branches of science, or to developments
in the philosophy of science. And perhaps there are developments in the
different arts. In the following chapters several of these forms of conceptual
development will be dealt with.
The term is used in different ways, moreover. Notice its process/product
ambiguity, to begin with. When we speak of the development of a person,
13
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.}, Philosophy ofDevelopment, 13-29.
we generally mean the process. But sometimes the term is used to refer to
his or her fully developed state. We will be primarily interested in the
process aspects of "development."
Secondly, the term "development" and its cognates may be used transi-
tively, as when somebody develops a photograph or a new arithmetic
method, or intransitively, as when a weather system or a mood develops, or
a child develops into an adult. It is important to distinguish these two sens-
es, especially when dealing with conceptual problems concerning the extent
to which adults can influence the development of children. Teachers teach
children, trainers train them, but not even the most tough-minded behavior-
ist or socialleaming theorist would claim to develop children in the transi-
tive sense. Our focus therefore is on the intransitive sense of "development."
Even then there is a wide range of applications. In the next chapter we will
discuss the extent to which human development can be likened to other
forms of development (physical development, biological development).
Thirdly, as we noticed already, there are not only individual but also col-
lective forms of human development. It would, therefore, be wrong to think
of developmental theory as primarily oriented toward individual lives . Peo-
ple used to think that the individual somehow rehearses the history of its
kind, so that the development of the child reflects the history of mankind.
This is not what we shall try to defend. Of course people are often involved
in collective developments without being aware of it. In such cases, unlike
those of individual development, single persons are typically engaged only
in a small part of the whole process. For instance, many scientists may con-
tribute to what in retrospect is considered a scientific development, with
most of their individual contributions being relatively small. This arrange-
ment is also found in the distinction between "ontogenesis" and "phylogen-
esis." These terms are used mainly in biological contexts contrasting the dev-
elopment of individuals (from zygote to adult) with the development of the
species to which they belong (from lower to higher biological forms) . At
several points in our book we will come back to the distinction between in-
dividual and historical collective development, in order to point out inter-
esting structural analogies as well as to clarify important differences
between them.
As a last point, we should make a clear distinction from the outset be-
tween the use of the term "development" in a descriptive sense (e.g., in the
context of a biological theory) and its use in an evaluative sense (in most
everyday language). The word is really hopelessly ambiguous in this re-
spect, and this has lead to many confusions. Development does not auto-
The concept ofdevelopment 15
matically mean progress. We can without any contradiction speak of an

unfavorable development, which makes it clear that the term itself does not
necessarily contain any positive (or negative) value. If we speak of a good or
bad development, the valuation is in the adjective . Very often, however, the
substantive itself carries a more or less strong, and in that case positive, load.
This is particularly true in the context of both everyday talk and in scientific
theories about human development (see section 5).
2 "Development" and "change"
The term "development" is a member of the family of change-words. Other

terms are "actualization," "growth," "maturation," "evolution," and the
recently trendy "self-realization." All these members of the family have
certain semantic features in common. For instance, they all refer to a form of
change which requires some time to come about.
But there are also differences. The term "growth" generally means a
more or less gradual increase along one or more lines or criteria. The context
is mostly biological, though not necessarily so. We may speak of the growth
of plants, animals, children, but also of crystals or cities or their populations.
"Maturation" is even more strongly associated with the emergence of inborn
predispositions ("blueprinted development"). Maturation takes place pro-
vided only that the necessary conditions are sufficiently met. The context is
biological again. Self-realization requires a self or a person to strive for it.
The direction of the process of change depends not only on conditions and
circumstances but also on what people themselves take to be the desired
outcome of the process. In general, while "growth," "maturation" and "self-
realization" refer to changes in an individual, "evolution" refers primarily to
collective processes: development of some (often supposedly "higher") sort
out of a prior ("lower") form . Again the usual context is biological, but we
may also speak of, say, the cultural evolution of mankind.
How does "development" compare to its above-mentioned relatives? It is
often used as a synonym for all of them, but it also has some specific
connotations of its own. For instance, in many contexts "development" can
be used instead of "grow th," but not vice versa. The reason the two terms
are not always interchangeable is that the word "development" carries a
connotation of qualitative or structural change. This means that not only do
certain qualities increase or decrease according to one or more specific
criteria, as in "growth," but also that different criteria are appropriate for an
adequate description of the new developmental stage.
This may be illustrated by two simple biological examples. An acorn falls
to the ground, and develops into an oak tree. During this process the little
acorn as such will perish but it contains the germ of the immense tree that
grows out of it, or, as Aristotle would say, it actualizes its potency in be-
coming an oak. Now at least phenomenally we can distinguish stages in this
process that are qualitatively different. The oak is not just a larger acorn. The
growth of the tree is described in terms that are different from those which
describe the acorn or its growth. In the same way we may distinguish
several qualitatively different stages in the development of a butterfly. We
cannot simply describe the development of a butterfly as the "growing" of
the egg or that of the caterpillar or pupa.
It is this qualitative aspect in the meaning of "development" that we
want to highlight, in order to distinguish it from growth. Perhaps there is no
development in which growth does not playa role, but development cannot
be reduced to growth. This usage may be somewhat stricter than ordinary
language, but it does not violate it. The basic idea here is that "growth"
means more of the same (in some respect), whereas "development" contains
the idea that something new comes about.
We must not confuse considerations concerning the meaning of terms
with observations regarding the actual processes involved. Though it seems
unlikely, it may indeed be possible to explain the development of the butter-
fly as one continuous growth process. In that case it would be questionable
whether we should speak of qualitative differences in the butterfly's life
cycle. But that would be no argument against the semantic analysis of the
notion of "development" as involving novelty or qualitative change.
The foregoing implies that in a developmental movement two or more
qualitatively different stages can always be distinguished. In other words,
there is a logical connection between the notions of "development" and
"stage." Now this is not to say anything very definite about the actual
developmental process. For instance, there need be no crisis-like transitions.
The actual development may be entirely smooth and gradual. The point is
rather that at one or more times in the whole process there is an outcome
that can be seen as qualitatively different from earlier stages, an outcome
that cannot be properly described in terms that were adequate to those
stages. In this crucial respect, the notion of stages is conceptually bound up
with the notion of development.
The concept of development 17
In order to avoid m isunderstandings it must be emphasized again that

nothing in the notion of a stage requires that it be "global," in the sens e of
being broad or comprehensive in ways psychological theories often suggest.
As we will see below, th e suggestion that stages must be global or at least
very w ide-ranging has given rise to many confused d iscussions and futile
criticisms. In this connection it will be helpful to d istinguish between a
domain, as a conceptualized part of reality within which some development
takes place and which is typically broad and encompassing (e.g., the domain
of morality; d . Wren, 1990), and particular dimensions of actual development
under discussion, which may be quite narrow (e.g., the justice reasoning di-
mension, or, even more specifically, the dimension of distributive justice
reasoning centr al to Kohlberg's theory of moral development). Other aspects
of morality, such as moral emotions, need not be developmentally struc -
tured, or at least need not be represented as such in any current theory,
without being less important to the domain (see Figure 1).
• 0 .0. :
• • •• •
..
.. .. . .. . . ... .. ..
• • 0 • ".
... . .. ..
. ... . . ..
• 0 • • •
.
-,
0 ° 0 -0. • • • •• •• • • • • "0. "0" • • • • • •
. ::,,: .' : :::.:( ... ｾ :' '.':.:::': ":" : ｄＮｾ･ｳＡ＾ 2 :.:., .: ': :::. ::
..
\ .: .::.. ＺＺｾｾ Dimension 1 . \. .. ; :.. . : .: :: '.. .'
Stage 4
.::0. . "0. . . . . :.
'.
. .. . .. Stage 3 . . ... ....:: :
.' . :..;.... :.:.:..: I - - - - - - l
Stage 3 .. . . . . .
: .:0. . .. .. . . .. .. . .. .
.. .. 0° .0 . ° 0::00::.:
.. . . . . . . Stage 2"
o • •
. .. .
0 • •
.. . .
Stage 2 ... .
-,
Stage 1
'--:.,..,-.--;."7'
• •; -:'
• • • •: •
Stage 1
:::•• •: .: •••• :,. ••
o . 0° . ••
.. .. • • °
.0 '
0 • • • •
: :::•
" •
•
. :.: :.: 0° : .· .: . .:'.:: : · · "0. "0 . .. ...
. ......... ooMAIN ':::.: .: ) . .. •
... ..
• • 0° : 0 0 : ' . : ' • •
: : : .
.' ... .. . ... • :. 0° : " 0° 0°
Figure 1. Domain anddimensions ofdevelopment
There is another implication of the general notion of change that we

should mention here. As Hamlyn (1983) has pointed out, the description of a
development is not just a chronicle of related events in the course of time.
New stages do not simply happen to come up, as when an adolescent takes
a new job, learns to drive a car, or acquires new friends; they evolve out of
and are in some sense "produced" by the foregoing stage. Although it might
sometimes be misleading to speak of transformations, because the new stage
often adds qualitatively new components (see section 3), the later stages are
formed on the basis of their predecessors. They depend on the earlier ones in
the sense that the prior stages are necessary (though, of course, not suffi-
cient) conditions for the coming about of the later ones . It is in this sense that
several stages can be identified as causally and conceptually connected parts
of a single developmental sequence. (This point will be elaborated in chapter
4.)
In short, we take qualitative change as the main definitional criterion for
"development." Combined with some of the more obvious criteria it shares
with other members of the change-family, we may then say that "develop-
ment" means (a) a process of (b) more or less gradual (c) change, (d) result-
ing in (what can be reconstructed as) one or more qualitatively different
stages for which (e) the prior stages are necessary conditions.
3 "Development" and "learning"
Admittedly, the proposed definition of "development" is still very broad,

but at this point in our discussion this is a virtue, not a defect. To see why,
let us now consider several connotations that are certainly important in
specific contexts but which might be misleading if generalized. First of all, it
would be confusing if we were unwittingly to carry over all of the typically
biological connotations of the term to other domains, as might happen when
a biological model is applied to human cognitive development (some have
accused Piaget of just such a mistake).
Biological development is always directed toward some final stage
which is characteristic of the species, constituting its maturity, or as Aristotle
put it, its telos or causa finalis. Part of what it is to be an acorn is that it is
destined to become an oak tree. This has led some authors to restrict the
range of the concept "development" to this type of predetermined develop-
mental processes, resulting, under normal conditions, in a fixed end-state.
Hamlyn, for instance, remarks that "to see a state of a thing as a stage in its
Theconcept of development 19
development we must be able to see it as connected essentially in some way

with an end-state which is in some way the rationale of the thing itself"
(Hamlyn, 1983/ p . 155). Therefore, he concludes, the explanation of the
events constituting stages in a developmental process can be brought under
the general heading of functional or teleological explanation. Undeniably,
what Hamlyn says is true of biological development, but is it true of all
forms of development? In human conceptual development learning plays an
important role. Learning, however, implies the assimilation of external in-
fluences. And in human learning, as Hamlyn rightly stresses, there must be
an acceptance of standards of rationality and rightness that have to come
from outside the individual. This holds for human learning in general, and
even more clearly so in the case of morality, which is inherently interper-
sonal. Must we therefore conclude that learning processes are irrelevant to
conceptual development? Even more radically: are education and develop-
ment thus exclusive of each other? This is indeed Hamlyn's conclusion. And
he accepts the consequences of his analysis: strictly speaking moral develop-
ment is simply a contradiction in terms.
This view is certainly not unusual. It is especially understandable,
moreover, in light of the etymological meaning of "development" as an "un-
wrapping" ("de-velop" as the opposite of "en-velop", both of which came
into English from Old French, stemming from an older radical volupare or
volopare). Taken literally, this notion of development means that situational
factors are irrelevant to developmental patterns. When this idea is applied to
education, its implication is that child development proceeds along fixed
lines so that there is little left for educators to influence. It is not surprising,
therefore, that many educational theorists have reacted against this unfortu-
nate but not completely obsolete notion of development, concluding that a
developmental approach in education must be inspired by pedagogical
pessimism. It is revealing that in a fairly recent encyclopedia of education
(Husen & Postlethwaite, 1985) the entry on "Development and Education"
as a matter of course only deals with educational programs for developing
countries! Other relations between the two concepts do not seem to exist.
We are not compelled to take this terminological line, however. The term
"development" is used in many ways nowadays, not all of which fulfill the
rather strict conditions laid down by Hamlyn . It is legitimate as well as
natural for us to use the word in an educational context (see Peters, 1972;
Elliott, 1975). The concept of development does not necessarily imply a
natural and predetermined end-state, nor does it exclude reference to public
standards, including moral ones, that have to be learned for the develop-
ment to come about (Wright, 1986). Education, learning, and development

can thus be much more closely connected than Hamlyrr's unduly strict
terminological argument admits. Moreover, the expression "moral
development" has become so common that excluding it would be more
misleading than using it.
There is also no reason to insist a priori on so sharp a division between,
on the one hand, psychological theories, alleged to be purely descriptive and
only dealing with natural, maturational processes, and, on the other hand,
educational theories of development "which, in taking account of what we
might bring about through teaching and in making explicit value judgments
about what we wish to bring about, would be concerned to prescribe stages
through which we should seek to develop children" (Barrow & Milburn,
1990/ pp. 96-97) . One reason for saying this is that it is doubtful, as the same
authors recognize, whether there is any form of cognitive development (as
opposed to/ say, physical development) that is entirely independent of
learning or even independent of education.
There is something curious here nevertheless. Kohlberg's theory of moral
development, for example, proposes a very strict and fixed, culture-free or -
der of stages, with no suggestion whatsoever that its course might be
changed by external influences. In this respect, the Kohlberg ian view is typ-
ical of all the important theories of conceptual development we will be dis-
cussing in chapters 7-13. Learning in general may perhaps speed up the
developmental process, but apparently it is not supposed to determine its
direction in any way. The conclusion seems inescapable: though not by
definition, in its actual execution the Kohlbergian cognitive structuralist
paradigm seems to be wedded to the biological model. All this is in spite of
Kohlberg's explicit claim that the character of his theory is interactionist.
How is this to be understood? Must we accept that human learning cannot
really influence conceptual development and so agree with Hamlyn after
all?
In answer to this question, let us recall that Kohlberg was inspired by
Piaget, whose theorizing has always had a strong biological ring. Piaget has
defined learning as having only a rather limited function within the larger
process of the growth of structures. According to him the learning of specific
behavior or content can only occur within existing structures. We will dis-
cuss the relation between Piaget and other cognitive development theories
later on, but some general remarks on this question should be made here.
We must, however, distinguish between learning processes which take
place within a specific stage structure and are strongly determined by the
character of that stage, on the one hand, and "structurallearning processes"

(Habermas, 1984, 1987a, 1990b) which result in the transition to a new stage,
on the other. Both forms of learning may contribute to development, but in
very different ways. Thus we need not oppose learning theory and develop-
ment theory, but should recognize that theories of human development deal
mainly with those processes of learning that bring about structural or quali-
tative changes. Learning theory has little to say about such forms of learning
owing to its original noncognitive conception of learning as behavior modifi-
cation. This distinction between these two forms of learning will be elabo-
rated in chapter 14. But if the distinction holds, and especially if the second
form is accepted, we cannot as a principle stay with the idea of a fixed and
universal developmental pattern. This does not rule out in advance the
possibility that some forms of development have a fixed and universal stage
pattern, but we should not expect this to be always and necessarily the case
for all forms of development. It cannot be precluded that within any domain
there are other, "rival" patterns, or that as learning conditions change there
might appear an as yet unknown stage. The claim to universality of pro-
posed patterns of development, a claim made by virtually all cognitive
development theories, is no different than that made by any fallible scientific
theory that claims universal applicability until decisive evidence to the
contrary is provided. In other words, the purported universality of some
specific developmental pattern is an empirical hypothesis; it is not inherent
in the notion of "development" itself.
In brief, it has been our intention in the foregoing to find a definition of
"development" at once sufficiently broad and sufficiently specific to be theo-
retically fruitful. The two main definitional criteria for the notion of "devel-
opment" we have laid down so far are that qualitatively different stages can
be distinguished, and that the prior stages are necessary (though not suffi-
cient) for the coming about of the later ones. We have been careful not to
include in the definition of "development" any idea of a pre-formed pattern
with a definite end-state or telos. There may be such an end-state, as in the
case of the oak tree. It is part of the nature of the acorn, we say, to become an
oak tree, so that we would probably not call it an acorn if it were to grow
into a horse chestnut tree - or into a horse. At the same time, however, we
leave open the possibility that in other domains, especially domains of
conceptual development, processes of interaction with the environment in
general and of learning and education in particular may decisively influence
not only the pace but also the direction of the development.
4 Development claims
The foregoing needs further elaboration. Although we did not include the
idea of a fixed and universal pattern in our definition of "development," the
notion of a developmental pattern is part of the concept of development. This
is what a development claim, as we will call it, is about.
In one sense, every development is a "claimed" development. It is we
who say that certain processes constitute a development. In doing so we
apply criteria, not only regarding the term "development" in general but
also with respect to the particular type of development we have in mind. We
may interpret the process as, say, a case of individual moral or aesthetic
development, we may look at certain phenomena as constituting an impor-
tant development in the history of musical composition, and so on. More-
over, we will always have at least some notion about what makes the
difference between certain stages in the development in question, for in-
stance with respect to a difference between the way a situation is now and
the way it was at an earlier time . That means that in making development
claims we apply criteria for distinguishing stages (within the specific type of
development we have in mind, e.g., the musical dimension of aesthetic
development).
Development claims are made in daily situations (as when parents
discuss their children, or people describe their own development) and in
scientific theories. Since our everyday talk often uses developmental criteria
in an implicit and intuitive way, they can remain vague and imprecise.
However, when similar criteria are used in psychological or sociological
theories, they are usually formulated explicitly, and must be much more
complete and precise, often to the extent of distinguishing a half dozen or
more developmental stages. But in either case we make use of certain
criteria - even when we have to conclude that an expected development
did not in fact take place.
Regardless of how precisely the stages are delineated, together they
make up a developmental pattern. Thus to think of any particular sort of
development requires that one has some particular developmental pattern in
mind. This is not the same as saying that there is an endogenous pattern
according to which the development must naturally proceed. Our point is
rather that speaking of any specific (type of) development by itself amounts
to referring (either explicitly or implicitly) to a developmental pattern,
because that very reference is what makes it this particular type of develop-
ment. In this sense, the general notion of development implies the notion of
The concept of development 23
a developmental pattern. And it is also clear now that the notion of a dev-
elopmental stage is more specific than we could indicate in section 2: it is
intrinsically bound up with the idea of a developmental pattern (van Haaf-
ten, 1990b; Boom, 1992). Its raison d'etre is within the pattern.
A corollary of this last point is that any development claim asserts that
there is a certain type of development. It always refers to some specific
developmental pattern as laid down by the criteria defining and relating the
relevant stages, though the criteria need not be more precise than is required
to demarcate the stages in the pattern. From chapter 4 on, we will
concentrate on one such type of pattern: that referred to in conceptual, or
even more restrictedly/foundational development claims.
In chapter 5 we will elaborate the aforementioned distinction between a
logic and a dynamic / these being two distinguishable components of any dev-
elopmental theory. As we will explain in further detail, the dynamic con -
cerns the actual developmental processes and their governing psychological
and psychosocial principles. The logic defines the stages and their interrela-
tions. This simple distinction can keep us from many all-too-familiar pitfalls.
For instance, questions of continuity or discontinuity belong to both
parts. They belong to the dynamic part in that the course of developmental
processes can be either smooth and continuous or abrupt and discontinuous.
However, any serious study of such processes presupposes a clear and
sharp distinction of the stages in question, and this distinction is made in the
logic part of the theory. The logic formulates the development claim the
theory makes, in terms of the stages which the theory articulates. The logic
also determines the formal relations between the stages, such as addition
(what is characteristic of the new stage is added to what is characteristic of
the former one) or inclusion (what is characteristic of the new stage com-
prises what is characteristic of the prior one, in such a way that what is
characteristic of the former stage is retained but changed by its being
integrated in the new stage). The last form of inclusion has also been called
"cumulativity" and even "continuity," but this sort of continuity, which is
one of logical connectedness, is clearly different from what is meant by the
dynamic sense of that term. However, the general point remains: some
reference to certain logical ingredients is necessary for any study of the
dynamic of the developmental processes. And just as clearly, it would be
wrong to think that a developmental theory supposes abrupt stage transi-
tions simply because stages are sharply delineated in its logic. Unfortunately
in most developmental theories the distinction between logical and dynamic
aspects of the theory is not clearly made.
Another confusion that can now be made transparent concerns the

relation between the notions of development and progress. There are two
ways in which these should not be equated. In section 5 we discuss the
distinction between descriptive and evaluative uses of these terms. Here we
first want to make clear that, if in the logic stages are distinguished as, say,
stages 1 to 4, this does not imply that an actual development process will
always and necessarily follow this sequence. Regression remains possible, as
when the factual sequence 1-2-3-2 occurs. Kohlberg felt obliged to under-
take a complete revision of his scoring system, dropping stage 6, reducing
the incidence of postconventional stage 5, and introducing a new transi-
tional "relativistic" stage ＴｾＬ when there were persistent findings of apparent
late adolescent regression from stage 5 to mixed (4 and 5) or conventional (4
or 3) scores (d. Gilligan & Murphy, 1979). However, he would not have felt
this need if he had distinguished between, on the one hand, the develop-
mental sequence of stages described in the logic of his theory, according to
which they constitute an order of progress, and on the other hand, the
psychological processes that could have been described in the dynamic of
his theory, which would show the forms of progression as well as regression
people go through (see Figure 2).
"""'
u
.6'0
.8 3
0
-S
'-'
til
0
ell
S 2
CI)
I
ｾ Time (the dynamic)
Figure 2. Progression andregression through time,

seen in terms of the logic anddynamic ofa developmental theory
Theconcept ofdevelopment 25
For the same reason it is wrong to make irreversibility a defining charac-

teristic of the very notion of development. To do so is to psychologize the
logical structure and logical relationships asserted by the theory. Here again,
we see that the psychological dynamic of regression can only be charted
provided that the stages are logically distinguished.
At this point we would like to discuss one more general problem in this
connection. It concerns the ontological status or "identity" of what the devel-
opment claim is about, or what we may call the object of the development
claim. For several reasons it is not always clear what precisely this object is.
First, we usually speak in terms of the development of a specific something,
suggesting, somewhat paradoxically, that there must always be some ele-
ment which remains unchanged during the process of change. We should
remember, however, that the developmental stages are by definition qualita-
tively different. We may think again of the development of the butterfly.
What exactly is it that unites its various manifestations? Need there be some -
thing unchanging?
Second, as we have already pointed out, the object of the claim need not
always be a concrete thing. It can be more (a collective) or less (an aspect)
than a single individual. It can be the organism or person as a whole, but
more often the claim will refer to one specific developmental dimension,
such as the development of moral reasoning. In that case, there is no theoret-
ical need to suppose that an individual is completely within one of the dis-
tinguished stages, as Kohlberg required. The developing person may very
well show signs of several stages simultaneously.
Third, a development claim can also be about a relation, for instance the
special pedagogical relationship between a father and his son, or the peda-
gogical relationship in general. It can refer to the relation between capital
and labor, or between a town and its surrounding countryside. It can be
about social institutions, political systems, cultural values, artistic concep-
tions, literary styles, scientific theories, or philosophical ideas. Therefore, the
question again arises, what is it that develops through such different stages?
The looseness of ordinary language reflects this difficulty. Very often
only one stage is mentioned pars pro toto when in fact all the stages are
meant, as when we speak of the development of the butterfly (and not of the
caterpillar) or the other way around, of the development of the child (and
not of the adult). In many cases we do not even have separate terms for all
the different stages. We may speak of the development of medical science
and at the same time acknowledge that for the early stages of its history the
term "science" is not really appropriate at all. In the same way it has been
remarked that in Kohlberg 's scheme the earliest stages of moral develop-
ment are so egoistic that they can hardly be considered as moral in the usual
sense of that term.
The question of what it is that develops through the qualitatively
different stages can perhaps be best tackled in a "technical" way, namely by
saying that its answer is stipulated by the developmental pattern referred to
in the relevant development claim . If we look at the development of some
concrete object or organism, like the butterfly, we know the general relation
between the stages. This is less clear and often much more disputable if we
are dealing with alleged developments in such abstract areas as art or
science or philosophy. For instance, is Beethoven really at a higher stage
than Mozart? Is Neoclassicism an advance over the Renaissance? Such
questions are confused because the object of the development claim has not
been made clear . Justifiable development claims can be made only if the
developmental dimension is sufficiently delineated. Only then can we also
account for the fact that progress in one respect is often accompanied by
stagnation or decline in other respects (see section 5; d. van Haaften, 1994).
Moreover, the more abstract the object of the development claim is, the more
necessary it is that the claim contains a ratio concerning the relation between
the stages discerned. As in its original Latin meaning (used to translate
Aristotle's idea of that which makes something intelligible) the term "ratio"
should be not taken here as meaning a disengaged, spectator capacity. It
refers instead to those motives or reasons in a broad sense which connect the
stages in some particular way, ranging from causal or teleological explana-
tion to a tale or "narratio" (see chapter 3).
A question related to the above-mentioned ontological problem is the
following. Sometimes in the process of making a development claim more
precise, we need to differentiate from a certain stage on two lines of devel-
opment. Such a "fork" is sometimes proposed, for example, with respect to
individual social and moral development. They begin together as a single
line and then divide. In such cases the theoretical question arises as to
whether we are dealing with one (type of) development or two. However,
the force of this question depends on which part of the explanatory account
it is asked within, the logic or the dynamic. In the dynamic questions of
branching address very interesting and certainly not unrealistic possibilities
(see for instance Turiel, 1983; Nucci, 1981; Nucci & Lee, 1993). In the logic
the question boils down to a terminological issue: is it more convenient (or
elegant) to speak of one developmental pattern with two branches or of two
different developmental patterns with certain stages in common?
Very few theories explicitly mention branching. In general, the reason for
this seems to be not that they exclude the possibility of a fork but rather that
they only specify and concentrate on the single developmental pattern they
set out to study. For instance Kohlberg's theory of moral development in-
cludes the early sociomoral stages, which as the adjective suggests, can be
thought of as either social or moral stages, depending on which branch the
theory about those early stages will eventually pursue. A similar account
can be given of those theories which allow for convergence of separately re-
constructed developmental paths, as suggested for instance by Gilligan
(1982).
5 Reconstruction and evaluation
At this point we would like to emphasize one last important distinction. We

noticed at the end of section 1 of this chapter that very often the term "dev-
elopment" is used evaluatively as well as descriptively. Theories of moral
development, for example, usually take for granted that this process is a
development for the good, that higher staged moral agents are in some
sense "better" than they were at earlier stages. In such cases the implied
development claim comprises two subclaims. It will always, minimally,
contain a descriptive, or better, reconstructive claim, proposing some devel-
opmental pattern in the manner discussed in the foregoing sections. Besides
that, there is an evaluative claim, to the effect that the stages of that pattern
are increasingly better in some respect.
The scientific status of the reconstructions will be elaborated in chapter 5,
but we should note here that, strictly speaking, these reconstructions are not
descriptions in any "objective" or representational sense of that term. As we
remarked above, the development claim need not be very complete in its
representation of the stages in the developmental process. It is rather like a
road map, showing a limited number of relevant features and deliberately
leaving out much other information. The theorist just highlights a certain
developmental pattern, stressing certain aspects at the expense of others.
Because of differing theoretical interests, different reconstructions are pos-
sible in the same area without falsifying each other.
Although each reconstruction involves choices and preferences on the
part of the theorist, it should be clear that the reconstructive claim does not
of itself imply any evaluation with regard to the reconstructed pattern.
There is no logical or semantic requirement that a "normal" development be
valued positively (or negatively for that matter). For instance, the recon-
struction of the moral development of the child as a movement toward
greater autonomy vis-a-vis society does not in itself imply that this is a
change for the better, however often this suggestion is made. Autonomous
moral thinking might be welcome, especially to liberal educators, but it is so
for reasons that go beyond the fact that it is a late developmental stage. Once
again, the point is that development is not necessarily progress.
Of course, the term "development" often is used in an evaluative sense,
but then an additional claim is made, supervenient on the reconstructive
one. In other words, an evaluative development claim always presupposes
some reconstructive development claim, although it can never simply be
derived from it. In chapters 5 and 6 we shall see that the two claims also
require different justificatory strategies. Here it should be noted that there
can be feedback between them, such that the way we reconstruct stages is
often influenced by our evaluative intentions. Kohlberg would probably
have given us a much different set of stage descriptions if he did not think
that justice is the core of moral reasoning.
We may also note in passing that not all evaluative considerations in a
developmental context refer to the associated developmental pattern. For
instance, some evaluate the pace of a certain developmental process or its
frequency, as when we say, approvingly, that a child is intellectually (or
physically) precocious. These judgments are different from the type of eval-
uation discussed in this section, however, as is clear in the case of arrested
development. In that case these other forms of evaluation do not apply but
the evaluative claim concerning the developmental pattern is as meaningful
as ever. Even when we conclude, regretfully, that a certain development did
not take place, the corresponding reconstructive and evaluative develop-
ment claims are still made or presupposed and still need to be justified.
6 Conclusion
In this chapter we cleared the ground for what is to come by means of sev-
eral general terminological distinctions and, in some cases, stipulative
decisions. We have defined "development" as a process of change resulting
in one or more qualitatively different stages for which prior stages are neces-
sary conditions within a developmental pattern. We highlighted the charac-
teristic of qualitative differences by contrasting the concepts of development
and growth. We emphasized that this definition of "development" does not
bind us to the biological province, nor does it deny that external influences
(e.g., modeling behavior that supplements learning processes) determine not
only the pace but also the course of development, which is to say that they
shape the character of the successive stages. Thus conceptual development
can be essentially connected with learning and education.
Development claims, including those referring to conceptual develop-
ment, are made both in everyday language and in scientific theories, albeit
not always in so many words. A development claim delineates a certain type
of development by ascribing to it a particular developmental pattern. The
pattern is made up of more or less completely delineated stages and their
interrelations. Very often the development claim includes the suggestion
that the later stages are better or more adequate than earlier ones. In that
case it can be understood as consisting of two partial claims: a reconstructive
claim specifying the pattern and an additional (often covert) evaluative
claim that supervenes upon the reconstructive claim in the sense that it
refers to and thus presupposes it.
The notion of development should not be equated with progress, for at
least two reasons. First, the distinction (in the logic) of stages that materially
presuppose each other does not exclude regression through these stages in
any actual developmental process (to be explained in the dynamic). Second,
neither the distinction of developmental stages in the logic nor the descrip-
tion (e.g., as progressive or regressive) of developmental processes in the
dynamic necessarily implies a positive or negative evaluation. Only if the
pattern is evaluated positively in the logic can progress be said to occur in a
developmental change. The classical "podium" model of the rise and decline
in the course of human life can therefore be understood in two different
ways: (1) as a regression after the apex backwards through what are then
interpreted as structurally the same stages as before (senility as "second
childhood"), or (2) as a development through different stages, not all of
which are evaluated positively.
From now on we will concentrate on human development, and even-
tually on conceptual and foundational development. In the next chapter
some fundamentally different approaches to human development will be
discussed and compared.
3 Models of human development
Guy Widd ershoven
Models and metaphors play an important role in the human sciences. In a

metaphor some domain of reality, such as human development, is associ-
ated with another domain of reality. By this process of association some as-
pects of the first domain are emphasized and others are neglected. Models
and metaphors, which are often used unconsciously, implicitly determine
research by directing the questions asked and the methods chosen for
answering them. In scientific inquiry different models and metaphors may
be used at the same time. Nevertheless it is important to distinguish the
models, to describe them separately, and to clarify their various aspects. By
doing so philosophy can make explicit the presuppositions of scientific
research.
In their discussion of basic metaphors in developmental psychology,
Overton and Reese (1973) d istinguish a mechanistic and an organismic
model of development. The mechanistic model compares human activities
to processes which take place within a machine. These processes are to be
analyzed as a collection of elements, each of which is to be causally ex-
plained. In the organismic model human activities are compared to pro-
ces ses within a living organism. These processes are seen as part of an
organized totality, to be explained teleologically or functionally.
Several theorists question the usefulness of these models and ask for a
model which is more adequate for the explanation of human action (Eckens-
berger & Silbereisen, 1980). In the philosophy of the human sciences other
models are to be found, one of which is the model of narrative history
(MacIntyre, 1981; Ricoeur, 1984). In this model human activities are com-
pared to elements of a story. Emphasis is laid not on causes or functions, but
on meaning. Explanation is seen as interpretation.
In philosophy there is much debate about the relation between stories
and human life. Some argue for a discontinuity between life and story. Louis
Mink , who defends this position, says : "Stories are not lived, but told"
(Mink, 1987, p. 60). Others, like David Carr (1986), argue for a continuity
between life and story. Alasdair MacIntyre and Paul Ricoeur take middle
positions. They admit that there are differences between human lives and
31
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.), Philosophy of Development, 31- 41.
© 1997 Kluwer A cademic Publishers.
stories, but still they hold that human life is organized in such a way that it
anticipates stories. MacIntyre sees actions as enacted narratives. Ricoeur,
who uses the notion of a pre-narrative structure of experience, states that
human life asks for stories, and merits being expressed in stories. This
position makes it possible to see the story as a model for human life because,
although it does not identify life and story, it stresses that life is story-like in
that it has a meaningful structure. Since from this perspective stories play an
important role in making explicit the implicit meaning of life, the narrative
model takes into consideration the stories which are told about life. Thus the
story is not only the basic metaphor for the narrative model, but also a
constitutive element of it.
In the next sections we will first sketch the mechanistic and the organis-
mic models of development. Then we will introduce a narrative model of
development, based on the ideas of MacIntyre and Ricoeur, focusing on
methodological aspects of each of the models. For the narrative model we
will refer to the work of H.-G. Gadamer (1989), who has written more
systematically about interpretation than either MacIntyre and Ricoeur. In
conclusion we will discuss the relations between the models and evaluate
them in view of their utility for the study of human development.
1 The mechanistic model
As its name suggests, the mechanistic model of man is centered around the
metaphor of the mechanism. It is characteristic of a mechanism that its parts
can be separately described and explained. In an explanation of the behavior
of elements of the mechanism, an event is causally related to prior events,
which can themselves be described without reference to the event being
explained. Just as the development of the weather can be explained by de-
scribing separate atmospheric factors and determining their mutual in-
fluence, the development of moral views may, according to the mechanistic
model, be explained by identifying elementary processes and determining
the influence of various variables, such as genetic predisposition and ex-
temal circumstances. Genetic and environmental factors are seen as causes
of moral development. It is presupposed that - under the same circum-
stances - equal causes have equal effects.
Central to the mechanistic model is the so-called deductive-nomological
explanation. An event is considered to be explained if it can be deduced
from other events with the help of a universal law. A universal law says that
Models of humandevelopment 33
under specific conditions certain events necessarily follow one another. The
necessity in this case is physical: B necessarily follows A given the structure
of physical reality. The relation between A and B is causal: A is the cause of
B. The universality of the law enhances the possibility of counterfactual
statements. Even if A and B do not occur one may say: If A had occurred B
would have followed.
Deductive-nomological explanations allow exact predictions. If the
relevant factors are known, the outcome can be exactly foretold. Although in
the mechanistic model everything can in principle be totally predicted, a
prediction does not always come true, because there may be some relevant
factors which have been overlooked. Actual psychological predictions, like
weather forecasts, are often quite uncertain. A small change in the system or
in the environment may upset the prediction completely. In short, within the
mechanistic model predictions are precise but uncertain.
In the mechanistic model changes are explained with reference to under-
lying factors . The subject which undergoes a development is lost from sight.
The experience and the activity of the developing individual are described
and explained in terms of internal and external factors which operate inde-
pendently. A change in moral view cannot be properly attributed to a per-
son or a group, since it is the outcome of genetic constitution and environ-
mental influence. Human development is not seen as something especially
human. It is regarded as a process of change which obeys the laws of nature.
Within the mechanistic model, development is understood as the change
from one state of affairs to another one through internal and external causes.
This means that, strictly speaking, one cannot distinguish qualitatively
different stages. The mechanistic model does not include the notion of
qualitative change since processes of nature are thought to be uniform and
linear. From a mechanistic point of view, one cannot distinguish a develop-
mental pattern, even though such a pattern, once it is described in nonmech-
anistic terms, might be explained in a deductive-nomological way. Indeed,
proponents of the mechanistic model will hold that every change, including
so-called stage transitions, can be explained causally.
2 The organismic model
The organismic model of man is based on the metaphor of the biological

organism. It is characteristic for an organism that it has a certain structure or
organization. The organism is oriented toward the joint goal of maintenance
and reproduction, and the different parts of the organism each have a
function in that they contribute to the attainment of this goal. As such, they
can be neither described nor explained apart from the whole. Processes
which take place in parts of the organism can be explained in terms of their
function in the survival or well-being of the whole organism. An organismic
explanation of a person's moral view stresses the functionality of moral
convictions, for instance with reference to someone's integration in society.
In the organismic model of development, explanation is functional. One
does not ask for the cause of the phenomenon to be explained but rather for
its purpose. Phenomenon A is explained by showing that it is functional to
another phenomenon B. The emergence of lungs, for instance, can be ex-
plained by noticing that lungs guarantee the intake of oxygen which is es-
sential to life and growth. Although it is assumed that A (the lungs) lead to
B (the intake of oxygen), the point of the explanation is not that B is the re-
sult of A, but that A has a specific role in regard to B, and that B makes A
intelligible. Although causal relations are presupposed, a functional expla-
nation is not itself causal. While A is the cause of B, B is not the cause of A.
In contrast with a deductive-nomological explanation, a functional ex-
planation lacks total predictability. The intake of oxygen may be secured in
different ways. Von Bertalanffy mentions in this regard the so-called princi-
ple of equifinality, which means that a goal may be reached along different
lines (Von Bertalanffy, 1968/ pp. 139f.). The uncertainty of the prediction is
not due to external conditions. The influence of external factors is less than
in the mechanistic model because the organism may overcome obstacles and
may correct deviations. Although a prediction in the organismic model is
less exact than a mechanistic one, the description of tendencies may be more
certain, because there is less influence of external factors on the growth of
the organism, owing to the organism's ability to adapt itself to changes in
the environment.
The organismic model also differs from the mechanistic model in that it
pays special attention to the subject of development. The activity of the
organism is seen as goal-directed (Taylor, 1964). A certain form of subjectiv-
ity may be attributed to the organism, in that it removes obstacles and thus
determines its conditions to a certain degree. The de velopment of moral
thought is not just seen as the outcome of genetic predisposition and envi-
ronmental factors, but rather is regarded as the result of active adaptation to
the environment in accordance with the goals and needs of the organism.
The model of the active organism can be used in the study of the develop-
ment of individuals as well as that of groups or societies. In the organismic
Models ofhumandevelopment 35
model the development of individuals, groups, or societies is seen as a

process in which human beings are actively involved in regulating their
thoughts and actions according to their interests and needs.
In the organismic model there is clearly room for a concept of develop-
ment in terms of stage transitions. Since the organismic approach is inter-
ested in structural changes, the notion of developmental pattern is central to
the organismic model. However, the organismic model is not the only model
of development which makes use of the concepts of structural change. They
are also used in the third model, to which we will now tum.
3 The narrative model
The narrative model of man is founded on the metaphor of the story. It is

characteristic of a story that it presents itself as a meaningful totality, whose
various elements refer to one another. They derive their meaning from each
other, and they are integrated into a narrative structure. Like the parts of an
organism, the parts of a story are internally related. Different passages refer
to one another and must be understood from the story as a whole, since they
not only contribute to the meaning of the whole story but also derive their
meaning from it. The organization of a story is such that it offers us a
convincing history. Thus a narrative approach to a person's moral convic-
tions emphasizes the meaning of these convictions by relating them to the
meaning of other expressions of the person. The question is not whether
there are causes for these convictions, or whether they are functional, but
whether they make sense within a context of other convictions, feelings, and
actions.
In the narrative model human life is compared with a story. However,
this sort of comparison is more intricate than the relationships portrayed in
the mechanistic and the organismic models. In the first place, the story
which serves as a metaphor is typically itself a life story. Whereas in the
mechanistic model the metaphor is conceptually unrelated to human life (a
machine is not alive), and in the organismic model the metaphor is devoid of
features which are specifically human (any living organism will do), the
narrative model refers not just to stories, but to stories about human life. It is
for this reason that novels are good examples of the narrative metaphor.
Take, for instance, the novel Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. This
novel focuses on the meaning of an individual's actions within the context of
his life (i.e., the meaning of the crime in the life of Raskolnikov), and in
doing so, shows us how actions may be integrated into a life story. In the
second place, the life story is not only the basic metaphor of the narrative
model, it is also an element of the latter. The model of the story focuses on
the meaning of experiences in life, but this requires special attention to
stories about these experiences. Stories articulate the implicit meaning of
experiences, and therefore life and story are internally related (Widders-
hoven, 1993). The narrative structure of life is made up by episodic experi-
ences as well as by stories . Thus, the meaning of Raskolnikov's crime cannot
be separated from the story he himself tells about what he has done. His
attempts to justify his deeds by comparing himself to Napoleon play an im-
portant role in the novel, since they show that his life is characterized by a
morality combining rigidity and relativism.
In the narrative model, explanation takes the form of interpretation or
hermeneutic understanding. An interpretative or hermeneutic explanation
reveals the meaning of a phenomenon by showing the context in which it is
to be understood. Thus an element of a story is related to the meaning of the
story as a whole. As we will see in chapter 16, such interpretation involves a
"hermeneutic circle" in which part and whole clarify one another (d. Gada-
mer, 1989, pp. 190f., 265f., 291£.). In reading Crime and Punishment, we inter-
pret the events which are described and the words which are exchanged as
part of a life story, which does not exist outside of the events and the dia-
logues but rather comes into being in and through them. We can only under-
stand the novel if we grasp the intertwinement of Raskolnikov's actions and
convictions, and the way in which they are integrated into specific morality.
Every interpretation is also an application (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 307f.), in the
sense that in interpreting a story we take into account what it has to say to
our present situation. Thus we can apply the text of Crime and Punishment to
our own life and thereby come to see both the attraction and the danger of
justifying one's actions by referring to great historical persons and major po-
litical events. In interpreting a story we are oriented toward the truth which
is expressed in it. Crime and Punishment is not just a nicely written book, it
also expresses insights about the human condition. An interpretative expla-
nation, especially a powerful one such as this novel, stresses the rationality
of the interpretandum. The life of Raskolnikov is not seen as some odd col-
lection of events, but as a meaningful way of being. Even if it is not the life
which we would like to live ourselves, we have to acknowledge that it is co-
herent and consistent - maybe even more consistent than much of our own
life is.
In the narrative model, meaning is dependent upon interpretation. The

meaning of a story takes shape in a dialogue between the story and the inter-
preter. Each story is part of a history of interpretation, an ongoing effective
history (Wirkungsgeschichte; see Gadamer / 1989/ pp. 300f.). In the history of
interpretation the narrative structure of the story may change radically. A
new interpretation may focus on elements which were neglected thus far,
and make explicit certain relations between elements which were implicit
before. This may result in a new and richer narrative unity. Furthermore, the
meaning of the story changes in the history of interpretation. Thus/ the
meaning of Crime and Punishment is not fixed once the novel has been writ-
ten. One may see the novel as a testimony of the disasters coming over us
once God-given rules are not obeyed. In that interpretation the book is a
plea for a conventional morality. One may, however, also read the book as
expressing the need for finding new ways of commitment after the death of
God. From this perspective, the story challenges us to develop a postcon-
ventional morality.
In the narrative model there is no room for exact predictions. Although
we can explain certain expressions by showing that they make sense within
a specific context (the narrative structure), we cannot fully predict their oc-
currence/ because a context does not determine the figure which fits into it.
The internal relation between figure and context makes it impossible to re-
duce the meaning of the figure to that of the context. Since the meaning of an
element in a story can never be fully determined, its contribution to the
creation of narrative unity cannot be established once and for all. An ele-
ment which may seem unimportant at first may later be crucial. As the
meaning of the whole story is never totally given, the narrative structure
may be rearranged in subsequent processes of interpretation. Such a change
of narrative structure, which reorganizes the relations between the elements
of the story, is itself unpredictable. However, this unpredictability does not
make the story purely contingent. The unity of a story is not just a matter of
coincidence. It is the result of an ongoing process of presentation and inter-
pretation. Reading Crimeand Punishment, we may ask ourselves in what way
the crime of Raskolnikov is going to be punished. Although some punish-
ment is to be expected, since it is already announced in the title of the book,
the meaning of the punishment cannot be established before the story is
told. And even then, the punishment may be interpreted differently. Is the
imprisonment in Siberia a retribution for the crime, as a conventional reader
might say? Or is it a situation in which Raskolnikov can find some rest and
stability, and maybe new ways of interpreting morality, as a postconven-
tional reader might think? The story does not give a definite answer. It
rather opens up several possible interpretations of what punishment might
mean.
In the narrative model the subject of development plays an important
role. When a person is seen as a self-expressing subject, emphasis is laid on
individuality and rationality. The person is supposed to be unique and
rational, both in the person's actions (which may be seen as an implicit,
untold story) and in the way in which he or she accounts for them (in ex-
plicit stories). A person's expressions are explained not by a cause which
works behind the back of the individual nor by a function which is directly
related to the individual's needs, but by showing how they are meaningful
and rational. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov's actions and words,
although they may seem bizarre at some points, are not just law-governed
reactions to external stimuli, nor are they adaptations to his environment.
They are parts of a process of meaning-making, lived through by the person
and those he or she is engaged with. In the narrative model, the develop-
ment of subjectivity is dependent upon intersubjective relations. A specific
element in a person's way of (self)expression, for instance a moral convic-
tion, asks for a response from others. This response in tum shapes further
ways of expression. Raskolnikov's justifications are not just private
thoughts, they are directed toward other people, especially to Sonya. Her
response is a mixture of understanding and disbelief. It may be argued that
in the end Raskolnikov is saved because Sonya keeps supporting him with-
out succumbing to his explanations.
Within the narrative model, development is seen as a qualitative change
in narrative structure. Human development thus implies a fundamental
change of the pattern in which a person's expressions are organized. The
story which a person presents to others, both in performing actions and in
accounting for them, is arranged in a new way. Both the new narrative
pattern and the old one are seen as meaningful. Moreover, the change from
the old pattern to the new one can also be regarded as meaningful, since the
new pattern is supposed to create a richer unity. The last pages of Crime and
Punishment describe a fundamental change in Raskolnikov's experiences and
in his way of talking about them. All of a sudden, he is no longer hurried,
but feels that the seven years of imprisonment lying ahead are not long at
all. His life plan is altered drastically, as his experience of time shows. He
also acknowledges that this experience of life and time is more important
than logical reasoning. His rigid way of moral thinking begins to soften.
What exactly comes out of this process of change is left untold. Dostoyevsky
Models ofhuman development 39
finishes Crime and Punishment by saying that Raskolnikov's transformation is

the start of a new story, the subject of a new book. But at the end of the pre-
sent story, the change in Raskolnikovs experiencing places the novel in a
new light. The end of Crime and Punishment presents the life of Raskolnikov
as a quest for a new way of meaning-making and a new morality. In short,
both the novel and the life it depicts are about morality and moral develop-
ment.
Human development as a change in narrative structure is not something
which is simply there to be observed. The change in Raskolnikov's way of
experiencing and thinking at the end of Crime and Punishment is presented
not as a fact, but as the result of a process of meaning-making. It is a mean-
ingful answer to the situation, prepared by prior experiences and stories of
Raskolnikov and others (especially Sonya). The story itself not only de-
scribes the change, but makes it explicit. It presents the change as the deci-
sive part of the plot, and shows that the change in experience is relevant
from a moral point of view, though it does this only for a reader who is open
to moral features. From a narrative perspective, human development is not
independent of its interpretation. Developmental steps are made explicit in
interpretations, and this process of explication is essential for development
itself. From a narrative perspective, developmental theory is not a descrip-
tion of development, but it is an explication which itself contributes to the
phenomenon it investigates.
4 Relations between the models
The three models of development described above approach human devel-

opment in different ways. The mechanistic model focuses on the cause of
development, the organismic model on its function, and the narrative model
on its meaning. The three models also exhibit different views on the charac-
ter of development. In the mechanistic model, development is a change of
state governed by natural laws; in the organismic model it is a change of
organizational structure which shows functional adaptation; in the narrative
model it is a change of narrative structure which embodies a growth of
meaning. There is an important sense in which we can even say that the
three models exclude each other. Within the mechanistic model, function
and meaning are irrelevant. They can only playa role in an explanation if
they can be reduced to causes, which makes them lose their specific func-
tionality and rationality. Also, little attention is paid in the organismic model
to causal relations and none to hermeneutic ones. The existence of causal

relations is assumed, but they are considered to be of little use in the expla-
nation of development; hermeneutic relations are redefined as functional
(see Luhmann, 1971). In the narrative model causal and functional features
are not denied, but neither are they regarded as important. The defender of
a narrative approach will emphasize the limitations of causal explanations in
the field of human development and, moreover, will stress that functional
criteria are insufficient to define what counts as success in individual life or
what counts as survival in the case of societies (see Habermas, 1976a,
pp .lf.).
The three models have no inherent boundaries. Prima facie, each seems
applicable to reality as a whole since each provides us with a self-contained
strategy of explanation. So construed, the mechanistic model would hold
that everything in reality can be causally explained, the organismic model
would regard the whole of reality as functionally organized, and the narra-
tive model would see meaning everywhere. In each case, reality as a whole
appears in a way which is fitted to the model used. The models thus claim to
be comprehensive. However, such claims are philosophically problematic.
The mechanistic claim to comprehensiveness is self-refuting. Insofar as it is a
claim, it purports to be true or valid in the wide sense of that term. Validity,
however, is something which does not exist in the causal world. The same
holds for the organismic claim to comprehensiveness. The narrative claim
cannot be countered in this way . It is not self-refuting, since it clearly allows
for validity, but it leaves no room for the distinction between meaningful
utterances on the one hand, and utterances which are a result of condition-
ing or functional adaptation on the other hand. This very distinction is of
fundamental importance to the narrative approach itself, not only on the
level of its foundations, where meaning has to be distinguished from cause,
but also on a practical level, where ideological phenomena have to be recog-
nized, and where causes may be changed into reasons through a critique of
ideology (see Habermas, 1971; Apel, 1984, pp. 209f.).
If none of the models is able to cover reality as a whole, we may wonder
whether they can be fruitfully combined. Since the models exclude one
another logically (causes, functions, and meanings are not reducible to each
other), such a combination requires an external set of rules that tells us when
to use a specific model and when a change of model is required. We propose
to follow Max Weber, who has constructed what he calls a "scale of under-
standing," which goes from hermeneutic understanding down to causal
explanation (see de Boer, 1983). The starting point is thus the narrative
model, which implies that we look first for meaning. Only when the utter-
ance under cons ideration shows no meaning at all, are we allowed to skip to
the level of functional or causal explanation. In that case we suspend tile
anticipation of perfect intelligibility, and no longer attribute rationality to
the utterance. This means that we no longer take tile utterance literally or at
face value, but instead look for hidden causes or tendencies (motives).
Although the use of the organismic or the mechanistic model is permitted
once the narrative model has proven to be inapplicable, in such cases we
have taken a step away from tile ideal explanation. This also implies that we
will try to get back to the narrative model as soon as possible. The set of
rules laid down in Weber's scale of understanding is neatly expressed in
Dray's dictum: "We give reasons if we can, and tum to empirical laws if we
must" (Dray, 1957, p . 138).
5 Conclusion
In this chapter we have sketched three models of development: the mecha-

nistic model, which is based on tile metaphor of the machine, tile organismic
model, which makes use of the metaphor of the living organism, and the
narrative model, which is built around the metaphor of tile story. We have
shown that each of these models has its own type of explanation: tile mecha-
nistic model yields a deductive-nomological explanation, the organismic
model is characterized by a functional explanation, and tile narrative model
results in a hermeneutic explanation. A deductive-nomological explanation
looks for causes, a functional explanation is interested in functional rela-
tions, and a hermeneutic explanation lays emphasis on meaning and ratio-
nality. Furthermore we have argued that none of these models is valid a
priori for tile explanation of human development. Finally, we have made a
plea for an integration of tile three models into an approach which starts by
applying tile narrative model, and resorts to the organismic or the mecha-
nistic model when hermeneutic methods are no longer useful.
4 Foundational development
Wouter van Haaften
Our initial focus was on development in general, with a gradual narrowing

to the nature of human development. From now on we will concentrate on
conceptual development. The present chapter begins with an elaboration of
the idea, introduced in chapter I, of foundational analysis. Next we distin-
guish' and sketch the relations between, what we call the three levels of
meaning: expressions, reasons, and foundations. Then we return to the
developmental context, to ask how, and to what extent, such foundations
might be said to develop, using that term in the sense defined in chapter 2.
1 Foundational analysis
Each of the three models of human functioning discussed in the foregoing

chapter epitomizes a set of basic ideas about what is essential to human
nature. Each also contains a distinct perspective on human development.
Their respective metaphors of the machine, the plant, and the tale charac-
terize certain deeply pervasive pre-theoretical intuitions which influence not
only ways of looking at concrete questions but also how theories can deal
with such questions. These pre-theoretical intuitions direct and delimit not
only the ways in which concrete questions are asked, but also what answers
can be given to them and the range of acceptable justifications. They decide
in advance what sorts of considerations will be taken to be relevant, or
adequate (in the literal sense of: fitting the subject matter). Thus, one might
say, the pre-theoretical intuitions corresponding to the three models dis-
cussed in chapter 3 lead to three different foundational structures of viewing
human functioning and development.
Let us look somewhat closer at one of these models. The mechanistic
model involves a causal view of reality. The notion of causality, which is
basic for many forms of science, is not itself something that is derived from
scientific research. Hume pointed out long ago that we cannot really see that
a billiard ball causes the other one to move. We first see the one ball roll and
43
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.), Philosophy of Development. 43-53.
then the other, that is all. The principle of causality is not something we
observe in, or abstract from, the events before our eyes. It is rather some-
thing we ourselves bring to the observation. Only insofar as this fundamen-
tal principle is accepted can we detect specific causal relations between
concrete events. Kant 's response to Hume was that it is inevitable for us to
see reality under the operation of the principle of causality. Many scientists
take that principle to be basic or "found ation al," at least for the domain of
science. However, to make causality a presupposition or founding principle
of science is also to decide the question of what can be objects for scientific
research. Consequently, our accepting such a foundational principle in-
volves us in a specific ontology. The principle of causality seems well
enough suited for the so-called basic sciences of physics, chemistry, and the
like . But its implications in the social sciences and in education are much
more problematic, since then only those objects could be investigated which
obey this principle, or at least objects could only be investigated insofar as
they obey this principle. In other words, in sciences like developmental
psychology there would be no place for human beings except insofar as they
behave like things. Many theorists feel this restriction does no harm as long
as we are sufficiently aware of what we have bracketed. This is an oversim-
plification of the problem, however, which easily leads to the seemingly
scientific but in fact scientistic conclusion that if only we persevere suffi-
ciently, eventually all human behavior can be explained by causal laws. That
conclusion would in fact be prompted by a profound conceptual confusion,
the hysteron proteron fallacy of inverting the logical order by mistaking what
was accepted as a premise to the investigation for its result.
The general point is again, first, that we must distinguish between forms
of reasoning or theories within a certain domain, on the one hand, and the
foundations or guiding presuppositions which constitute that domain by
defining the character of its possible inhabitants, on the other. The forms of
reasoning within the domain are, so to speak, parasitic on a set of presuppo-
sitions that often remain unnoticed but which in many subtle ways deter-
mine their range and character. Secondly, it is important to see that different
sets of presuppositions are possible, each creating different perspectives, as
did the three models of thinking about human development discussed in
chapter 3. Tracing out and analyzing such sets of tacit presuppositions re-
veals, first of all, that different perspectives are indeed possible, and second-
ly, that in daily life and in scientific theorizing they are not usually applied
in any clear and pure way.
Foundational development 45
Thus, what we call a foundational analysis is required to lay bare these

basic and pervasive pre-theoretical intuitions and then reconstruct and
perhaps differentiate them into more or less coherent articulated intellectual
schemes or models. Once this is done for a given scientific theory, it may
turn out that the theory eclectically invokes different models or sets of
presuppositions. It may also tum out that these models or presuppositions
are incompatible, and that this incompatibility is the hidden cause of breaks
and frictions within the theory itself. For such an analysis to be illuminating,
the models to which it refers must be clear and consistent in themselves,
regardless of whether they overlap in the concrete phenomena. Founda-
tional analysis is in many ways comparable to what philosophers call
conceptual analysis, and it may lead to similar results; however, its focus is
not on individual concepts but rather on the webs of presuppositions that
create the conceptual space, and thereby are constitutive of the subject
matter of, for instance, scientific theories.
2 Expressions, reasons, and foundations as levels of meaning
The idea of foundations constituting a conceptual space within which spe-

cific theories operate may be extended to other kinds of experiencing and
thinking, at various levels of meaning and comprehensiveness. Since our
everyday conversations about the education and development of children
are also guided by tacit presuppositions, they are fair game for foundational
analysis just as much as are scientific theories in specific research areas.
When Kohlberg proposed his theory of moral development he clearly had
his own presuppositions about human development in general. But he took
an essential further step by suggesting that each developmental stage in
this theory by itself represents a different foundational structure within
the moral domain and hence corresponds to a specific way of dealing with
moral problems. Thus his stage characterizations amount to what we called
foundational analyses of different ways of moral thinking and judging. In
our view, the principal value of Kohlberg's theory is not its predictive force
but its reconstructive and explanatory power. It is not so important whether
there are such clear-cut and pure stages in any concrete developing persons;
rather, the abstract stage characterizations are what help us to understand
the leading intuitions underlying their actual moral decisions at different
times and help us understand the development the child (or adult) is
passing through.
Kohlberg distinguishes between form and content. By content he refers to

the concrete moral judgments ("Heinz should steal the medicine from the
pharmacist if that is the only way to save his wife's life") and by form or
structure he means the types of reasoning or justification people adduce for
these judgments ("Life is more important than property"). This is somewhat
confusing, however, and so we propose to amend and elaborate Kohlberg's
distinction as follows . We suggest that there are three levels of meaning to
be distinguished, namely the levels of expressions, of reasons, and of foun-
dations. At each level, it seems to us, the content can be said to have its own
specific structure. (We use the term "level" in another sense than Kohlberg
does in his distinction between the preconventional, the conventional, and
the postconventional "levels," which are themselves global stages.)
First, there are the judgments people express in concrete situations, for
instance when they are confronted with a moral dilemma. In Kohlberg's
famous example of Heinz's dilemma (see chapter 9) this might be : "Heinz
ought to steal the drug in order to save his wife." Heinz's own conclusion: "1
must steal the drug now" is made at the same level of meaning. These are all
normative judgments, based (albeit implicitly) on a certain analysis of the
situation and the application of certain moral criteria. But there are other
sorts of expression as well . If somebody does not pronounce a well-formed
judgment but instead gives a snort of disgust or a loud cry of horror about
Heinz's decision, this would also be a moral expression. Similarly, concrete
actions would belong to this level, as when Heinz does not say anything at
all but just steals the drug. Let us call this the expressive level, with the
understanding that expressions can have many forms, and are certainly not
confined to verbal statements or judgments (see chapter 10 and 13).
A second level would then be that of the reasons or justifications which
are given, either spontaneously or in response to queries about why subjects
expressed themselves as they did. Kohlberg distinguished between form
and content in order to emphasize that formally different types of reasoning
may lead to the same content, that is, the materially same conclusion or
course of action ("The drug should be stolen"). It is, however, more appro-
priate in the present context to speak of different judgments or actions, if the
reasoning behind them is indeed so different. Kohlberg was interested not
so much in what people actually say or do as in what reasons they cite when
asked to justify what they say and do. The stages distinguished in his devel-
opmental theory of justice reasoning are derived from these second level
reasons, not from first level expressions. Now we may extend the range of
this second level in roughly the same way that we just extended the ex-
pressive level. It can be called the level of the ratio, using this term in the
broad sense noted above, where it referred to that which motivates a person
to say or to do something as well as to what one would appeal to or offer as
a warrant for the action. This notion of ratio may be taken to encompass
reasons, but also feelings and emotions and the will . Although the two
words are not really connected etymologically, our use of "ratio" is, in effect,
the "narratio" a person tells on his or her own behalf (see chapter 3), in
which all those elements fuse. As theoretical models of human behavior and
development the three approaches of chapter 3 should be clearly dis-
tinguished; but in the narratio of a person, elements from all three are
brought together. Furthermore, there is no need on the theorist's part to
reduce a person's narratio to a merely rationalistic sediment of the rich
sources operating at this level, even though people often sum up their
motives in a rather contracted way. It is not necessary in a narratio that the
agent spontaneously cite his or her reasons for action. A third party, for
instance the reconstructing social scientist or a therapist, could propose
reasons which the subject then may accept as an appropriate description of
h is or her motivating considerations. We grow in our understanding, and in
our narratios we make reference to this growth without which the reasons
given might be rather unconvincing or appear as rationalizations (see also
chapter 3, section 4 about the "scale of understanding").
At this point it is helpful to distinguish a third level, which lies beneath
both expressions and reasons. This is the level of foundations. This distinc-
tion is at work in Kohlberg's stage theory, because the differences between
his stages do not depend on differences in expressions, nor in fact on dif-
ferences in justifications, but on differences in types of justification. His
whole theory is designed to show how these different types reflect different
foundations of moral judgment, using "foundations" in the sense discussed
above. The conception of what morality is all about, which articulates what
morality should be, forms the logical kernel of the stage and this conception
or articulation (implicitly) limits the possible kinds of judgment about what
to do in concrete situations. This basic notion is decisive for whatever con-
siderations will be thought relevant to the specific situation (notice that
considerations first have to be relevant in order for them to be judged as
either right or wrong).
What inspires different types of reasoning at the foundational level? First
of all, there are certain basic notions about what it is to be moral. In the
introductory chapter we mentioned the example from Piaget, where the
children Marilene and Peter had fundamentally different ideas about what
should be the relevant considerations or criteria in judging concrete acts or

situations. The younger child takes into account only material consequences
of what had been done, in this case the size of the hole cut in the dress. The
older child used a more complex and differentiated set of criteria, reckoning
with the intentions with which the actions in question had been performed.
These are qualitatively different notions of what is at stake in morality.
More generally, both reasons and expressions (if authentic) are inspired
by the core meanings of crucial concepts in the domain or dimension at
issue. As we have seen, sometimes these core meanings are condensed into a
certain pervasive metaphor or perhaps a slogan. In the reconstruction such
foundations are made explicit and precise. The point is that this level is
foundational in that it is constitutive of the conceptual space within which
reasons and expressions have their meanings and where, so to speak, their
contents come to life. In that sense core meanings or (as we prefer to call
them) foundations may be said to be a prioris for judgment and experience.
Logically, they precede the concrete expressions and reasons. They estab-
lish, and thereby delimit, the relevant domain of reality and its "ontology."
One way of looking at these foundational a prioris, made famous by
Wittgenstein, is to compare them with the constitutive rules of chess. With-
out these rules the whole game would not even exist. There would be a
board and there would be pieces of wood, to be sure. But there would be no
chessmen and the game of chess could not be played. The rules do not
prescribe the chess moves but they create the very possibility of making
such moves. They create a specific reality: this is a pawn, and that is a rook,
which may move in such and such ways. Only thanks to the rules does the
reality of the chessboard come into being. Any move, and any possible
justification or discussion of that move, will depend on and presuppose the
foundations laid down by the rules .
This analogy is illuminating. However, it is also misleading. First, the
rules of chess are fixed and can be learned by heart. In most cases the foun-
dations of a certain praxis are much less clear. Think of Wittgenstein's
notion of language games. They are created and preserved by an array of
highly complex and mostly unconsciously applied rules, which even on
reflection are hard if not impossible to formulate. Secondly, the comparison
with chess rules is unfortunate because such rules determine a closed
universe, so to say, with strict boundaries that do not change unless some
authoritative body decides so. Language use and comparable human prac-
tices, however, are less fixed and less rigidly defined. In such cases we may
still say that the foundations create and so to a large measure determine the
conceptual space, without however implying that they completely fix the
character of what there can be in this space. In the next section we will stress
the a priori but at the same time open character of foundations.
3 The development of foundational structures
We have seen how different foundational structures may be the "deep

structures" underlying various kinds of expressions and motivations. One
corollary of this is that different foundations or deep structures may under-
lie what at first seem identical surface phenomena. But an even more im-
portant point in the context of this book is that in several domains there may
be developmental patterns of successive stages characterized by qualita-
tively different foundational structures. This is how Piaget's example of the
two ways of moral reasoning can be interpreted. It is also the point of
Kohlberg's theory that different deep structures occur successively in the
course of the moral development of the child, which are to be analyzed in
terms of structured stages. The same idea is present in Kuhn's theory about
the development of scientific communities, which are to be analyzed in
terms of paradigms. In the second part of this book we will take a closer
look at these and similar theories. In all these cases we may speak of a
development of foundational structures, or more briefly, foundational devel-
opment .
Piaget emphatically did not want to posit two pure and distinct stages.
His argument is that elements of both stages can be found in varying pro-
portions among both younger and older children. The passage of time only
leads to a decrease in the elements of the prior stage in favor of those of the
later one. But we think he fell prey to a confusion, one which is instructive to
unravel. Piaget's observations about the rather slow and gradual change
from the one stage to the other are surely correct. But this is no reason not to
distinguish the two stages very clearly . At this point we would like to recall
the distinction made in chapter 2, between a logic and a dynamic as two
parts of any fully expanded theory of development. No theory that we
know of is actually articulated that way (with the possible exception of
Kohlberg's short-lived attempt to introduce substages), but any theory
could have been. In principle there could have been a division into a logic
part, in which the stages are defined and characterized within some devel-
opmental pattern; and a dynamic part, in which the factual developmental
processes (of the sort defined in the theory's logic) are studied and the main
external factors that govern such processes are described. As we have

stressed before, any description or explanation of actual developmental
processes presupposes that the person making the claim has at least some
notion of the distinct stages involved - and this should certainly be the case
for the theorist giving the explanation. Paraphrasing Kant, one might say
that a dynamic without a logic is blind while a logic without a dynamic
remains barren. But if this is correct, then clearly Pia get's worries do not
apply: the gradual change and the factors which playa role in its coming
about will have to be dealt with in the dynamic; but in order to be able to do
so, a clear and therefore sharp distinction between the stages is to be pre-
supposed rather than prohibited. This is the reconstruction given in the logic
part of the theory (see chapter 5).
Thus this type of conceptual development may be understood as a
process of (gradual) change in foundational structures. How are stages re-
lated in this case? In line with the definition of the term "development"
given in chapter 2, we may say at the very least that foundational structures
form a developmental pattern if the qualitatively different earlier structures
are necessary (though not sufficient) conditions for the coming about of the
later one(s) . (Note that with this definition we have not excluded the pos-
sibility that the same material stage might be reconstructed as the result of a
different development, that is, might be seen as part of a different develop-
mental pattern. Several patterns may even be reconstructed as merging into
one.) In chapter 2 we have seen that the notions of stage and developmental
pattern are logically interlocked. Thus we may also say that for something to
be a stage there has to be a pattern within which it is connected with one or
more other stages, in such a way that the earlier ones are a jointly necessary
condition for the later ones to develop. Now, in the special case of foun-
dational development this necessary condition may be further fleshed out
by saying that the judgment criteria characteristic of the earlier stages are
necessarily contained somehow in the judgment criteria typical of the later
stages, for instance through what is rather loosely called "differentiation and
integration," resulting in the later stage's qualitatively different kinds of
judgment. In other words, not only are the earlier stages necessary con-
ditions for the coming about of the later ones, but their defining charac-
teristics are also somehow materially subsumed in the later stages. We will
come back to these and other forms of subsumption in the next chapters.
It should be clear that, although the above remarks are formulated in a
general way, they are especially applicable to theories formed within the
genetic structuralist paradigm. These theories fit especially well into the
picture we have drawn, even if perhaps not all stages actually distinguished
in these theories follow the definitional framework proposed here. In fact,
Kohlberg's theory fits better than Piaget 's, but we think that our general idea
is quite in line with Piagets intuitions as well. We should emphasize that, in
conformity with Kohlbergs elaboration of Piaget's ideas, this book con-
centrates on one rather specific form of conceptual change, namely the dev-
elopment of those foundational structures that imply different sets of criteria
of judgment.
There are intriguing complexities resulting from this idea of developing
foundations underlying expressions and reasons. As we have seen, a con-
ceptual development theory might distinguish several such foundational
structures, ordering them into a single developmental pattern. Such a theory
would propose a way of understanding a development offoundations. How-
ever/ this theory in its tum makes some fundamental presuppositions, for
instance about human functioning and development. We discussed some
such presuppositions in chapter 3/ and then used them in this chapter as
examples of foundational structures or, as we have also called them, foun-
dations of development. Now, a developmental theorist or group of theorists
might come to think that their (or their society's) actual basic perspective on
human functioning and development is inadequate and should be replaced
by another view. Theoretically, it would then be possible to reconstruct this
transition again as an individual or collective developmental pattern -
which would be a development of foundations at a deeper level. Gilligan's
move away from Kohlberg provides an example, as do Kohlberg's own
developments in theoretical perspective away from his original "bag of
virtues" critique and toward a more Vygotskian view (Kohlberg, 1984).Such
theorists will then make the evaluative development claim (see chapter 2)
that the later foundational structure is more adequate after all than the
earlier one. The reasons cited for this claim will, in turn, be expressive of
certain underlying fundamental ideas, or foundations ofdevelopment - and so
on. In brief, development of foundations and foundations of development
are interconnected in several ways, and there can be several levels of "depth
hermeneutics" involved (see further chapter 5). These levels, which when
considered abstractly seem to have no stopping point, are in fact always
related to the particular concerns, theoretical claims, or conceptual foun-
dations at issue in whatever developmental account is on the table . It is the
interests of the theorist, as well as the concrete details of a specific theory or
its equally specific foundations, that forestall an infinite regress here.
By way of conclusion, let us briefly mention two additional points that

should be kept in mind when theorizing about foundational development as
defined in this book. First, as basic conceptions about the domain in ques-
tion are different in each stage, the foundational analysis given by the the-
orist cannot be independent of the theorist's own development. Although a
domain of reality will usually encompass more features than are character-
istic of a specific developmental dimension in it, the analysis of the domain
and of distinct conceptual stages in a dimensional pattern will inevitably be
influenced by the highest stage the theorist has reached. (In a way this is the
converse of the fact that children pick up from what they hear only what
corresponds to the stage they are in.)
A final point concerns the a priori character of the foundational stages.
The term "a priori" is reminiscent of Kant, and Piaget was inclined to view
himself as dynamizing Kant 's notion. In our view, however, Piaget was at
once too radical and not radical enough here. He was not radical enough in
that he was inclined to view the stages as gradually and increasingly lead-
ing toward Kant's forms of experience and categories of understanding,
whereas foundational stages, as we defined them, are each characterized by
their own typical forms or modes of experience and categories of under-
standing and judgment. On the other hand, foundational stages cannot be
conditions of the possibility of experience and cognition in the strict and
universal way envisioned by Kant. If this were the case, it would follow that
developmental processes could not possibly be externally influenced. This
implication would threaten the whole notion of cognitive conflict as a cause
of development, which is central to the genetic structuralist paradigm. Ei-
ther the experiences would be in accordance with the conceptual structures
of a certain stage, in which case there would be no incentive to stage tran-
sition; or they would not conform to them, in which case they would go
unnoticed because of the a priori character of the conceptual structures. If
foundational structures are taken to constitute the conditions of the pos-
sibility of all experience whatsoever, then there can be no experience which
does not fit into those already existing structures, and foundational develop-
ment would seem to be ruled out in principle. Therefore the very notion of
the a priori needs qualification in this regard. Foundational structures that
are typical of a certain domain, and within that domain typical of a certain
stage in a developmental dimension, determine the possibilities of expe-
rience and judgment. To this extent such structures are rightly called a
priori; but they cannot be taken to determine all experiences the person at
that stage can have, or at least not to determine them completely. The con-
crete person conceptualizes many aspects of reality at once, and in doing so

operates in several domains, and, within these domains, in several dimen-
sions and stages. For this reason we must reject the notions of necessity and
universality which Kant connected with the a priori. Rather, in the sense
indicated above, there is always a plurality of a priori categories and struc-
tures at work at the same time. Furthermore, stages are characterized by,
and reconstructed in terms of, certain vital core concepts or criteria in the
way we discussed in sections 1 and 2, leaving room for more peripheral
areas not being completely controlled by them. Cognitive conflict, then, in
this connection means confrontation between experiences structured by
these stage-specific concepts or criteria, on the one hand, and other expe-
riences that are not wholly or partly structured by them, on the other hand
(it should be clear that what in actual fact causes people to move from one
stage to another is the subject matter of the dynamic part of a developmental
theory. The above remarks concern the conditions for the possibility of such
transitions, or in other words, the foundations of the dynamic component of
genetic structuralism).
4 Conclusion
In this chapter we have narrowed the scope of our investigation by limiting

it to conceptual development, and even more specifically to the develop-
ment of foundational structures of cognition and experience. Foundational
structures can be unearthed by means of what, in analogy with conceptual
analysis, we have called foundational analysis. Foundational structures may
have the form of basic concepts and criteria, intuitions and ideas, which to a
large degree influence our experiences and judgments, as well as our ways
of reasoning concerning some aspect of reality. To address the topic of foun-
dational development, a theory must characterize the relevant stages by
whatever sets of such basic ideas (and concepts and related criteria of judg-
ment) are applied by the developing subject.
5 Reconstruction and explanation of foundational
development
Michiel Korthals
Foundational analysis, as described in the previous chapter, can be seen as a

form of depth hermeneutics. In this chapter we will survey some of the
epistemological and normative problems of foundational development the-
ories. We elaborate and apply our approach of chapter 4 in order to under-
stand and analyze theories concerned with foundational development.
Genetic structuralist theories in the tradition of Piaget and Baldwin focus on
fundamental structures involved in individual development, but there is no
reason to limit the reconstruction of foundational structures to individual
development; it is also possible to reconstruct foundational structures in
group or societal development, for example, the development of collective
moral thought (Habermas, 1983; Schluchter, 1981) or juridical thought
(Radding, 1986). However, we must bear in mind that not every develop-
mental theory in psychology or sociology deals with foundational struc-
tures. Most of them have other theoretical aims (like explaining phenomena)
and the model here proposed is not intended to be of much use for them.
The scope of this model is therefore limited in this regard.
In the case of developmental theories, depth hermeneutics is a way of
uncovering developing structures or foundations of reasoning and thinking.
Thanks to the tacit structuring activities on the part of the individual or the
collective, foundations are experienced as "already there" by the subject and
are more or less (depending on the developmental stage) verbalized and
effective. Developmental theories are not only interested in developing
structures, they are interested in the development of the structuring subject
as well. Therefore we will also discuss the general relationship between the
development of individuals or collectives through foundational stages and
the structures or foundations through which they are moving (section 2). As
we have already noted, a comprehensive theory of conceptual development
should have not only a logic (section 3), but also a dynamic (section 4). Es-
pecially relevant for education are dynamic factors that block or stimulate
individual and collective development, for example, learning devices. We
55
W. van Haaften et al. (eds .), Philosophy ofDevelopment, 55-73.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers .
will subsequently discuss the epistemological status of foundational devel-

opment theories, understood in the present chapter as hermeneutical
theories, vis-a-vis other types of theory more frequently distinguished in
philosophy of science (sections 5 and 6). Finally, we will argue that such
developmental theories are characterized by a double hermeneutic (Gid-
dens, 1976). They are reconstructions of the concepts people use in inter-
preting their own development. But in this case the double hermeneutic gets
a special meaning, because the theoretician reconstructs from the perspec-
tive of the particular stage of development he or she is at (section 7).
1 Depth hermeneutical reconstruction of foundations of knowing and

experiencing
In daily life we interpret the actions of individuals in several ways, corre-

sponding to the distinction between expressions, reasons, and foundations.
First, we can interpret the concrete meaning of an expression by asking
ourselves, "What is she doing or saying?" One could call this interpretative
activity hermeneutic. Most of the time, this hermeneutical activity goes on
implicitly, as the background of more explicit communicative activities. But
when the particular actions or utterances of individuals are not readily
understandable or not plausible, we must intensify our hermeneutic efforts.
Then we interpret the background of this seemingly meaningless expression,
by asking ourselves, "Why is she doing or saying that?" In this second
question we try to formulate the rule or reason embodied in a verbal
judgment or some other sort of expression (in the very broad sense of ex-
pression, which we saw above includes emotions or outbursts of anger as
well as judgments). At this point we might engage in dialogue with the
subject by arguing for or against this expressed reason, or we might move
on to a third level, and ask about the criteria that determine for the individ-
uals what is to be counted as reasons in the first place. This is the founda-
tionallevel introduced in chapter 4.
Genetic structuralist theories study the development of such criteria,
which is to say they analyze foundational structures as such. Such analysis is
a hermeneutic activity, since these theories concern the underlying
foundations of reasoning, and so we shall refer to it as "depth hermeneu-
tics", a term introduced by Habermas . In his earlier work, e.g., Knowledge
and Human Interests (originally 1968) Habermas meant by it an emancipatory
critique of ideologies which is aimed at recovering "frozen" conceptual-
Reconstruction and explanation of humandevelopment 57
izations and raising the consciousness of persons involved (Habermas, 1972,

pp. 260,261; see de Boer, 1983). However, from the publication of his Theory
of Communicative Action (originally 1981) onwards, he defines "depth her-
meneutics" as the type of theory that reconstructs general competencies of
action, concentrating more or less on the phenomena of the third level as
here distinguished (Habermas, 1987b; see also Korthals, 1992). This is the
sense in which we use the term, with the added note that in a depth her-
meneutical reconstruction of the development of foundations of reasoning
and experiencing, one is not interested in the correctness of the expressions
or the plausibility of the reasons but rather in the development of the criteria
that determine for the subject (and interlocutors) what the expressions can
mean and what can count as reasons.
2 Horizontal reconstruction: Domain and dimension
Systematically (though not historically), the first question in any hermeneu-

tical reconstruction of developmental structures is to determine the refer-
ence of the respective development claims (see chapter 2). In general, a devel-
opment claim refers to some developmental pattern in a dimension. It is
important that dimensions be distinguished from domains. We defined a
dimension as some aspect of a domain which according to the theory in
question can develop along stages. For example, not every aspect in the
domain of morality develops or changes qualitatively; some aspects are non-
developmental features like personality traits, as may be the case with
altruism. But other aspects of morality such as justice reasoning develop and
in that sense constitute developmental dimensions (Kohlberg, 1981). The
same is true in the arts or in science. Within these domains one or more
aspects can be distinguished as developmental dimensions, for example,
aesthetic judgments (Parsons, 1987a), or research paradigms (Lakatos,
1978a). Domains or dimensions are not separated in reality, of course, but
they are theoretically distinguishable simply because they involve different
categories.
The distinction between domain and dimension enables us to avoid
overextending the range of phenomena that can be reconstructed in a depth
hermeneutical approach. Only in analyzing a particular domain one can
assess how important some developmental dimension is to that domain. We
call the analysis of a domain and its developmental dimensions horizontal
reconstruction. In the horizontal reconstruction the central concepts of the
dimension of development are analyzed in their relation with the domain.

Traditionally, many philosophers have been interested in analyzing do-
mains in this way, but there is no reason why social and behavioral scien-
tists should not also contribute to this undertaking.
This last point is illustrated by various attempts at reconstructing
domains of human activity. For instance, in genetic structuralism Kant's
distinction between theoretical, practical, and aesthetic reason is often
referred to in support of the usual distinction between the cognitive (or
intellectual), moral, and aesthetical domains (e.g., Kohlberg, 1981, p. 116). In
Baldwin's genetic epistemology the distinction returns as the cognitive,
moral, and aesthetic modes of experience, which enables him to recognize
both rational and nonrational elements in the three domains. Habermas
comes to similar conclusions. According to his theory of communicative
action one can reconstruct the starting point and the potential course of
social evolution (development) by taking into account the invention of
communication by language. Communicatively used language marks the
space within which sociomoral development of the human species can take
place. Once this space is reconstructed, one knows the general characteristics
of the domain. Habermas then identifies the three "prelinguistic roots" of
the three fundamental domains of development, suggesting that these and
only these are the fundamental domains of individual and societal
development. These domains are theoretical cognition, (socio-)moral cog-
nition, and aesthetic cognition. There is considerable agreement (largely
tacit) among philosophers and human scientists that these three domains are
fundamental. However, there is much disagreement as to whether these
domains are the only ones, and much discussion about the particular char-
acteristics and the relations between them (see Korthals, 1990a).
Let us briefly discuss these intricate problems with respect to the moral
domain. In the first place, intuitionist or noncognitivist positions in general
deny that developmental dimensions in the moral domain (and the aesthetic
one) can be identified at all, on the grounds that, since moral reasoning is at
most an epiphenomenon of more basic noncognitive processes, whatever
conceptual development might exist is irrelevant to morality. Theoretical
and empirical evidence suggests, however, that these positions are wrong;
reasons and expressions in the above-mentioned broad sense do play a
considerable role in morality and therefore in moral development. In the
second place, only certain aspects of the moral domain are cognitive devel-
opmental dimensions and there is no reason to suppose purely philosoph-
ical arguments can decide what these aspects are. Nor are the psychological
Reconstruction and explanation ofhuman development 59
data clear. In the moral domain, it took a long time before theoreticians
recognized that besides the dimension of moral judgment there are other
dimensions to morality, for instance those of care or responsibility. In the
third place, what at first sight looks like a dimension may upon closer
inspection be considered an entire domain. For example, with regard to
morality, some have argued that social cognition represents a dimension
belonging to this domain (Habermas, 1984), though interesting empirical
findings about the relationship between moral and social cognition do not
support this view (Selman, 1980; see chapter 2 about branching). There are
also conceptual arguments suggesting that social cognition is not a dimen-
sion within the moral domain but rather a separate fourth domain (Kurtines
& Gewirtz, 1987). The same holds for the religious domain. In his pioneering
work Thought and Things (1906-1911), Baldwin considers religious develop-
ment as a specific dimension of the moral domain, but Fowler (1981) has
more recently given plausible arguments that one should distinguish a
religious domain of its own, albeit strongly connected with other domains.
The moral of the story is that there may be good reasons to identify more
domains in the future. A priori reasoning cannot have the last word here,
and cannot restrict the number of possible domains and dimensions without
looking at empirical data. Furthermore, whether there are more and dif-
ferent dimensions to be distinguished depends largely upon the theoretical
perspective one takes. There is a complex interplay between conceptual and
empirical considerations in deciding about developmental dimensions.
3 Vertical reconstruction: The developmental pattern
In the vertical reconstruction the developmental pattern of a sequence of

structures in a specific dimension is interpreted and reconstructed. As we
have already seen, there are two ways of looking at development patterns:
in the logic part of the theory the development pattern is reconstructed,
while in the dynamic part the developmental history and psychosocial
factors influencing it are studied (see chapter 2; also Habermas, 1984). In the
literature they are sometimes called, respectively, structural analysis and
functional analysis (Chapman, 1988; Selman, 1980, p. 76), or sequence
analysis and transition analysis (van Geert, 1987), or reconstruction and
construction (Kurtines & Gewirtz, 1987). Baldwin uses the terms "genetic
epistemology" and "genetic morphology" (Baldwin, 1906-1911, Vol. 3, p.
16). However, we prefer the terms "logic" and "dynamic" for reasons al-
ready given, such that the logic is the part of a developmental theory in
which the pattern of stages in a certain dimension is reconstructed. In a
similar context, Habermas (1984) uses the term "logic" for both the theory of
the pattern and the pattern itself (as though the pattern is itself a logic), but
in order to avoid misunderstanding we prefer to restrict this term to the
theory.
In vertical reconstruction the stages are specified in terms of their defin-
ing characteristics, and the relations between the succeeding stages are
worked out conceptually. It is a reconstruction of the developmental pattern
of foundations of reasoning and experiencing in which chronological and
social considerations are largely irrelevant. For example, Piaget has often
stressed that the stages do not have fixed ages. "One can characterize stages
in a given population by a chronology, but this chronology is extremely
variable," he writes. "It depends on the previous experience of the individ-
uals and not only upon their maturation, and it depends above all on the
social milieu which can accelerate or retard the appearance of a stage, or
even prevent its manifestation" (Piaget in Osterrieth, Piaget, de Saussure, et
al. 1956, p. 34).
The final stage (final in either a descriptive or normative sense) requires
special consideration. From the perspective of the theoretician, this last stage
is sometimes not a "reconstruction" but rather a "first time construction,"
because it refers to a newly formulated stage which is only dimly and partly
discernible in the experience and reasoning of particular subjects (one of
whom is the theoretician himself of herself). In that case, the development
claim is that when reasoning and experiencing move on to a new stage, they
will be structured or can be "reconstructed" according to the criteria of
whatever last stage the theoretician has at his or her disposal. Seen from the
perspective of the developing person in actu, every stage is an original con-
struction. Only in retrospection does this construction become a reconstruc-
tion - as when theorists write their memoirs.
Besides the reconstructive section in which the pattern of stages is recon-
structed, the logic may have an evaluative section in which each stage of this
pattern is ranked and the corresponding evaluations are justified. In the
reconstructive section stages are delineated and their ordering must be
conceptualized according to some kind of pattern. To see this more clearly,
let us look at some proposals for conceptualizing stages and stage patterns.
With respect to theories of stages and patterns, Flanagan (1984, pp. 157-
161) distinguished five criteria which he attributes to Piaget. The first cri-
terion is that a pattern shou ld have universal validity. The second is that
stages should be "structured wholes." Subjects are thought to use a single

stage of reasoning (moral or otherwise) regardless of the kinds of dilemma
presented to them. The third criterion is that the developmental pattern
constitutes an invariant sequence. The fourth is that regression should not be
possible. The fifth is that a later stage should integrate the earlier one(s) into
itself.
It is now easy to see that in some of Flanagan's criteria logic and dynamic
have been conflated. The criterion of universal validity has no particular
significance as a pattern criterion in the logic, because it has only meaning as
a heuristic rule for research as a component of the dynamic. A claim to
universal validity of a pattern can be refuted by counterexamples. The
second criterion is that stages should be "structured wholes." For conceptual
development this is a reasonable criterion: elements of a foundation of rea-
soning and experiencing should be closely connected in the sense that
is clear that they belong to a conceptual framework qualitatively distin-
guishable from other conceptual frameworks (see Kohlberg, 1981, p. 120).
Unfortunately, the second part of Flanagan's second criterion implies that
stages enable one to predict the structure of later reasoning for concrete
individuals. However, stages defined in the logic have no predictive value
for particular subjects (see also section 6). Only in combination with the
dynamic can one predict a structure of reasoning in an individual. As re-
gards the third criterion, we have pointed out that the logic defines a pattern
to be used in analyzing the specific developmental processes of individual
subjects; these processes can deviate from the standard and are therefore not
necessarily invariant but largely contextual. The fourth criterion refers to
problems belonging to the dynamic of a developmental theory (see chapter
2; see also next section). The fifth criterion seems more plausible (see below),
but unfortunately Flanagan does not give us much to go on . All in all,
Flanagan's stage and pattern criteria are only of limited use when trying to
delineate stages or attempting to order stages in a pattern. It is worth adding
that probably not even Piaget would subscribe to all the criteria mentioned
by Flanagan : in a painstaking examination of Piaget's theory, Chapman
(1988) has shown he did not believe the sequence of stages should have
predictive value for the particular subject.
Flavell (1972; Flavell, Miller & Miller, 1993) has also made an attempt to
categorize relations between sequences. He proposes five types of sequence
relations, only some of which can be applied to stages. His sequence rela -
tions, which are not confined to foundational development, include se-
quences which cumulate (addition), sequences that successively substitute
each other (substitution), sequences modifying each other (modification),

sequences that incorporate or integrate each other (inclusion), and sequences
that mediate each other (mediation). Some of Piaget's notions can be easily
identified as (sub)forms of some of Flavell 's orderings of sequences, as
Flavell himself notices . Piaget's concept of integration, for example, is clearly
the same as Flavell's concept of inclusion: which means that each stage's
general structure results from the preceding one, and prepares for the
subsequent one, into which it is sooner of later itself integrated (Piaget &
Garcia, 1989,p. 303).
Another important Piagetian concept of sequential ordering, differen-
tiation' is a subform of Flavell's concept of modification. The conceptual-
ization of the relation between stages in terms of differentiation has always
had a strong appeal to developmental theoreticians. For example, Werner
has proposed for development as a whole (and not only for the logic part of
the theory), an "orthogenetic principle". This principle states that whenever
development occurs, it proceeds from a state of "relative globality, and lack
of differentiation, to a state of increasing differentiation, articulation, and
hierarchic integration" (Werner, 1957, p. 126). It is questionable, however,
whether in certain domains, for instance in aesthetic or religious develop-
ment, later stages are truly more differentiated or less global. Baldwin
acknowledges a trend of globalization with respect to several domains,
writing that "in the aesthetic mode of experience" the reality of the theoret-
ical and of the moral "can in the process of experience come together after
having fallen apart in the development of cognition" (Baldwin, 1906-1911, p .
13; see chapter 13 below) .
Our discussion in chapter 2 of stages and stage patterns specifies only the
minimum requirements whereby a logic can vertically reconstruct a given
developmental dimension. First, stages should be considered as re-
presenting "conceptual wholes" which are qualitatively different from each
other. However, this requirement leaves open how broad or narrow the
scope of the developmental dimension is to be. Secondly, as Flavell's con-
cept of inclusion or Piaget's concept of integration indicates, a later stage
materially presupposes its predecessor, which means that the earlier stage is
a necessary condition of the later one in this sense (see chapter 4). Thirdly,
the stages must have a pattern of development, in which the next stage may
be related to its predecessor in differing ways (for further discussion, see
chapter 6).
These three requirements suffice for an adequate logic of development.
There is no reason to lay down any more requirements about the way stages
Reconstruction and explanation ofhuman development 63
are related, independent of considerations relevant for specific domains and

dimensions. Therefore, we do not subscribe to all the criteria Piaget has pro-
posed in his lifelong work about stage development. In particular, we con-
clude that his famous two pairs of concepts (differentiation and integration
on the one hand and reflexivity and decentration on the other) are not al-
ways applicable in logical analysis.
As regards the relation between the reconstructive and evaluative parts of
the logic, we find that in psychological literature reconstructive issues are
often confused with issues that we place in the evaluative section of the
logic . For example, a pattern of stages of moral thinking can be proposed
without endorsing the view that the later stages must be somehow more
adequate than the preceding ones. As has been argued in chapter 2, in the
concept of development the evaluative claim is not included. Only when the
additional evaluative developmental claim is made is there a problem of
normative justification of the suggested hierarchy of stages. Unfortunately,
many developmental theories conflate not only logical and dynamic aspects,
but also the descriptive and normative parts of the logic itself. Piaget himself
was guilty of both sorts of confusion, although, as Chapman (1988) has
pointed out, he was well aware of this problem of evaluation in his theories
of cognitive development (see chapter 8).
In brief, in the logic part of any developmental theory the pattern of
stages is reconstructed. The age-relatedness of the sequence is not relevant
here; only conceptual arguments can decide how far a later stage presup-
poses its qualitatively different predecessors. In the evaluative part of the
logic chronological arguments do not count either. Here the normative jus-
tification is attempted for the claim that the later stages in a reconstructed
pattern are more adequate than prior ones (see chapter 6).
4 The dynamic part of a developmental theory
The dynamic part of a developmental theory is concerned with factual dev-

elopmental processes of persons or collectives constructing their founda-
tions of reasoning, and with the factors of their explanation. A logic without
a dynamic part is barren, because only in combination with the dynamic can
it help to understand developmental processes. A dynamic without a logic
would be pointless: describing and explaining processes of development
always presuppose some definition of that development in terms of at least
two stages constituting the beginning and the (provisional) endpoint.
In its reconstructive part the logic formulates a standard for the dynamic
part to identify stages in developmental processes in a particular dimension.
Moreover, a positively evaluated pattern of stages defines progress and a
negatively evaluated pattern of stages defines regress (see chapter 2). At this
point we should distinguish between two senses of progress and decline. In
the first sense, progress or decline (regress) are qualitative assessments
made in the course of evaluating the pattern of stages in the logic. Secondly,
sometimes people speak of progress or decline with regard to factual devel-
opmental processes. In that case a factual developmental process can be
called progress (in the second, relatively non-evaluative sense) even when it
displays a negatively evaluated pattern (decline in the first sense). In this
way for example cultural pessimists speak about Western civilization as a
"progress in decline". In order to avoid misunderstanding, we prefer to
speak of progress and regress in context of the logic, and of progression and
regression in the context of the dynamic part of the theory.
The fundamental point of departure in the dynamic part is the devel-
oping subject (either individual or collective), while in the logic it is the
developing foundations (sets of criteria) of reasoning and experiencing.
From the dynamic point of view, return, regression, cyclical processes,
standstill, etc., are all possible. It is not plausible that individuals suddenly
acquire specific structures regardless of the specific contents of these struc-
tures. Continuity in the sense of gradually acquiring the essential elements
of a foundational structure can occur, as can discontinuity in the sense of
learning jumps.
The dynamic part of a developmental theory contains a conceptual and
an empirical section. The conceptual section includes theories of personality
and of society, explicating first the motives, learning principles, and "learn-
ing mechanisms" of individuals and societies which transform existing
structures into new ones (Korthals, 199Gb), and secondly the contextual,
socio-cultural factors which influence these learning processes or make them
possible. With respect to learning principles and learning mechanisms, it is
an essential assumption in genetic structuralism that individuals cannot not
learn. The preference for a particular stage implies a devalidation of the
foregoing stage and , according to some, this is pivotal in the process of stage
transformation.
Piaget tried to account for this assumption in his theory of equilibration,
by examining learning principles which transform existing structures into
new ones (chapter 8). He defined equilibration as "a process that leads from
a state near equilibrium to a qualitatively different state at equilibrium by
Reconstruction and explanation of human development 65
way of multiple disequilibria and re-equilibrations" (Piaget, 1985, p. 3). In

cognitive development, the three forms of disequilibria, between an action
scheme and external influences, among subschemes of action, and between
subschemes and the scheme as a whole, lead to new forms of knowledge.
Piaget was primarily interested in the innovative and constructive learning
potential of individuals and collectives, and only secondarily in other
dynamic factors such as the impact of the social environment. "The central
idea here presented is that knowledge does not proceed from experience
with objects alone nor from an innate program preformed in the subject; it
results instead, from a succession of constructions to producing new struc-
tures." (Piaget, 1985, p. 3). Of course, preferences need not be conscious or
intentional, and are seldom the outcome of rational deliberation. However,
as individuals and collectives are not motivated only by reasons and pref-
erences (in this broad sense), learning principles are not the only dynamic
factors responsible for development. Socio-cultural factors influence devel-
opment as well. The empirical section of the dynamic part of an encom-
passing theory examines the actual interplay of maturational, material, and
social factors with endogenous and sometimes conscious motives. For
example, in individual processes the experiences of conflicting data or
conflicting interests are influential dynamic factors in cognitive or moral
de velopment, respectivel y.
In societal developments, sh ifts from one stage to the next are never
merely endogenous; they are always determined by other social processes as
well, often in different dimensions and domains. Moreover, in social
developments, the conditions of learning play an influential role in the
formation of a new stage. An example is the way Western technological
rationality has been assimilated in modern China (Needham, 1956-1959).
From the perspective of social integration, Western technological rationality
has come from the outside; it is more or less imposed on the Chinese culture,
and that means that it has become dominant only in certain cultural areas.
While in Western culture technological rationality has been an influential
factor structuring social integration, in the Chinese structure of social inte-
gration this role was less prominent. In short, the learning process which
expresses itself in developmental stages influences the structure of the
stages. Thus there can be different developmental processes and even dif-
ferent patterns associated with different learning en vironments. Only a
combination of careful foundational and empirical analysis can decide
whether, and to what extent, differences among stages of the same level are
structural or onl y superficial.
More or less the same can be said of regressive returns to an earlier

stage, a process which, though investigated in the dynamic, can only be
identified with the help of the reconstructive section of the logic . When an
individual or society regresses, the stage then reached may look different
from its original form, even if there are sufficient structural similarities to
warrant identifying it with the already surpassed stage. Consider, for in-
stance, the regression of Nazi Germany's juridical principles from a con-
ventional type to a preconventional type for which clan responsibility and
revenge are typical features (Neumann, 1937). This regression to a precon-
ventional type of jurisdiction produced in Nazi Germany a fanaticism or
radicalness which is normally absent in civilizations which are at their stage.
One factor that accounts for this radicalness may have been the fact that in
many other respects (e.g., technology) Nazi Germany did not regress.
HORIZONTAL RECONSTRUCTION
Domain
Developmental dimensions
IDevelopmental theories: IVERTICAL RECONSTRUCTION

econstructive section
reconstruction of developmental pattern
Logic
[ Evaluative section
iustification of developmental claims
1 Conceptual section
analysis of developmental concepts
Dynamic
[ Empirical section
explanation of developmental processes
Figure 3. Reconstruction of developmental theories
Reconstruction and explanation of human development 67
Now it might be argued that the conceptual structure of this type of pre-
conventional jurisdiction is only superficially similar to that of the type of
jurisdiction dominant among peaceful, non-sedentary tribes. Here as else-
where, only careful analysis can assess whether or not we have a structurally
similar preconventional juridical form of judgment.
In the next sections we shall analyze some of the implications of the
structure of depth hermeneutic theories for traditional categories in philos-
ophy of science, for the relation between philosophy and science, and for the
problem of the "double hermeneutic".
5 Reconstruction, description, explanation, and prediction
Reconstructions do not fit well into the usual categories of philosophy of

science like description, explanation, and prediction. With respect to the first
category, in reconstructing depth structures we do not describe concrete
phenomena, but formulate classes of criteria to identify phenomena. The
reconstruction does not result in an explanation of a developmental process
and does not function as a law-like scheme. According to the classical for-
mula of Hempel (1973), an explanation consists of an explanandum (a par-
ticular event or an empirical law) that deductively follows from the ex-
planans, which consists minimally of an empirical law and one or more
singular propositions expressing the initial conditions of the event. Such an
explanation indicates why the explanandum cannot fail to emerge. A
fully-fledged explanation is eo ipso a prediction of the event. According to
Hempel, all kinds of explanation (intentional, teleological, functional) can be
reduced to causal explanations of this type.
However, in conceptual development theories the reconstructed struc-
tures are not laws, nor do they state antecedent events that have certain
actions as their consequent. Therefore they do not predict actions of indi-
viduals. Reconstructions are classificatory schemes uniting certain meaning-
ful aspects of human actions; they enable one to describe these aspects with
their manifold connections. Reconstructions formulate criteria which enable
the theoretician to identify an event as an element within a particular foun -
dation of reasoning or experiencing. Reconstructions, therefore, make de-
scriptions, explanations, and predictions possible. In the dynamic part of the
developmental theory descriptions, explanations, and predictions playa
substantial role, but this does not mean that a dynamic explanation of dev-
elopment is a causal type of explanation, or is structured according to a
law-like scheme, as Hempel would suggest. In our narrative view, theories

of human behavior try to elucidate concrete utterances and reasons of sub-
jects . In doing this, they have to take into account the reasons actors them-
selves give for acting the way they do. Therefore, these theories do not
answer the question, Why is this individual or social phenomenon neces-
sary? but, How is it possible? (Dray, 1957; Kitchener, 1983). The last question
asks for those necessary conditions of a certain event which are most
interesting from the viewpoint of the theoretician. The "how possible"
question does not ask for the sufficient conditions, but for a rational expla-
nation of the event.
It is an essential epistemological presupposition of depth hermeneutics
that, in studying human development, one should only resort to causal
explanations when rational explanations are not applicable. Even then, one
should always try to return to the level of rational explanation and rational
predictions (in the sense of rational expectations) whenever possible, a point
made already in chapter 3. As we saw there, this hierarchy between models
of understanding is aptly formulated by Dray's slogan, "We give reasons if
we can, and turn to empirical laws if we must". As Beilin (1992) recently
stressed, Piaget himself emphasizes the "hermeneutical" or interpretive
activities on the part of the investigator in analyzing the potentialities of a
certain competence. Beilin argues that Piaget tried to create a new theoretical
model: "a logical hermeneutics of action" in which interpretations of actual
and possible meanings inherent in the situation play a pivotal role. For
example, when analyzing a child at the sensorimotor stage who is trying to
move an object in one direction, Piaget remarks that one has to take into
account whether the child also tries to move the object in another direction.
Piaget is interested in what is involved in inferences, by which he means
that if the child has accomplished some directions of motion, it may still
consider others as possible (Piaget & Garcia, 1989).
In summary, when a person reaches a certain developmental stage, this
should be explained in the dynamic part by appealing to learning principles,
to contextual factors, and to the interpretations of the agent. A complete
explanation of development of an individual in a certain dimension involves
the consideration of practice (exercise and experience), and organic and
social factors as they operate in the context of the pattern which has been
outlined in the logic part of the theory (see Overton, 1990, p. 39). In the full
explanation the reasons and beliefs of the person concerned and the way in
which he or she interprets the social context have to be incorporated. The
balancing of these factors is up to the theoretician and consequently a matter
of the theoretical framework, which does not exempt the theoretician from
referring to the way the actor interprets his or her own situation.
6 Philosophy, developmental theory, and empirical research
According to genetic structuralism, there is a close connection between phi-

losophy and social science. Philosophy, at least the philosophy of human
functioning, is not a totally different kind of intellectual discipline, but
rather differs primarily in degree from social research. Philosophical insights
are related to results of empirical research. In our view, which draws from
genetic structuralism but is not identical with it, the relation between theory
and empirical research is different for the various parts of a developmental
theory.
First, the logic is not purely normative and the dynamic part is not
purely descriptive. In the reconstructive and evaluative parts of the logic,
the central concern is with a developmental pattern which is the result of
contingent learning processes. Furthermore, as we have seen, conceptual
considerations also playa role in the dynamic part (see Korthals, 1988). It
cannot be said that the logic belongs to a priori philosophy and the dynamic
to empirical science, as some philosophers suggest (Kitchener, 1980). On the
other hand, we would not agree with Kohlberg's (1971) thesis that the psy-
chological theory and the philosophical justification of moral development
are identical (see Kohlberg, 1981, p. 131). Many authors (Boyd, 1986; van
Haaften, 1984; Habermas, 1990b; Siegel, 1986) have pointed out that the gap
between empirical and philosophical considerations cannot be bridged in
that way.
In the empirical research methods of genetic structuralism, persons are
stimulated by certain interview techniques (probe questions, etc.) to give
reasons for their viewpoints. In an adequate interview context they will thus
exhibit their favorite type of reasoning, i.e., the class of criteria which deter-
mine what can count as reasons for them. It must be admitted that there are
problems of method here. For example, it means that the test subjects
should be on an equal footing with the researcher, as far as possible; and
that their utterances are not only classified as content, but as evidence of
foundational structures as well. In fact, Piaget talked to children throughout
his life in order to discover the stages of cognitive development and their
relations to and within particular dimensions. He was not so much inter-
ested in classifying children as in testing and refining his hypothesized
stages. When individuals do not manifest a proposed pattern, the theoreti-

cian should take the interviews and other evidence seriously and not be too
quick to dismiss such data, or such individuals, as displaying lower stage
reasoning in disguise.
Although Kohlberg 's identity thesis does not hold, there is, as Habermas
(1990b) pointed out, a relation of complementarity between considerations
of logic and empirical research about stage patterns. The outcome of empir-
ical research which does not support a certain proposed pattern of stages
would form an argument against the logic part of the developmental theory.
It is not a straightforward refutation. But it certainly should be taken as an
indication that something is wrong with the proposed pattern. It shows that
a particular stage may have to be redefined, that new criteria should be in-
cluded, that a new stage might be added to the pattern, or that an entirely
new pattern may have to be proposed. For the synergetic coherence of em-
pirical, theoretical, and conceptual considerations, Kohlberg (1981, p . 97)
suggested the term "bootstrapping procedure" (see Glymour, 1980).
The discussion between Kohlberg and Gilligan regarding two alternative
or complementary patterns of moral reasoning is a good example of how
empirical research can lead to new directions. In the seventies both Kohlberg
and Gilligan were surprised to find that women generally judged some
moral dilemmas according to Kohlberg's stage 3, whereas men generally
judged the same dilemmas according to stage 4. This empirical fact inspired
Gilligan (1982) to question Kohlberg's whole pattern of moral reasoning
stages, resulting in her proposal for a pattern of stages of an ethics of care
and responsibility instead of an ethics of justice (see chapter 9).
7 The twist of the double hermeneutic
As social scientific theories about human development (personal or societal),

developmental theories are themselves subject to the "double hermeneutic".
This term was introduced by Giddens for an issue which had long haunted
social and human sciences . As he put it, "Sociology, unlike natural science,
deals with a pre-interpreted world where the creation and reproduction of
meaning-frames is a very condition of that which it seeks to analyze, namely
human social conduct: this is why there is a double hermeneutic in the social
sciences" (Giddens, 1976, p. 158). It is a double hermeneutic because in
everyday life participants interpret their communicative acts reciprocally
(the first hermeneutic) and then social scientists give their own inter-
pretations of these communicative acts (the second hermeneutic), which also

involves interpreting their own scientific acts. Normally, the double herme-
neutic has two kinds of implication for the social sciences : (a) on the input
side, when analyzing social phenomena, and (b) on the output side , when
publishing the results of this analysis.
(a) Social scientists are not free in introducing and defining their con-
cepts. Relevant social scientific concepts have meaning components that are
already defined in everyday life. Interpretive schemes that are used at the
hermeneutical level of daily life inspire and regulate communicative acts of
the participants and have in this sense a constitutive role in social life. These
interpretive schemes are in their tum interpreted or reconstructed by social
scientists.
In fact, we can discern three perspectives of interpretation. In the first
place the participants have their own point of view, their own interests
which motivate them to act and interpret in a certain way. Second, in daily
life the participants are not only participants but also observers who can
detach themselves from their own standpoints and try to see the world as a
"view from nowhere" (Nagel, 1986; Korthals, 1988). They can try to take the
observer's perspective, even if, just as the first perspective never totally
succeeds, they can never totally observe the communicative acts of others
(or themselves) from the outside (in his novel The Eye Nabokov sketches the
failure of the experimenter to take a totally external position). Third, the
scientist employs a perspective which is regulated, inter alia, by the special
code of the social scientific community to which the scientist belongs. Rules
about the public, intersubjective character of experiments and research are
part of the content of th is code just as the rules of chess are part of that
game. However, the scientist cannot claim that his reconstruction of the
underlying structure of reasoning has a different justificatory status than
that of the other person's reconstruction. The social scientist's reconstruction
of a social structure should rather be seen as a clarification, a new and
possibly fruitful interpretation of the structure, one which competes with
already established nonscientific interpretations.
(b) On the output side, the double hermeneutic means that the scientific
results should be interpreted in the context of daily life; they are not auto-
matically applicable to everyday life or directly representative of it. This
requirement of interpretation of developmental theories implies that in daily
life there must be interpretive schemes that can be helpful in this task
of translating. Moreover, it asks for an institutional space (a public sphere)
and a social-cultural context in which such a translation can take place

(Korthals, 1989).
In theories of foundational development, however, the double herme-
neutic gets an extra twist, because of the fundamental anthropological and
sociological presupposition that individuals and societies organize them-
selves on the basis of developing structures. First, the double hermeneutic
implies a claim we have already made, namely, that the developmental
theorist can reconstruct or redescribe but not invent or construct the struc-
tures from scratch. The foundational structures are already effective in the
processes of reasoning and experiencing of the individuals. For example,
when they prefer a new stage of moral thought, they have reasons for th is
preference, although they can be mistaken about these reasons. In any event,
the foundational structures are already interpreted on the level of daily life
and developmental theoreticians must take these interpretations into ac-
count. Secondly and more specifically, it means that the scientists them-
selves have moved along a developmental path. Ontogenetically, their
competencies are the result of a developmental process and that implies that
the participant perspective remains dominant. When theoreticians analyze
stages of individual development, they can only identify those stages that
they have gone through or that they could have been in. One cannot identify
stages which, according to one's own development pattern, are hierarchi-
cally higher. The investigator is constructing the foundations of the subject's
process of construction from a point of view that is itself representative of a
certain stage of foundational development. Thirdly, when studying so-
cia-cultural developments, one 's belonging to a particular culture plays an
important role . Culture often limits theoretical understanding of other
cultures. However, individuals need not personally have lived in the earlier
stages of their own culture to be able to understand other cultures as
instantiating these earlier stages of its logic. Moreover, sometimes individ-
uals can push through their own socio-cultural ceiling and propose (ele-
ments of) new, hierarchically higher stages (see Moore, 1978, esp. pp. 89-
116). The same is true for theoreticians.
The extra twist of the double hermeneutic does not entail relativism.
Everybody who learns and develops raises developmental validity claims,
and so does the theoretician. The fact that there are no objective, non-devel-
opmental standards to evaluate such claims is not an argument for rela-
tivism. The undeniable possibility of structural learning, i.e., of learning new
conceptual frameworks, undermines the view that standards or criteria can
only be valid with respect to the particular context of one framework (see
chapters 6 and 14). The very fact that such learning takes place shows that
comparisons of different frameworks in foundational development are pos-
sible .
8 Conclusion
In this chapter we have focused on developmental theories specifically con-

cerned with a "depth hermeneutics" of the development of foundational
structures specifying criteria for reasons and expressions. Like all develop-
mental theories, these can be analyzed as containing a logic part and a dy-
namic part. In the horizontal reconstruction in the logic part, the relevant
domain is defined; in its vertical reconstruction a pattern of developmental
stages within the domain is proposed, with or without an evaluation of the
later stages as "better" or "more adequate." The dynamic part is concerned
with the actual processes by which the stages are lived through during the
life of the subject (either a single person or a collective), and many factors
are to be reckoned with in the description or explanation of individual or
societalleaming processes. We also analyzed the epistemological status and
some of the problems of validation of depth hermeneutical theories. Depth
hermeneutical developmental theories do not provide explanations or pre-
dictions in the usual positivist sense. Rather, they propose "how possible"
explanations. Finally, we discussed one special consequence of the double
hermeneutic for developmental theories, namely, that the investigator is
reconstructing the foundations of the subject's process of construction from
a point of view which itself embodies a certain stage of foundational devel-
opment. This kind of hermeneutical circularity is not vicious and does not
imply conceptual relativism.
Once more, it should be stressed that there are many developmental
theories that make no attempt to reconstruct or explain foundational struc-
tures. The scope of the model proposed here is limited to those which do
make this attempt, which we call foundational developmental theories.
6 Evaluative claims about foundational develop-
ment
Wouter van Haaften
In this chapter we concentrate on the question of how to defend claims that

a certain stage is better than its predecessor(s). Our question is not, there-
fore, how developmental processes come about, which is what most devel-
opmental theories focus on. It concerns instead the evaluation of the devel-
opment, a question that many developmental theories do not even mention.
This may be so for two reasons. One is that they just do not want to make
such an evaluative claim. The other, which is more often the case, is that
they consider the correlation of development with improvement to be
entirely obvious and not in need of separate argumentation.
How can such more or less implicit claims to progress be sustained?
What types of arguments can be given in favor of evaluative conceptual
development claims? Clearly, the answer is different for conceptual devel-
opments within foundational stages than it is for the development of foun-
dational stages themselves. An evaluative comparison of developments
within the framework of a developmental stage can always appeal to the
basic categories and criteria that are characteristic of that stage. The dis-
cussion is guided by a shared basis which is not itself at issue. For example,
there may be much disagreement within the perspective of "social system
and conscience maintenance" which is typical of Kohlberg's moral develop-
ment stage 4, but these disagreements can be solved or at least clarified on
the basis of the shared orientation toward upholding the social order and
maintaining the welfare of society as a whole. Increasingly better concep-
tions of what is right and wrong in this respect may be attained on that
basis. On the other hand, the evaluative development claim may concern a
foundational development through such stages, as at least some of Kohl-
berg's stages of moral development illustrate. That is, the latter sort of eval-
uation regards not issues within stages but the stages themselves. This is the
type of evaluative conceptual development claim that we will discuss in this
chapter.
75
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.), Philosophy ofDevelopment. 75-91.
We begin by further clarifying what is involved in this question, distin-

guishing it from related problems with which it is often confused. Then we
will discuss and assess strategies of defending this type of claim. In section 1
we begin by surveying several of the usual arguments, some of which are
not valid because they in fact tum out to be genetic variants of the natu -
ralistic fallacy, while others are tenable, at least for certain domains. Next we
sketch the basic structures of what seem to us possible justificatory
strategies. In section 2 we argue that a very limited set of development
claims, namely those concerning the development of rationality as such, can
be defended in a "transcendental-genetic" way, and we briefly show what
specific problems are related to this type of developmental justification. In
section 3 we discuss justificatory strategies for other, domain-specific
evaluative claims, and some of their inherent difficulties.
The conclusion is, that we cannot avoid the question of the justification
of evaluative conceptual development claims in developmental theory, par-
ticularly not those concerning foundational development. Such claims are
problematic, however. They can be defended to a considerable degree, but
there are serious difficulties involved which have not always been noticed,
let alone adequately dealt with. First of all we need to get a clear idea of
what these evaluative claims actually claim.
1 Ways of defending conceptual development claims
As we have seen in the foregoing chapters, conceptual development stages

are regularly distinguished, more or less sharply, both in developmental
theories and in everyday talk about development and education. In ordi-
nary speech, a development claim usually regards only two qualitatively
different stages. In conceptual development theories more stages are usually
reconstructed, and, although dynamically these stages are often concomitant
and hence easily confounded, logically they may be defined very precisely.
As we have called it, this differentiation of stages is the reconstructive claim
made in the logic of a developmental theory. Moreover, conceptual devel-
opments are almost always positively valued: this is the additional eval-
uative claim. It is usually considered so normal that hardly any special
attention is paid to it. However, as we have argued in chapter 2, neither the
general notion of development as such, nor the more specific notion of a
conceptual development claim contains as part of its definition any refer-
ence to evaluation, and so whatever evaluation happens to be included as
Evaluative claims about foundational development 77
part of the development claim requires separate justification. Whether, and

to what extent, such justifications are possible, is the subject of this chapter.
As we emphasized above, an evaluative conceptual development claim
not only presupposes a reconstructive claim, it is also a claim about the pat-
tern of whatever successive stages are distinguished in the reconstructive
claim that is implicit in the evaluative claim. The problems of the recon-
structive part of the claim have been dealt with in chapter 5. Here we shall
take for granted the adequacy of the reconstructive claim by assuming that
there is some pattern of stages in a specific developmental dimension, and
we now ask what are acceptable lines of argument for defending a claim that
these stages are increasingly better or more adequate for the domain of
reality in question.
Although it is often considered obvious that the later stage in a develop-
mental sequence must be the better one, this view amounts to a genetic
variant of the naturalistic fallacy . From the mere fact that a stage occurs later
in the subject's development, we cannot legitimately conclude that it is
better than its precursor. We need a reason why the later stage should also
be the better one. New stages can be different without constituting progress.
In the work of Piaget, what we have distinguished as logic and dynamic
of a developmental theory are deeply intertwined. Piaget makes reconstruc-
tive claims (see chapter 8) but he does not so often make explicit evaluative
development claims in addition. Nevertheless, he is clearly convinced that
the various forms of cognitive development that he studied constitute real
progress over the successive stages, in that each new stage is epistemologi-
cally more adequate owing to its more adaptive way of viewing reality.
According to Piaget, each new stage's characteristic cognitive structure
yields a better fit between our developing cognitive structures, on the one
hand, and reality as it comes to be understood in the processes of assimila-
tion and accommodation, on the other.
Admittedly, much remains unclear in Piaget's theory, as many authors
have pointed out, and his claim (e.g., in Piaget, 1970) that his brand of con-
structivism avoids the Scylla of traditional empiricism and the Charybdis of
nativism is questionable (see Flanagan, 1984, pp. 146£.). Nonetheless, from a
metatheoretical perspective, a general evaluative claim about his stages of
cognitive development could be defended, provided that his theory is
construed somewhat more narrowly than Piaget originally intended. In our
view, the best line of defense would be a pragmatic one, whose point of
departure would be the utility (or alleged utility) of the cognitive stages
themselves. As Flanagan (1984, pp. 127f.) points out, Piaget's theory is
empirically testable, making quite daring claims, and so not only the theory,
but also the stages described in that theory can be assessed in terms of their
relative predictive power. Problems of decalage can be met by reconstruct-
ing narrower developmental dimensions (mathematics, object permanence,
etc.) instead of the unduly broad and encompassing stages that were
originally proposed; and falsifications of stage/age connections, however
pertinent in other contexts, do not affect the main tenor of the evaluative
development claim. Phillips (1987, p. 169) has made it clear that Piaget has
not "considered seriously the possibility that there are a number of non-
isomorphic, equally functional or 'adequate' ways in which the external
world could be conceptualized" and that "the process of equilibration alone
is not sufficient to assure that individuals will come to construct identical (or
even highly similar, on whatever criterion) cognitive structures." But that
does not rule out making evaluative claims over specific developmental
patterns. Piaget's stages clearly do have increasing predictive success in the
diverse dimensions of cognitive development he studied, and this success
argues in favor of the explicit and often also implicit evaluative claims he
makes concerning those stages.
This "pragmatic" line of defense may be acceptable for certain claims in
the cognitive domain, but it is not automatically applicable to other domains
as well . The more cognitively advanced person is not necessarily the more
moral or the more religious person, for instance. An optimal understanding
of the facts of some morally relevant situation is surely necessary for coming
to an adequate moral assessment of that situation, but it is not sufficient. To
think otherwise would amount to another variant of the naturalistic fallacy.
A moral judgment requires a properly sensitive and comprehensive appreci-
ation of the facts of the matter, but additional, specifically moral consider-
ations are also needed, in order to weigh the facts in the light of some moral
principles or convictions or otherwise come to an adequate explicit
evaluation of the moral aspects of the case . In other words, the moral do-
main and the cognitive domain are of different natures, and moral develop-
mental claims ask for a different argumentation than purely cognitive
development claims do, unless - and this is what Kohlberg has tried to
show for the subdomain of justice reasoning - moral development claims
can somehow be reduced to, or deduced from, purely cognitive develop-
ment claims .
Kohlberg is much more explicit and systematic in distinguishing
reconstructive and evaluative claims in his theory of the development of
moral judgment, and he is well aware of the problems involved. He wrote
an extensive essay devoted to precisely the questions at issue here, with the
provocative title: "From Is to Ought: How to Commit the Naturalistic Fal-
lacy and Get Away with It in the Study of Moral Development" (Kohlberg,
1971, 1981). It will be instructive for the problems dealt with in this chapter
to see why his argument does not hold (as Kohlberg himself later admitted;
e.g., Kohlberg, 1984, p. 222).
In moral development, Kohlberg says, individuals always strive for an
equilibrated situation with respect to their relations with other people. This
requires an adequate understanding of their feelings and their needs. In
dealing with the social environment, the child attains increasingly better
role-taking capabilities. Each later stage in this development is characterized
by a further differentiation of aspects of interpersonal relations and a reinte-
gration of these aspects into a more coherent and equilibrated conceptual
structure. Now, in his "From Is to Ought" essay Kohlberg claimed that there
is an isomorphism or structural parallelism between the stages in his psy-
chological theory and historical developments in ethical theory. Movement
through the psychological stages is characterized by increasing role-taking
capabilities, and developments in ethical theory have culminated in theories
that, taking their cue from Kant, emphasize the formal moral principle of
universalizability. Kohlberg explicitly appeals to Rawls's elaboration of the
fundamental notion of justice, according to which the distribution of benefits
and burdens for all concerned is fair only if it is governed by procedural
rules everyone should be prepared in principle to accept, either from their
own position or that of anybody else (Rawls, 1963, 1971). Moral develop-
ment can thus be seen as the increasing ability to comply with this formu-
lation of the universalizability principle, whose multiple perspective taking
he likened to the game of musical chairs. Therefore, according to Kohlberg,
the psychological explanation of the subject's development toward ever
more differentiated and integrated forms of moral judgment is structurally
parallel to the ethical justification of the claim that later stages are "more
moral" than prior stages. In this sense there is an isomorphism between the
psychological theory of moral development (about the facts of moral
development) and ethics (what moral development ought to be like).
In fact, in his essay Kohlberg speaks of the is-ought connection in two
quite different ways. First, he stresses the need for more cooperation be-
tween psychology (the "is side") and ethics (the "ought side"). This is cer-
tainly a nice aim, but not by itself a bridge over the gap between "is" and
"ought" in the usual sense of arguing that ought-statements can be logically
derived from is-statements. The second way is Kohlberg's isomorphism
thesis. Is it plausible to argue "from is to ought" along its lines? Unfortu-

nately that does not seem to be the case.
It is not always easy to see exactly what Kohlberg's argument is, but it
seems to involve at least one of three difficulties. (a) Parallel theoretical
structures, of whatever kind, do not of themselves make claims of one
theory true on the basis of claims in the other. In this sense an isomorphism
between theories cannot be epistemologically effective. (b) At some places
Kohlberg's point seems to be that the theories are isomorphic because the
object of both theories is identical, in which case the development to greater
differentiation and integration would amount to progress to "more moral"
stages. However, if it is taken in a normative-ethical sense, the claim that the
later stages are "more moral" is untenable. Justice as conceived by Rawls
undoubtedly presupposes role-taking abilities, but an increasing capability
to reckon with the viewpoints and needs of others is no guarantee that this
will be done in a fair manner. Here as elsewhere, development is not a good
in itself; it can only be called "good" for some specific reasons, which in this
case are simply read off from the theory of Rawls. (c) At other places
Kohlberg seems to use the expression "more moral" in a metaethical sense
corresponding to "a more appropriate notion of 'morality'." This surely
comes nearest to a foundational development claim. The argument here
takes the form of an alleged bridge from "is" to "ought," suggesting that the
contested conclusion - that the later conception of morality is better - can
be logically derived from the psychological fact that people believe it when
they are themselves in a later stage with more role-taking capacities.
Unfortunately, this argument will not work either. The factual development
of moral judgment can only be deemed a moral development on presupposi-
tion of some notion of morality - whose own acceptance requires indepen-
dent argument. It cannot be based on facts about how people happen to
develop, even though this development is, as we shall see , one of its
psychological preconditions. That is, the evaluative development claim is
made acceptable by the fact that the subject has certain insights typical of
Kohlberg's later stages concerning what is "more moral" (in the narrowly
cognitive sense of more adequately expressing what is the core of morality).
In other domains, such as those of aesthetic development (Parsons,
1987a) or religious development (Fowler, 1981; Oser & Gmunder / 1991)/ the
distinctions between logic and dynamic, and between reconstructive and
evaluative development claims are usually less clearly made and the latter
type of claims are not thoroughly discussed. In collective forms of
development the situation is even more problematic. However, if we keep in
mind the aforementioned distinctions, it will be clear that, although the

developmental processes are often much more complex dynamically, a
reconstruction can be proposed in retrospect for these areas as well. Even
irrational developments can be rationally explained and evaluated. In that
case the often tacit suggestion of progress can again be made explicit and
precise, and its defensibility discussed. It will be even more urgent here to
distinguish the various relevant developmental dimensions. For instance, it
would be absurd to suggest that there is progress in the history of music
such that the music of Beethoven would be better than the music of Mozart,
or that Webern is an advance over Brahms . Moreover, when there are forms
of progress they often imply regress in other regards, which can be seen
when we compare Bach with Palestrina, both leading lights of their re-
spective periods. But when dimensions are sufficiently distinguished, it may
be possible to defend evaluative claims concerning specific aspects of the
developmental process (van Haaften, 1994; see also chapter 13 below) .
Kuhn (1970) has shown how scientific research paradigms have often
been replaced by other paradigms more or less arbitrarily or at least under
the influence of various sociological pressures rather than through a process
of rational comparison and evaluation. This observation has inspired all
kinds of relativism, even though it is not entirely clear to what extent Kuhn
himself intended to defend a relativistic position. However, the finding that
in the history of science many factors are in play which are not very rational
need not prevent us from rationally reconstructing certain patterns of
scientific development. And, provided that these patterns are carefully
enough delineated, the successive stages may allow for an evaluative dev-
elopment claim. This proposal is modest in two respects. First, there is no
pretension that all forms of relativism are excluded; the claim concerns only
one specific reconstructed path, with the stages connected in a develop-
mental pattern. Secondly, it is not implied that rational considerations guide
the developmental process itself, even if they have been decisive on specific
occasions. The conceptual development claim does not regard the dynamic
processes but only, in retrospect, the stages as distinguished or recon-
structed in the logic.
Kuhn stressed that every rational activity takes place within a particular
framework of criteria of rationality. The crucial question is, then, whether
this implies that rational evaluation concerning paradigms is impossible.
This conclusion is not accepted by Israel Scheffler . He agrees that rational
activities are embedded in some conceptual framework or category system.
This is what enables us to conceptualize and interpret reality, and what is
operative in our distinguishing true from false propositions. On the other

hand, conceptual frameworks cannot as such be true or false, because they
cannot be compared to brute reality. However, Scheffler rejects the idea that
rival systems cannot be rationally compared and are necessarily and utterly
"incommensurable." Category systems may be revised, and such revisions
and their justifications are accomplished in an "intelligible debate about the
relative merits of rival paradigms" (Scheffler, 1972, p. 369). This is possible
provided that a clear distinction is made "between those standards or cri-
teria which are internal to a paradigm, and those by which the paradigm is
itself judged" (Scheffler, 1967, p. 84). In other words, we can and should
distinguish between paradigmatic criteria, which are the objects of compar-
ison, and second order or meta-paradigmatic criteria, which are used in
comparing and evaluating the different paradigms. According to Scheffler
there can be shared second order standards that make the comparison
possible.
The key question here is: how can this be done? Also, where do the
"second order" criteria come from and how can these be rationally assessed?
There may be foundational levels at different depths (see van Haaften,
1993), but it is clear that foundational systems cannot themselves be mea-
sured by the usual criteria of theory evaluation, such as explanatory power,
systematicity, and rigor. These are adequate in the comparison of rival
scientific theories, that is to say, when there is agreement about the (type of)
events to be explained, about what is to count as appropriate forms of
explanation, and about which criteria are to be used in the evaluation of
explanatory theories. However, when foundations are compared, the criteria
of theory comparison themselves are at issue, as for instance is the case with
the criterion of explanatory power employed in the notion of "scientific
explanation." However, when foundations are compared, the criteria of
theory comparison themselves are at issue (for instance, what notion of
"scientific explanation" is operating in the criterion of explanatory power?).
How are we to decide at this foundational level? According to Scheffler
there is a meta-criterion here, namely, "overall systematic credibility"
(Scheffler, 1967, pp. 117-124; see Neiman & Siegel, 1993, p. 64). Whether a
new principle is acceptable depends on its fit with our "initial credibilities,"
the body of principles that command our initial confidence. The totality of
our principles should "not only hang together logically but also, as a family,
preserve this initial credibility to the highest degree," he writes. "Without
initial commitments there can be no general justification" (Scheffler, 1973,
pp. 119, 121). Now, Scheffler is certainly right in stressing that in science, or
anywhere else, we have no choice but to start from where we are. The prob-
lem is, however, that we cannot stay with our initial credibilities as a basis
for the justification of a conceptual development claim, in particular not if
the claim concerns foundational development. After all, it is precisely our
most basic initial credibilities that are challenged and superseded in later
foundational stages (see van Haaften & Snik, 1996).
So far, our problem remains unsolved. In the next two sections we shall
sketch the structure of two main strategies that seem to be open for
justifying foundational development claims.
2 The transcendental-genetic strategy in defending the development of

rationality
It is important to keep in mind the distinction between conceptual develop-

ment of the sort which can be located within a certain categorial framework
or paradigm, and what we have called foundational development, which is
a development of categorial frameworks or paradigms. We will now
consider justificatory strategies for the latter sort of development, distin-
guishing two types of foundational development justification strategies. In
this section we discuss transcendental-genetic arguments concerning the
development of rationality as such. The structure of non-transcendental
argumentation concerning domain-specific rational developments will be
discussed in section 3.
In developmental contexts, principles having to do with rationality as
such (however conceived) have not always been sufficiently distinguished
from domain-specific rational principles which are based on the former.
This is quite understandable because the two are thoroughly intertwined in
any form of conceptual, or rather, foundational development. It is regret-
table, however, because they require crucially different forms of defense, so
that if the two kinds of principles are not distinguished confusion will arise
about the (relatively few) types of valid arguments possible, with the
unfortunate result that foundational development claims will seem simply
unjustifiable. In a rational reconstruction, therefore, there should be a
distinction between the two kinds of principles. Principles of rationality
establish what is accepted as constitutive of rationality as such, in contrast to
what cannot be considered rational. Domain-specific rational principles
presuppose the principles of rationality; they are constitutive of particular
forms of rationality, in contrast to other forms of rationality. For conve-
nience we will call the development of principles of rationality "type I dev-

elopment." These principles allow for a transcendental-pragmatic or in this
context a transcendental-genetic justification, as we will see . On the other
hand, there is the development of domain-specific rational principles, which
are foundational in the sense of being constitutive for the way the domain in
question as such is conceptualized (see chapter 4); this we will call "type II
development." That the two types of development are in fact intertwined
can be seen by considering the example of morality. The principles that are
constitutive of morality comprise the principles of rationality, or at any rate
in our time they are so considered, even in the case of early moral devel-
opment. Being moral is not the same as being rational, but it does require at
least some rationality. Thus, morality is defined by type I principles plus
certain further domain-specific type II principles, which together underpin
theoretical and practical discussions about the acceptability of whatever
concrete moral rules the person or society lives by.
In order to see how the transcendental strategy works for justifying type
I evaluative claims, let us now attempt a simplified (and very tentative)
reconstruction of one aspect of the development of rationality. Consistency
is a central and indeed crucial principle of rationality, but people recognize
and appreciate it only gradually and in increasingly explicit ways. Perhaps,
once in the history of thought, the principle of consistency was not an
evident requirement for acceptable reasoning in a given culture. But then at
some time or other, people in that culture came to see that this must be a
basic criterion in any judgment. Although this development probably came
about very slowly and erratically, one can in retrospect conclude that the
acceptance of the principle of consistency is an essential improvement or
progressive step in the development of a culture's collective sense of ratio-
nality. The same may be said with regard to the cognitive development of
the individual child.
This account provides us with a minimal reconstruction of one type I
development of rationality, considered both phylogenetically and ontoge-
netically. The reconstruction divides the developmental course into two
stages, seeing it as a gradual movement from a stage in which the basic
principle of consistency is not yet recognized to a stage in which it has come
to be fully accepted. Here as elsewhere we must remember that there is
nothing sacrosanct about developmental reconstructions: they are not di-
rectly representational descriptions of reality but rather serve a theoretical
purpose, and might therefore be differently designed (see chapter 2, section
5). For instance, we might also propose a reconstruction in three stages, as:
pre-rational, conventionally rational, and autonomously rational. Let us

suppose that in this reconstruction, the principle of consistency is acknowl-
edged at the second stage, but - to continue our thought experiment - the
principle of fallibilism is only fully recognized at the third stage. Moreover,
it is conceivable in principle that the development of rationality continues. It
is not easy for us (at "our" developmental stage) to imagine what this
further development might consist in, but that very difficulty is, of course,
typical of foundational development in which there is no pre-established
end point. So there may be more than two or three stages of rationality,
either because a more subtle reconstruction can be made, or because of the
discovery of genuinely new, as yet unknown, type I principles of rationality.
But why precisely is the self-consciously consistent stage to be preferred
over the earlier stage in which this principle is not yet acknowledged?
Reduction of inconsistency may be a motor of development, but that would
be more of a causal or dynamic consideration. What reason can be given by
way of justifying the evaluative (foundational) development claim? The
reason is, that type I principles have to be accepted in any and every serious
argument, on pain of its ceasing to be an argument at all. These principles
have already been accepted (albeit implicitly and even if they are not fully
realized in practice) as soon as one seriously starts giving arguments -
including arguments about the acceptability of type I principles, such as
consistency, themselves. In other words, one could not reasonably argue
against the acceptance of type I principles without thereby having already
acknowledged them. And because in this particular case the later stage, as
opposed to the first, consists precisely in the acceptance of type I principles,
this stage cannot reasonably not be preferred as more adequate than the first
anymore.
This is the genetic variant of Apel's (1980, 1987)so-called transcendental-
pragmatic strategy, which consists in pointing out that any potential
opponent must already have accepted type I principles as soon as he or she
has begun arguing against them. In opposition to Kant, Apel calls his line of
argumentation transcendental-pragmatic because it consists in clarifying
what has been implicitly acknowledged in the praxis of any argumentation.
Now, this type of reasoning can also be used as a transcendental-genetic
argument in defense of the later stage in the development or genesis of
rationality, in which the principle of consistency has come to be recognized.
Once this stage has been reached, it can be justified along the same lines,
namely, as being more appropriate than the stage in which the principle was
not yet accepted. This development has led to an adequate form of ratio-
nality, and to a better recognition of what it is to be rational than was typical

of the foregoing stage(s) - which makes the pattern in question a real
instance of foundational development.
Three points may be noticed about the particular character of this
argumentative strategy. The first is that, as Apel has repeatedly emphasized,
the strategy is not circular. It does not involve us in deductive reasoning at
all. As he puts it (see Apel, 1987), it is a reflective final grounding (I.etzt-
begriindung durch Reflekiion), not a deductive justification (Letztbegriindung
durch Deduktion), by which he means that the foundation is not the conclu-
sion of a deductive argument but is unearthed in a reflection on what is
presupposed in any argumentative activity. Secondly, the foundation's re-
flective (non-deductive) character enables us to avoid the naturalistic (ge-
netic) fallacy as well . The evaluative development claim - that the more
recent stage is the more appropriate one - is not deduced from its factual
character, nor is it based on the simple chronological fact that it is the later
stage. Thirdly, this foundation is at once narrow and broad. It is narrow in
terms of applicability. It can be used exclusively in favor of whatever can be
shown to be presupposed in any argument - which is not much, although
Apel has emphasized that this foundation comprises certain moral foun-
dations as well as the basic principles of rationality (see section 3). On the
other hand the foundation is also very broad and general, in that these few
relevant basic principles of rationality, morality, etc., are presupposed in any
serious form of reasoning, about whatever subject and in favor of whatever
position.
The argumentative strategy and its application to the developmental
context may be clear, but there is one feature that makes it special in the
developmental context, namely, the fact that the possibility of this justifica-
tion is produced by the very development to be justified. The development
in question is a necessary condition of its own justification as an improve-
ment.
This is so for two reasons. The first is that the argument cannot be given
if the development has not taken place, simply because the stage to be
justified as better does not exist if the development leading to that stage has
not yet occurred. There is not yet anything (or better, anything known) to be
compared. But this is true for all types of development which move over
qualitatively different stages.
The second, more important reason is, that the required meta-paradig-
matic criterion for the comparative judgment only becomes available when
the new stage appears. So long as there was only the first stage (as recon -
structed in retrospect), it was impossible to argue that its lack of consistency

or rationality is undesirable - indeed, within that stage consistency, etc., are
not so much desirable or undesirable as they are undesired. However, once
the development has been accomplished, nobody who reasons at the
resulting second stage (again, as reconstructed retrospectively) can reason-
ably deny that this development has been a good one, and that the new
stage is to be preferred to the former. Type I principles, once discovered,
cannot be reasonably rejected; furthermore, part of what it means to be at
this stage is that one requires consistent and otherwise rational reasons to be
given (van Haaften, 1984).
Thus, the character of this development is self-referential, in that the
second stage yields the second-order criterion on the basis of which - and
only on this basis - the development in question can come to be seen and
justified as progress, as a positive development. This means that, while we
do make a distinction here between principles of rationality that are to be
evaluated and principles (or criteria) that are used in the evaluation, as
Scheffler demanded (see section 1), we now also see that, contrary to Scheff-
ler, the decisive criteria are found in only one of the systems compared. It is
only the principles of rationality characteristic of the second stage that are
also the meta-criteria used in the evaluative comparison of the stages. We
can still retain the analytic distinction between first order and second order
criteria, but in this case the first order criteria used in the second stage
coincide with the second order criteria used in the evaluation of the stages
(see van Haaften, 1990b). Moreover, again contrary to Scheffler, it is not the
initial principles or original "credibilities" but the principles characteristic of
the last stage that are used as meta-criteria in the evaluative comparison of
the stages.
At the same time this line of argument makes it clear that there is a
fundamental asymmetry in foundational development, and that this
asymmetry plays a role in the communication between persons at different
stages. Very young children who have not yet accomplished the founda -
tional development at issue cannot accept the argument in justification of
the claim that a later stage is better than the one they are currently in (see
van Haaften, 1990a) . To this extent, the judging parties are in an unequal
position. The point here is not that in an open discussion, where the best
argument wins, they are not equally competent to decide whose judgment
concerning the stages is right - i.e., the most rational. The point is rather
that there can be no truly open discussion in the first place. The (falsifiable)
expectation is, however, that the person at the lower stage will develop so
that it becomes possible for the other person's developmental claim to be

acknowledged. Equality in discussion is not a given here. If there is anything
to be done about this inequality, it will have to be through educational
practices, some of which are likely to be rationally defensible from the side
of the educator vis-a-vis others at the same level, but not vis-a-vis the child
or person to be educated.
In brief, the transcendental-genetic strategy adapted from Apel is valid
for principles of rationality as such because it relies on a reconstruction of
the rationality presupposed in any (rational) argument. The argument is not
circular, because it is not strictly deductive in character. It is based on an
understanding of what is involved in the praxis of argumentation, which is
itself shaped by the very processes of rationality development that the
foundational claim is about. We have seen that in this case there is a serious
asymmetry in that only the later stage brings up the requisite second order
criteria for the comparison, which coincide with the first order criteria
typical of that stage.
The transcendental-genetic argument, though limited in range, is in itself
a strong argument. A small set of forms of rational development can be
justified in this way. It is natural to ask now whether this set can be ex-
tended beyond the general principles of rationality. For instance, could it be
argued by analogy that in the moral domain, discussion about the validity of
moral principles must always draw its concept of morality from the most ad-
vanced stage of moral development? The answer is no . The point of the
(genetic) transcendental argument is that any arguing about any subject
whatever presupposes, and therefore endorses, the relevant principles of
rationality, even arguments against the conceptual development claim in
question. Specifically moral principles are generally not so presupposed.
But there are exceptions, as Apel has shown (Apel , 1988; see Snik & van
Haaften, 1992). There are some principles ascribed to the moral domain that
can be defended in a transcendental way. One example is the principle of
respect for persons, which is conceived formally as the idea that a person
should be seen as an intentional being and as a unique source of insights
and considerations that may add to human communication. It might be ar-
gued further that (in order to attain maximum rationality in the broad sense)
every unique and irreplaceable person should be given a voice, and hence
that his or her integrity be protected. These are typically moral principles,
but it should be noticed that the structure of their justification is general and
seems to go beyond the moral domain.
This connects with what we noted earlier in this chapter is a central

feature in the work of Pia get (particularly Piaget, 1970) and Kohlberg,
namely, the emphasis on rational autonomy. It also connects with what we
defended in chapter 3 as the most adequate approach for studying human
existence and development, namely, the narrative approach. Unlike purely
nativist or innatist approaches on the one hand, and purely empiricist or
deterministic ones on the other, the narrative approach recognizes the
specifically human capabilities of autonomous thought and judgment.
3 The justification of type II foundational development
Even if the type I transcendental strategy can thus be extended beyond

principles of rationality in the strict sense, it should also be clear by now that
most domain-specific foundational principles - that is, principles that are
constitutive of a certain stage's characteristic conceptualization of the
domain in question - cannot be defended by this line of argument. This
raises the question of whether and how such other foundational principles
in diverse domains of reality can be justified. How can evaluative founda-
tional development claims be defended, if type I argumentation is not
available?
Here we shall have to limit our analysis to the structure of possible
argumentation: whatever the actual arguments are, they will of necessity be
specific to the developmental domains and stages at issue. Assuming that
the foundational systems compared are not inconsistent or otherwise irra-
tional (in which case we would evaluate them in terms of type I criteria, as
discussed in the previous section), what second order criteria are we to
appeal to in order to evaluate them?
Here as in the case of type I arguments we cannot appeal to the initial
credibilities characteristic of an earlier stage, since the intelligibility of the
later stage is essentially different from that of its forerunner. Type II criteria
have to do with what is unique to and constitutive of a particular stage's
conceptualization of the dimension or domain in question, and therefore
cannot be transcendentally justified. Admittedly, even type II arguments are
convincing only to persons who have passed through the relevant develop-
mental stages. But whereas for type I principles the argument is rationally
inevitable, for type II criteria the power of the argument really depends on
the force of the reasons given.
90 Philosophyof development
In general, whether type II foundational development claims can be

defended depends on how later stages build upon earlier ones, in other
words, on the "cumulativity" of the developmental pattern. Only if the
stages can be reconstructed as in some way incorporating prior stages can
we even begin to argue that a later stage is better, because only then can
foundational stages be retrospectively compared. In the special case of foun-
dational development, we suggest that this cumulativity is keyed to criteria
of judgment that are representative of the relevant stages. Thus within any
domain the stages will be characterized by qualitatively different perspec -
tives on that domain, yet be comparable in terms of their respective criteria
of judgment. The judgment may improve, for instance, through "addition,"
that is, the adoption of complementary judgment criteria, as in the example
from Piaget cited in chapter 1, concerning the hole cut in the dress. Or
improvement may consist in what has often been called "differentiation and
integration" (d. the survey by Reuchlin, 1987), which in this case would
presumably mean that existing judgment criteria are differentiated and
related in a specific way in the new stage. In Kohlberg's theory, the tran-
sition from the conventional stage 4 to the postconventional stage 5 would
be such a case, since in stage 4 it is thought that the given laws must be
maintained to secure the social order, and in stage 5 it is also thought that
laws have to be maintained but now on the superordinate condition that
their contents be in accordance with independent moral principles.
It seems safe to say that the new stage, with its extended criteria of judg-
ment, cannot be worse than its precursor, but even so there is no guarantee
that it will be better. There is no logical basis for assuming that the
evaluative development claim will be successful or that the argument for it
will be convincing or even plausible. Only if there is such a basis, however,
will it be possible to show that the later stage not only is not worse than its
predecessor but actually is an improvement.
4 Conclusion
Trying to justify evaluative conceptual or foundational development claims

only makes sense if there is a clearly reconstructed pattern of stages to be
assessed. Even then, we certainly do not want to suggest that all such claims
would be defensible. There is no single recipe for the justification of
evaluative foundational claims, and the range of possible lines of argument
is limited. Not valid, for instance, is the genetic variant of the naturalistic
fallacy in which an evaluative conclusion is deduced from developmental

facts . On the other hand, Piaget's suggestion of a justification in terms of
increasing predictive success over the stages seems sound, and applies
across the wide but nonetheless bounded domain of cognitive development.
In this chapter we have elaborated two general strategies for defending
evaluative foundational development claims, indicating the strengths and
limitations of each. First, some claims concern the development of founda-
tions of rationality per se (type I). These can employ a transcendental-
pragmatic, or transcendental-genetic, strategy of justification, making an
appeal to what in any rational argumentation must be accepted from the
very start. Analogously, if this strategy is applied to an evaluative claim
concerning the development of principles of rationality as such, it presup-
poses the very development to be justified. Conversely, this justificatory
strategy is not available to us when we talk to persons (especially young
children) who have not yet gone through this foundational development.
Secondly, there are evaluative development claims concerning domain-
specific foundations: these are claims that later stages embodying the very
definition of the domain in question (type II) are "better" than earlier stages
in the same domain. Such evaluations cannot be transcendentally defended,
but we have proposed some conditions for the possibility of justifying
claims of this type as well .
7 Dimensions of individual and collective develop-
ment in various domains
Michiel Korthals
In the preceding chapters we laid down our theoretical framework and gave
a systematic overview of the central problems of a philosophy of develop-
ment. Our interest is in the manifold ways in which people conceptualize
their world and in the foundations of such conceptualizations, especially as
they develop through time. For most people, the concept of development is
associated almost exclusively with the child's journey from birth to adoles-
cence, or with a series of stages starting with an individual's prenatal life
and ending with old age. However, there is no reason to conceptualize dev-
elopment exclusively along the age axis, or only with respect to individuals.
In some domains the endpoint of a developmental sequence is normally
reached with adulthood; while in other domains developmental sequences
begin only with old age. Moreover, we can identify forms of conceptual
development in collective processes as well .
In this chapter we will first analyze the relation between individual and
collective forms of development. We will argue that some problems of this
relationship can be fruitfully approached by using the distinction between
the logic and dynamic of a developmental theory. We will use the term
"collective" for group processes as well as for societal processes, although in
chapters 11-13 we will focus on the societal level. In the second part of the
present chapter we will return to questions concerning the relation between
domains and dimensions with respect to individual forms of development;
and in the third part we will look at the same questions with respect to the
societal forms of development. After considering these two levels in general,
we will propose a general pattern of analysis for chapters 8 to 13, which
consider various individual and societal domains and dimensions.
93
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.), Philos ophy ofDe velopment, 93-100.
@ 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
1 The relations between individual and collective forms of development
Until now we have avoided making any general differentiation between

individual and collective forms of development. However, they are differ-
ently structured in many respects. Certainly individual development does
not simply recapitulate historical development in the manner suggested by
classical theories such as those of Haeckel, Baldwin, Freud, and Hall, which
disregard the specific character of individual and collective learning pro-
cesses. Admittedly, there are general issues common to both individual and
social forms of development. However, recapitulation theory, according to
which the individual recapitulates stages of social history, fails to recognize
the innovative potentials of individuals. Furthermore, since a developmental
stage is not a sufficient condition for its successor stage, novel stage patterns
are always possible. According to recapitulation theory the individual only
acquires new structures as part of a collective leap forward, but it is difficult
to see how such a leap is possible without taking into account the learning
capabilities of the individual. Finally, the idea of an ontologically fixed logic
of history (which the individual supposedly recapitulates) is doubtful for
the same reason, namely, because it neglects individ uallearning processes.
Conversely, to say that social stages only reflect individual stages and do
not influence them is to underestimate the innovative and constructive
character of collective learning processes. Again, there is no single pattern of
individual development which functions as a master plan or model of the
historical path of societies. For this reason we do not agree a priori with
Piaget's tendency to model social developments upon sequences found in
individual development. For instance, he draws parallels between indi-
vidual logical development and an intellectual community's scientific devel-
opment (see chapter 11). In The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932) he draws
parallels between collective moral development and individual moral dev-
elopment, indicating that primitive societies reflect the same first stage of
moral heteronomy or objectivism as children do . The transformation of the
society through a further stage of collective development is a necessary
condition for individuals moving to the next stage of moral understanding.
Piaget therefore claims that individual moral development is a product of
various types of interaction. This has been called a "functionalist" point of
view (Beilin, 1992), since Piaget assumes that individual development is a
function of changes at the level of social interaction.
Dimensions of individual and collective development in various domains 95
There seems to be a dilemma here. On the one hand, the later Piaget and
other genetic structuralists stress the constructive potential of the individ-
ual. From this point of view the social context is but one of several influ-
ences, and not a determining force by itself (Chapman, 1988, chapter 7). On
the other hand, when the constructive potential of collective learning
processes is taken as the determining force, as seems to be the case in the
early work of Piaget, there is little room for the constructive potential of the
individual. It is our contention that the framework sketched in the preced-
ing chapters enables us to avoid this dilemma. The distinction between
logical and dynamic aspects can help us to disentangle problems concerning
the development of structures of reasoning and of experiencing from prob-
lems of the development of subjects (collectives included). In the logic of a
theory, the analysis of structures of reasoning and experiencing takes for
granted that subjects of development (individuals or collectives) construct
their own frames of reference, without assuming anything about the actual
constructive processes. Furthermore, in the logic part of theories of individ-
ual development we can heuristically appeal to models that are originally
designed for reconstructing collective development, and the other way
around. However, the logic of developmental theories should be distin-
guished from their dynamic, as we stressed in chapter 2. The logic does not
investigate the way individuals and collectives acquire their structures of
experience, thinking, and acting. Here educational interventions and other
aspects of the context of development are relevant.
Thus individuals are producers of their own development and, at the
same time, they are the products of their social environment (Lerner &
Busch-Rossnagel, 1981). The later Kohlberg (Power, Higgins & Kohlberg
1989a) took some steps toward elaborating this type of contextualism, which
denies that individuals develop in a social vacuum. He argued for a genuine
genetic structuralist position which stresses the active, constructive subject
and at the same time takes the impact of the social environment seriously.
The social context is in itself a result of individual and collective develop-
ments. As such it can be structured according to a stage pattern.
Using different patterns to reconstruct individual and collective process-
es of development in no way plays down the fundamental importance of the
interaction between those two processes. Our point is only that even when,
as we shall argue, collectively developed practices such as educational
intervention playa pivotal role in the conceptual development of children, it
remains possible - and even useful- to analytically identify stage patterns
as characteristic of their individual forms of development and, similarly, to
identify stages of collective development. Also evaluative claims may be

made about both types of development, though here again their respective
justifications may be quite different.
2 Individual domains
The first question in the analysis of individual development concerns the

adequate distinction of domains, and of dimensions within the domains.
How are they to be delineated? Can we take for granted that developmental
trajectories may be virtually infinite in their variety (Gergen, 1980, p. 37), or
are there universal divisions? Most (traditional) developmental theories
answer this question by proposing one specific pattern as universally valid.
But, as we have stressed before, this response is best seen as a research
strategy, a maneuver without ontological pretensions which recognizes that
only putatively universal claims can be seriously scrutinized, and if neces-
sary corrected, refuted, or falsified. To do so requires a procedure of dis-
cussion and testing. When differing reconstructive claims are made, we
must first determine whether they presuppose the same definition of the
relevant domain and dimension. If not, they are not really competing. If so,
the next questions are whether they have some stages in common and, sup-
posing they do, what criteria are used in delineating stages?
However, sometimes the claim to universality has another sense alto-
gether. For example, Piaget and Habermas claim that there are really no
more than three domains, reflecting Kant's division of theoretical reason,
practical reason, and the faculty of judgment. In this way Kant de-
objectivized the old philosophical idea of the three branches of theoretical,
practical, and aesthetic knowledge, with their corresponding values of truth,
goodness, and beauty. However, it does not seem necessary to regiment
reality along these lines, at least not a priori (see chapter 5). In the next
chapters, we concentrate on the cognitive, moral, and aesthetic domains, not
because we think that they are exhaustive of reality but simply because they
have been best researched so far. Certainly there are other interesting do-
mains, like those of religion (Fowler, 1981) or worldview (Oser & Gmunder,
1991), and there are many subdomains and dimensions within domains such
as musical development (Swanwick, 1988), which we cannot deal with here.
However, the burden of our argument in this chapter is that they could be
analyzed according to the same framework.
Dimensions ofindividual andcollective development in various domains 97
The relation between domains and their various dimensions is another

bone of contention. Some dimensions concern more general abilities that are
presupposed in other dimensions. Kohlberg claims that "logical stages must
be prior to moral stages, because they are more general.. ..One can be at a
given logical stage and not at the parallel moral stage, but the reverse is not
possible" (Kohlberg, 1971, p. 187). He does not want to say that logical
stages entail moral stages, or that moral stages are an application of logical
abilities to this specific area of problems. He only claims that they are a
necessary condition for moral stages and not the other way around (Kohl-
berg, 1981, p . 137). This statement has been criticized because it rules out the
possibility that logical structures might change - i.e., might be revised -
through moral and other learning processes (Loevinger, 1978, p . 186). How -
ever, it is clear that there are interrelations between various domains and
dimensions (although much depends on how they are defined).
A related problem concerns the question of whether we can find one
domain so fundamental that it constitutes the basis for all the others. One
might think here of a domain of worldviews, the (usually tradition-based
and hence societal) ways individuals experience themselves in the sur-
rounding world. Worldviews then would encompass all further analytically
distinguishable domains and dimensions, such as morality and moral rea-
soning. For instance, Kohlberg has argued that his theory of hard structural
stages of moral judgment concerns only one aspect of the (soft structural)
development of worldviews. Theories of hard structural stages are con-
sidered to be more precise than theories of soft structural stages because the
latter depend much more on conscious reflection by the self. "Viewed in this
light, the 'stren gth ' of hard stages is limited by the need to subdivide into
discrete domains those world views that are, in an ethical and religious
sense, unified. What hard structural stages gain by this is precision in their
articulation of a structural logic of stages that will survive the ever changing
growth of psychological knowledge about the self, its functions, and dev-
elopment" (Kohlberg, 1984, p . 238). Similarly, ego psychologists such as
Kegan (1982) and Loevinger (1978) have tried to elucidate hierarchical stages
of consciousness or self-development that are said to underlie and connect
all other developmental domains. Others argue that after the highest stage
of, say, moral development has been reached, there are one or more stages
of a holistic type uniting all the domains hitherto differentiated.
From a narrative point of view, the way people conceptualize themselves
as members of the world (i.e., their worldview) is fundamental and influ -
ences the way domains (and dimensions) are conceptualized. However, the
various developmental dimensions can be reconstructed differently by dif-

ferent theorists. It is thus better to say, not that worldviews constitute some
kind of "master dimension," but that the coordination of the developmental
dimensions in individuals or collectives is realized in their worldviews (Oser
& Gmunder, 1991).
3 Collective domains
With respect to collective processes there is even more reason not to restrict
in advance the number of possible domains and dimensions. Given the huge
differences between cultures, the innumerable processes of acculturation,
and the ongoing flux of cultural changes, it is not enough to concentrate on
just a few dimensions to the neglect of all other dimensions of development.
However, this is precisely what happens in many theories of societal devel-
opment. In his theory of Historical Materialism, Marx distinguishes three
stages in the development of the forces of production: first, the pre-capital-
istic stage, with a very limited growth of the forces of production, then the
capitalist stage, with a strong tendency to increase these forces, and finally
the socialist stage, with production for the sake of production. These stages
also function as criteria for other aspects or forms of societal development.
In the evolutionary theory of Auguste Comte the three stages of knowledge,
namely, religion, metaphysics, and science, determine the stages of societal
development. And in the recent theory of Ernest Gellner (1988) it is the pat-
tern of cognitive stages which determines societal development in general.
In history and archaeology, categories of periodiza tion are often taken from
only one dimension of development. The usual sequence of Stone Age,
Bronze Age, and Iron Age as the beginnings of human history (see Childe,
1936/1956) is an example of periodization based on instruments, in fact
representing a very limited aspect of the development of societies. Gordon
Childe remarks that these material things not only reveal the level of
technical skills in a culture but also the way their makers have their liveli-
hood, which is to say their economy (Childe, 1936/1956, p . 48). But this is by
no means obvious; the way people cooperate in economic affairs might also
be dependent on their level of moral and societal development.
In principle there can be as many dimensions of development as there
are theoretical perspectives on colle ctive processes. For example, in Charles
Radding's (1986) well-informed study of developmental stages of ordeals in
the middle Middle Ages, only one very small aspect of the European devel-
Dimensions of individual and collective development in various domains 99
opment of juridical institutions is covered. However, the particularity and

limited scope of this developmental dimension poses no special problem in
itself, nor does the reverse, the global and broad scope of a Comte or a Gell-
ner . There is nothing wrong with wielding a broad brush, as long as one
does not lose sight of the details. Even Radding's study speaks of "con-
ceptual development," for instance, in the developing notions of evidence in
cases of criminal actions or juridical conflicts. What counts as juridical
evidence is a conceptual question, certainly related to many other aspects of
worldviews but analytically distinguishable from them.
In short, domains of collective development are as varied as those of
individual development, and the next part of this book is designed to reflect
that "similarity in diversity." Our discussion of individual development in
the scientific, the sociomoral, and the aesthetic domains (chapters 8-10) is
paralleled by our subsequent discussion of societal development in the cor-
responding collective domains (chapters 11-13). In this tripartite division we
differ from some modern, sophisticated theories of societal development.
Habermas, for example, differentiates between the sociomoral and the aes-
thetic domains but does not mention a scientific domain, because on his
view the whole of modern science should be located at one stage. Gellner,
on the other hand, recognizes only the cognitive domain, and does not go
into developmental patterns in the scientific, sociomoral, and aesthetic do-
mains.
Finally, two essential differences should be kept in mind while com-
paring collective and individual processes of development. Once an individ-
ual has reached a particular conceptual stage he or she will usually reason
according to that stage, but with societies the situation is more complex.
First, they encompass an enormous variety of different conceptual systems
which, from a logical point of view, can belong to different stages. In mod-
ern societies many different systems of thinking and experiencing coexist.
Secondly, when a foundational change has taken place at the conceptual
level, its institutionalization produces new challenges and risks for the
society. Both types of complexity in societal development involve much
more of a clash of opinions and of rival foundational conceptualizations
than one finds in individual development.
4 Issues for the following chapters
Conceptual problems of the different dimensions in individual and collec-

tive foundational development can be ordered into four clusters, gathered
around horizontal issues, vertical issues, problems concerning the relations
between distinct domains and dimensions, and problems concerning the
relation between the logic and dynamic of developmental theories. Items in
one cluster will often affect those of the others.
The first cluster of problems have to do with defining the particular do-
main and the dimensions within this domain. We call these horizontal
issues. They are not easy to decide. For example, the definition of the moral
domain is a highly controversial theme; some philosophers even argue that
it is neither feasible nor desirable to provide any definition at all. However,
in trying to reconstruct moral structures, one needs to have in mind some
definition of morality.
Secondly, there are vertical problems, problems having to do with specif-
ic dimensions and related to the reconstructive and evaluative aspects of the
stage patterns. Theorists may agree about the definition of a particular
domain and its dimensions, and yet differ in their reconstructions of the
stages or disagree on how to justify the evaluations of those stages.
A th ird issue is the relations of the various dimensions within a domain
and across domains. Fourth and finally, questions arise as to how the logical
aspects of development are related to its dynamic aspects. Problems of stage
transition as well as those of individual and collective learning processes
belong to th is category. Again, answers can only be given after careful con-
ceptual consideration of the particular characteristics of the domains at
issue. The learning processes will be dealt with from an educational point of
view in the third part of our book.
Along these lines various dimensions of individual and collective devel-
opment will be discussed in the following chapters on the basis of the
framework outlined in the first part of this book. Six domains and their
dimensions of development will be analyzed (horizontal reconstruction). In
each domain one or more vertical reconstructions of stage patterns as pro-
posed in different theories will be discussed, the relations with other di-
mensions will be sketched, and various dynamic factors will be dealt with.
8 Cognitive development
Jan Boom
Cognitive development theory examines how we deal with the world and
how we coordinate our dealings with it. In this chapter we shall discuss
some philosophical problems of such theories, concentrating on Piaget's
work since, though much criticized, it is still very influential. His theory is
especially interesting philosophically because of its very strong claims about
the relation between cognitive development and epistemological questions
(see Chapman, 1988), which we will discuss. Also some neo-Piagetian theo-
ries will be briefly considered.
We begin with the reconstruction of the cognitive domain. Next we will
illustrate development in one of the most extensively researched dimensions
in this domain, namely object permanence, and discuss the stage issue as it
has arisen in developmental psychology. Then we will elaborate on the
relationship between the stages. Piaget did not approach the issue of im-
provement in development from the point of view of a comparison of the
reconstructed stages, since he did not use a distinction like the one we have
made between the logic and dynamic of developmental theory. However, he
was well aware of problems we attribute to neglect of this distinction.
Therefore, his approach, which focused on the details of the general proper-
ties of the dynamic of stage transitions, is worth considering here. Piaget's
notions of equilibration and reflective abstraction, which figure prominently
in his latest and most philosophically interesting works, will be discussed in
detail because of their relevance to the evaluative claim that development
amounts to progress.
1 Horizontal reconstruction: The cognitive domain
One distinguishing feature of the cognitive domain (taken in a broad sense)

is that it is truth-functional. That is, it involves making claims, be they ex-
plicit or implicit, verbal or non-verbal, which can be evaluated as true or
false. Most human actions presuppose that some situation obtains in which
101
W. van Haaften et al. (eds .), Philosophy ofDevelopment . 101-117.
the action makes sense, and about which claims can be put forward whose
truth could be established or at least meaningfully disputed. For example, if
we use a hammer in order to drive a nail in the wall, we ordinarily do so on
the basis of beliefs about the world. If these beliefs are false the action will be
frustrated or unsuccessful (e.g., if the wall is made of concrete). The fact that
beliefs have truth values sets the cognitive domain apart from other
domains like the moral one. In the moral domain claims are primarily
judged as moral or immoral (right or wrong, good or bad, honorable or
shameful, etc.) rather than as true or false.
In cognitive psychology, information processing, and neo-Piagetian ap-
proaches in developmental psychology, the cognitive domain is often
defined in relation to problem solving, such that cognitive development
amounts to an increase in problem solving capability. From this point of
view "cognitive" includes the working of memory, processing speed, pro-
cessing quality, perceptual abilities, and general biological and neurological
constraints on functioning. In our view, however, these factors and con-
straints are not sufficient to define the cognitive domain. Without denying
their importance, our focus is on conceptual development and we define the
cognitive domain accordingly.
Although our description of the cognitive domain is broad enough to
include social knowledge we will not explicitly address that topic or related
ones such as perspective-taking (when the cognitive domain is taken to be
restricted to conceptualizations related to the material world, the term
"intellectual development" may also be considered appropriate; see Case,
1985). Certainly cognitions play an important role in other domains as well.
However, the relation of the cognitive domain with other domains is
discussed in the next chapters.
In our view, cognitive development is related to fundamental structures
which are presupposed in claims concerning first order truth or falsity.
Within the cognitive domain several dimensions of development may be
distinguished. If we follow Piaget, developments in the use of concepts
which are presupposed in empirical/physical knowledge or logical infer-
ence/ such as "object," "space," "time," "number," and "necessity," could be
taken to represent different dimensions of development.
However, opinions differ as regards the question of how the dimensions
should be demarcated. Domain specificity is currently an important topic in
developmental psychology. In recent discussions of the issue, the main
question seems to be how broadly applicable certain abilities are (see Gel-
man & Baillargeon, 1983). For example, do major developmental transitions
Cognitive development 103
take place across dimensions or even across domains? To answer yes would
suggest very broad stages. Or are there only sequences of levels of specific
abilities, possibly too narrow to even speak of dimensions of development?
It is not our purpose in this chapter to answer such questions, or to resolve
this discussion about the demarcation of dimensions (but see Boom, 1992).
Piaget's own interpretation of the cognitive domain is quite different
from that prevailing in mainstream developmental psychology and philos-
ophy. Furthermore, although at first sight the domain he set out to investi-
gate seems very Kantian - especially when we consider his early studies of
concepts like object, space, causality, and time (see Piaget, 1937/1954) - he
did not interpret these concepts as a priori categories. Unlike Kant, he be-
lieved that an elementary understanding of these concepts develops during
the first two years of life and further elaborations continue long after that.
Piaget (1977a; 1985; see Piaget & Garcia, 1989) made a distinction be-
tween different sources of knowledge. Knowledge may derive from (1) the
interaction of the subject with objects or (2) reflection on the subject's own
activity. In his earlier work Piaget explicitly acknowledged (3) the inter-
action with others, but in his recent work this third source has received less
attention (see Boom, 1991). The first of these sources, interaction with ob-
jects, is the basis for empirical/physical knowledge, and the second, reflec-
tion by the subject on the actions (reflective abstraction), is the basis for
logical/mathematical knowledge. Both forms of knowledge (and related
abilities) are tightly interwoven and equally important, since together they
form an essential precondition for the possibility of manipulating objects.
However, from the developmental perspective logical/mathematical knowl-
edge is more interesting, since, according to Piaget, the most important dev-
elopmental changes are related to this form of knowledge.
2 Vertical Reconstruction
We tum now to the task of vertical reconstruction of the cognitive domain.

We will continue to base our remarks on Piaget's theory, since he provides
the most typical descriptions of broad stage sequences in the cognitive
domain. Notwithstanding extensive efforts to invalidate his findings and
although there is considerable evidence that his age estimates for the onset
of a stage are much too conservative, no significantly different proposals for
stage patterns have gained acceptance. Piaget usually proposes four main
stages (but sometimes three and sometimes five: see Vuyk, 1981): the sen-
sorimotor stage, the pre-operational stage, the concrete-operational stage,

and the stage of formal operations. Throughout his writings Piaget has tried
to show that normal development over several dimensions could be de-
scribed in terms of these stages. Within these major stages several substages
can be discerned, for instance the six well-known substages of the sensori-
motor stage. In addition, Piaget uses the idea of stages as a heuristic device
for discerning new objects for empirical research, resulting in typical task-
related sequences of stages.
Since it is here impossible to discuss or even summarize Piaget's general
theory of cognitive development, we will focus on one developmental
dimension addressed by him, namely object permanence. However, we will
also consider his conservation studies, since they can be seen as an elabo-
ration of the notions of objects and permanence. On these issues Piaget
wrote many books over several decades.
As Case (1985) shows, Piaget came to the conclusion that knowledge of
the world is something that has to be constructed. Although Piaget was par-
ticularly interested in concepts that Kant assumed to be a priori categories,
he did not define the stages and substages by his subjects' particular un-
derstanding of the concepts under consideration. Rather, since their under-
standing of several concepts seemed to develop in a parallel fashion, Piaget
was led to define the stages and substages by the broader underlying
schematic coordination. Thus the increase in knowledge that he observed
comes about as a direct result of the increase in children's constructive capa-
bilities. This in tum is a function of the increased differentiation and coor-
dination of their repertoire of schemes.
For example, the six substages of sensorimotor development were intro-
duced in Piaget (1936/1952) and defined in terms like "exercise of reflexes"
(substage 1), "secondary circular reactions" (substage 3), and "invention of
new means" (substage 6). At first there is not much coordination between
schemes. An infant less than four months old, connected to a mobile hang-
ing over the crib by a ribbon attached to her hand, is not yet capable of
prolonging an interesting movement. That is, the infant seems interested
when the mobile moves (scheme 1) but makes no hand movement (scheme
2) in order to prolong it. An important step in "schematic coordination"
(Case, 1985) is achieved when the infant does prolong the movement,
apparently deliberately. This is considered to be evidence that both schemes
become coordinated, which is characteristic of substages 3 and 4.
The corresponding conceptualizations were addressed separately in
Piaget (1937/1954). For each substage, as defined and demarcated by the
underlying schematic coordination, the consequences for the conceptual-

izations of the child were spelled out. The step up to "schematic coordina-
tion" (when the infant prolongs the movement of the mobile) corresponds to
an increase in the infant's understanding of the concept of an object. An even
more important indicator of an infant's having an elementary conceptual-
ization of an object is that he or she can deal with invisible movement. In
this wayan object is apparently treated by the infant as having an existence
of its own, independent of the infant's perception. Understanding of invis-
ible movement requires active construction on the part of the infant, since it
can not be perceived directly and the mechanism of this construction is the
coordination of schemes. Conceptualization stages are thus defined relative
to achievements in the coordination of schemes.
Nevertheless, to adequately describe the Piagetian stages, both kinds of
description must be considered jointly. For example, object permanence is
an achievement of the sensorimotor stage (during the first two years) and
can be followed through the six substages. We normally assume that objects
have substance, are external to ourselves, maintain their iden tity when they
change location, and continue to exist when out of sight. However, Piaget
believed that children initially lack this assumption: an object is "a mere
image which reenters the void as soon as it vanishes, and emerges from it
with no apparent reason" (Piaget, 1937/1954, p. 11). In the first two sub-
stages the concept of an "object" is absent. There is no conception that a
mother's face exists when not perceptually present to the child. In substage
two, when an interesting object leaves the visual field the infant continues to
stare at the spot where the object disappeared. In substage three there are
indications of a very elementary object concept: the child is able to recon-
struct an invisible whole from a visible part. For example, he or she finds a
toy that is partly hidden under a blanket. When the toy is completely
hidden, however, there is no reaction. In substage four the child becomes
aware that an object remains the same even through many visual changes
(this is the attribution of qualities of permanence and substance). By now,
when an object vanishes, the infant tries to find it by active search but not
necessarily at the right place. In substage five the infant takes into account
visible, but not invisible, displacements of the object. At substage six, even-
tually, the infant can reconstruct correctly a ser ies of invisible displace-
ments. Now, according to Piaget, a representation of the object is available
and the notion of a permanent object is fully elaborated. This implies that
the concepts of space, time, and causality have to be sufficiently mastered
and understood as well as that of object permanence.
Moreover, as the conservation studies show, in later stages the ideas

about an objective reality develop further. Conservation is the invariance of
some characteristic in spite of transformations of the object or collection of
objects. The best-known conservation tasks are those described in Piaget
(1952). Also, in Piaget & Inhelder (1941/1974) an experiment is described in
which a ball of clay was rolled into a sausage-shaped cylinder and then
children were asked about the quantity of clay. Three task-related stages in
the conservation of continuous quantity were found. The first is character-
ized by nonconservation, after which follow intermediate reactions and,
finally, an operational understanding of conservation emerges. According to
Piaget conservation is attained at different ages depending on the particular
content. Conservation concerning "continuous quantity" is not understood
before 7--8 years, "weight" not until about 9-10 years, and "volum e" mostly
around 11-12 years. Nevertheless, notwithstanding these time lags (deca-
lages), there is a structural similarity and it is claimed that conservation in its
entirety is an achievement of the third main stage (concrete operations).
We should notice that the main stages again are defined in terms of
mental abilities of the subject, in this case the child's being able to perform
certain sorts of operations, and not in terms of characteristic general con-
ceptions. It appears very difficult to characterize Piaget's main stages in
terms of pure conceptualization stages (in terms of foundational differences)
although clearly conceptualizations do play an important role (see Carey,
1985; 1991). In order to clarify the relation between abilities and conceptual-
izations we have to consider the developmental mechanisms proposed by
Piaget (see below).
This general picture of development in several broad stages provided by
Piaget is nowadays standard textbook knowledge, but its significance is
largely historical: few contemporary developmental psychologists accept it
as their own view. Since the 1960s and 1970s, when the stage issue generated
strong controversy, much research effort has been directed to demonstrate
empirically that there are no general structures broad enough to speak of
stages. The strongest objections refer to inconsistencies within domains. The
basic idea behind this objection is that performance on task X, which is
supposed to involve structure S, should predict performance on task Y if
that task is likewise supposed to involve structure S. Indeed, empirical
evidence does not unequivocally support this contention (see the reviews by
Gelman & Baillargeon, 1983, and Halford, 1989). In numerous empirical
studies considerable time lags were found between success on different
tasks that belong to the same domain of knowledge (see Boom, 1992), lead-
ing to a decline of interest in the idea of stages. However, we feel that Pia-
get's theory is still interesting and that there are also sound reasons not to
abandon the notion of stages altogether.
First of all, much of the criticism of Piagetian stages is confused by
conflating the dynamic and the logic aspects of developmental theory.
Irregularities in actual development need not concern the logic of develop-
ment. For example, we have no trouble admitting, as Piaget himself did, that
there are different dimensions within the cognitive domain with different
paces of development. This is precisely the phenomenon of horizontal deca-
lages (see Boom, 1992).
Secondly, in the standard interpretation (which is based on his early
work), Piaget's major stages are described in reference to the operational
abilities characteristic of a given stage: hence the labels sensorimotor, pre-
operational, concrete-operational, and formal-operational. Although these
broadly conceived stages are associated with different levels of understand -
ing and conceptualization, their organization in both the horizontal and
vertical senses is based on underlying cognitive abilities in action and
thinking rather than on conceptual clustering, as we have seen above. It is,
however, precisely this idea of structural stages in the strict Piagetian sense
that has become problematical and which makes many developmentalists
reluctant to speak of stages (see Boom, 1992). But this interpretation does not
exclude the possibility of other interpretations of the nature of stages, which
may be more fruitful.
One reaction can be found in circles of the so-called neo-Piagetians (e.g.,
Pascual-Leone, 1988; Case, 1985). They try to rescue the notion of structural
stages in development by refining the analysis of tasks and abilities in-
volved in actual task behavior. For example, with a combination of func-
tional and structural considerations, Case claims to have found clear stages
after all. The relation between stages is conceived of as an increase in com-
plexity which in turn is the result of maturational changes.
A different reaction is the one embodied in this book. By focusing on
conceptual development and the development of foundational structures in
particular, most of the problems encountered in existing empirical research
have become irrelevant in this respect (see chapter 4). Our approach has
more in common with Kohlberg's theory of moral development (see Boom,
1989), as will become clear in the next chapter.
Yet another track is taken by Piaget himself in his later work, which
shows a growing interest in the issue of transition. His ideas concerning
transitions are more or less independent of the disputed aspects of the

concept of stages. We will concentrate on this approach in the next section.
3 Relations between the stages
Piaget addressed the issue of developmental transitions in a way that is

philosophically daring. He believed that, understanding the relation be-
tween the stages requires some insight about transition processes or, as he
called them, "mechanisms" and that this in tum is essential for understand-
ing the nature of fundamental knowledge. Globally speaking, Piaget 's main
idea is that the mechanisms responsible for attaining a new stage in
development are also responsible for the properties of the developmental
pattern, namely novelty (structural qualitative differences), directionality,
and improvement. This idea is related in tum to Piaget's preoccupation with
some major epistemological questions. As Chapman rightly observes, Piaget
attempted to "provide a standard for judging the relative adequacy of
different models of reality without recourse to correspondence theories of
truth," and this "is perhaps one of the most important contributions of
genetic epistemology to the general theory of knowledge" (Chapman, 1988,
p . 415). The broadly conceived "models of reality" mentioned by Chapman
refer, of course, to developmental stages. So, for Piaget the relations between
the stages are of central importance not only as regards the dynamic aspect
of developmental theory but also in relation to its logic.
Equilibration theory
For Piaget the fundamental feature of the relation between the stages is the
joint emergence of constructive novelty and adaptive improvement in
cognitive development. This is the main theme in his equilibration theory.
Although novelty and improvement are logically independent concepts in that
a novel stage is not necessarily a better one, and a better stage is not
necessarily qualitatively and structurally new (though, it must be different
in some respect), Piaget insisted on their intrinsic relatedness.
Equilibration is a process involving a tendency to overcome disturbances
and lacunae in cognitive functioning and a tendency toward progressively
better equilibrium (Piaget, 1985). Thus equilibration is not the same as striv-
ing for equilibrium, although striving for equilibrium is part of the equi-
libration process. Piaget was well aware of possible epistemological pitfalls
associated with the objectives of his equilibration theory. He constructed a

rather complex model of development in which he sought to avoid the
problems of both empiricism and rationalism. In this model, however, a
residue of both can be found, since development in the cognitive realm,
according to Piaget, involves two inseparable processes.
The first is an autonomous process of construction leading to new stages.
The constructions build on previous stages and at the same time transcend
them, as a result of which they are supposed to lead to new and better
stages. This process of novelty and improvement by construction is addressed
in his theory of reflective abstractions.
The second process is the compensation of perturbations coming directly
or indirectly from outside the subject though it does not go as far as classical
empiricism by treating the subject as a tabula rasa. It results, according to
Piaget, in increasing coherence or equilibrium in relation to the world exter-
nal to the subject. It could be considered improvement in the sense of
adaptation as far as within-stage change is concerned. This process of
adaptation through interaction is addressed in the part of his theory concerned
with achieving equilibrium.
Both processes, that of purely endogenous constructions made by the
epistemic subject and that of compensation for disturbances from outside,
are integrated by Piaget into one theory. According to this theory, novelty
and improvement are joint characteristics of stage-wise development,
neither of which is sufficient by itself to explain change. The two processes
when taken in isolation are not sufficient. The theory of reflective abstractions,
in which the endogenous constructions of the (epistemic) subject are strong-
ly emphasized, seems suitable to explain novelty in development, but as
regards improvement in development, the role played by this mechanism is
less clear. Reflective abstraction can say nothing about adaptation (within-
stage or over several stages), though it is important (but not sufficient) for
understanding improvement in a formal, rationalistic sense. The theory of
achieving equilibrium by itself is confined to within-stage development. This
is suitable to explain adaptation, because it provides a very detailed de-
scription of how, by regulations (e.g., feedback and feedforward loops),
cognitive structures become more adapted. However, adaptation in the case
of going to the next stage cannot be explained in this way and, in addition,
claims about novelty are difficult to uphold.
The theory which combines these two processes - the joint working of
reflective abstractions and compensations by regulations - is equilibration
theory in the broad sense. To explain its relevance to our own metatheory,
we will now address the mechanism of reflective abstraction in more detail

and then, in the next section, discuss the mechanism involved in achieving
equilibrium. Finally, in the section after that, we will come back to equi-
libration.
Reflective abstraction
Let us begin by considering the more familiar concept of reflection, and then
describe the two steps involved in reflective abstraction in more detail,
ending with an attempt to answer the question of why these two steps are
supposed to lead to improvement by construction.
When we "reflect" on something, we take an object (typically, something
we did or something we observed prereflectively) out of its normal context
by thinking about it. Usually this implies that we become conscious about
what is involved in what we at first took for granted. By thinking about it
we see new connections and new distinctions. These same notions can be
found in Piaget's definition of "reflective abstraction." However, whereas
reflection typically pertains to adult thinking and is used in the context of
becoming conscious of something, reflective abstraction is defined as a more
general mechanism - one which can be invoked even in explanations of the
cognitive processes of very young children and adult thinking that is not
conscious at all, and which, in those explanations, moreover preserves the
idea of structuring previous cognitive structuring.
The general definition given by Piaget reads as follows: "Reflective ab-
straction begins with the actions or operations of a subject and transfers
what is taken from a lower level of activity to a higher level. Because of this
transfer, the differentiations necessarily bring about novel compositions and
generalizations at the new level" (Piaget, 1977a, p. 1). Reflective abstraction
thus involves two steps: first, projecting (or raising, or reflecting) the
structure implied in the so-called "coordination" to the next higher level;
second, reorganizing this structure, which meanwhile has become a
substructure in the new ensemble.
The first step consists in projecting or raising structures of the lower level
to the next level, in the course of which this higher level is itself constituted.
In this way a new level is linked to the foregoing level. The step is
constructive because a new level of abstraction is constituted. To illustrate
an elementary form of this kind of projection, consider how a concept is
formed, Concept here taken in the elementary and restricted sense of a class .
Take, for example, the concept of a toy, defined as any small thing one can
play with. The sensorimotor equivalent for this concept is the collection of
objects that can be assimilated to the action scheme of playing. In this first
step, projection, the observable properties of these actions are interiorized
and a reunion of these objects in a whole is possible, based on their common
qualities. The projection in this example thus amounts to the formation of a
concept (Piaget, 1977b).
The second step, reorganization or the so-called reflexion, is needed be-
cause the transfer of the content of the lower level to the higher level
introduces multiple disequilibria. These disequilibria are the result of all the
kinds of new relations which must be accounted for due to the first step.
This second step is constructive in a double sense. (1) With the projection,
generalization over several instances has become possible. As Piaget
explains, "Even if a coordination, which is projected from the level of action
to the level of conceptualization, remains the same, this projection creates a
new homomorphism or correspondence between the conceptualization of
the coordination and the practical situations wherein the coordinated action
is repeated" (1977b, p. 308). (2) These first organizations also lead to the
discovery of related content which could not be assimilated into the earlier
structure but which now becomes assimilable by further slight trans-
formations of the structure, and so becomes integrated within a larger and
therefore partly novel structure (see Piaget & Garcia, 1989).
It is clear that reflective abstraction leads to novelty. This follows directly
from its constructive character. However, it is less clear what arguments
Pia get offers for his claim to improvement . He gave several hints as to what
the formal structural improvement might consist in. The conceptual grasp of
a subject grows because reflective abstractions make explicit what had been
hitherto implicit, through the "objectification" of a coordination, which
means that the coordination itself becomes a theme - i.e., an object of
thinking (instead of a means of thinking). Closely connected to this idea is
Piaget's claim that constructive generalizations (involved in reflective
abstractions) are constructive precisely because they lead to generalizations
which grow in extension as well as in intension (Piaget, 1978, p. 222). Grow-
ing in extension means that more elements are involved; growing in in-
tension (comprehension) means that more meaningful implications are in-
volved.
The simple presence in a higher structure of a greater number of ele-
ments and relations between them is neither necessary nor sufficient to
warrant calling that structure an improvement. The closure of a structure is
also important. It may be that the new structure is better precisely because it
is closed whereas the former structure was not. For example, in Piaget's
conservation task of the "sausage" of clay, there are four possible trans-
formations: the sausage can become thinner, thicker, longer, or shorter. Only
after all the intrinsic relations between them are understood does the subject
conserve the volume. Making the sausage longer is the observable and
manifestly affirmative transformation. It can also be thought of negatively,
in the sense that as it lengthens the sausage is becoming less short, though
this idea is more difficult to grasp. Nevertheless affirmations need to be
balanced by complementary negations, for only then it is possible for the
child to discover all the relations between variation in length and variation
in thickness (see Figures 4 and 5), and only then we can say that the
structure is complete and closure is achieved. In Figure 4, the affirmative
poles of each dimension (making longer and making thicker) are compen-
sated separately by their respective negations (making shorter and making
thinner) and only one salient dimension is compensated by negation of the
other dimension (making longer and thinner at the same time) . In Figure 5,
the remaining compensations (in this case, making thicker and shorter) are
noticed. What is important for conservation is that each transformation now
coincides with another transformation that is equivalent to its own negation
with respect to the total quantity.
A structure might be better structured also in the sense that there is a
greater and more complex variety of well-differentiated substructures and
subordinated structures (see Chi, Hutchinson & Robin, 1989), resulting in a
more hierarchical structure.
Drawing from all these suggestions, the alleged improvement resulting
from reflective abstraction may be conceptualized as the joint result of (a)
subsuming a greater number of elements under the same scheme or
structure and providing a greater number of relations and compositions
Affirmation Negation
Length longer shorter
Thickness thicker
ｾ thinner
Figure 4. Incomplete compensation of affirmations and negations

(Adapted from Chapman, 1988, p. 301)
Affirmation Negation
Length longer shorter
Thickness
1>< 1
thicker thinner
Figure 5. Complete compensation of affirmations and negations

(Adapted from Chapman, 1988, p. 302)
(relative to the elements); (b) completing some of the substructures, which

means having a substructure that exhausts all possible relations between
elements; and (c) hierarchically structuring those relations (or possible
transformations) so that a more comprehensive picture emerges. The result
is a more tightly structured conceptualization. Thus a new stage might be
considered better in the sense that it is more structured.
Achievingequilibrium
The second mechanism, the striving for equilibrium, is related to the funda-
mental interaction between subject and object. Compensations of distur-
bances in the empirical domain require some form of contact between
subject and object. On the one hand Piaget claims that external disturbances
(e.g., failure to achieve one's goal) are possible but at the same time he
admits that external reality is only known through cognitive structures. This
seems to reduce external disturbances to internal ones . However, this is too
simple a conclusion. To appreciate his solution to this dilemma, we have to
take a closer look at the detailed description Piaget has given of striving for
equilibrium.
Because the object cannot be known in a direct unmediated fashion, Pia-
get introduced the distinction between observables and coordinations in his
theory. The notion of observables pertains to what for a given subject looks
like the perceptual facts. The notion of coordination, in contrast, stands for
inferences that go beyond the readily perceptible. For example, two events
can be observed and those two observables might be coordinated by
thinking of a causal connection between them. The causal connection is not
something that can be seen; it is inferred. Exactly what is perceptible and
what needs to be inferred, however, depends on the stage of development of

the concerned subject. What is difficult for a 4-year-old to construct might
be so evident to a lo-year-old that for this older child it is in effect a fact. It
should be noted, however, that coordinations may be implicit and per-
ceptions may be illusory. The point is that what is to count as observable is
not absolutely given; it is stage dependent (based on previous construc-
tions). Nevertheless, for any person concerned, or seen from the perspective
of a certain stage, it is a given. And more important, it functions as a given
in the sense that it can be at variance with accompanying coordinations.
Disturbances do not result from discrepancy with some absolutely given
external reality, but derive from discrepancy between what is observable
(e.g., as indicated by changes to the object) on the one hand and knowledge
and expectations derived from the actions of the subject on the other hand.
Restoring the balance (e.g., between expectations and observables) may
require differentiation of the schemes employed. Action scheme x can be
used in situation y but not in situation z , but action scheme x ' (x slightly
modified) might be adequate for z, According to Piaget, each compensation
of a disturbance is always also a construction since a successful reaction to a
disturbance is always a differentiation of a scheme. Previous scheme x is not
in itself wrong and need not be thrown away; on the contrary, the dis-
turbance is precisely due to the fact that the scheme x is employed in a situ-
ation where it is not entirely adequate. A more adequate reaction might
therefore be a differentiation between schemes x and x', a precondition be-
ing that the difference between what is needed and what has been available
is not too great.
Compensations, therefore, cannot be understood as motivated by adap-
tation to a fixed, subject-independent reality. Although Piaget has to admit
that there is a subject-independent reality at the ontological level, and he
assumes that the overall stage pattern is such that this ultimate reality is
approached as a limit, this limit plays no role in his account of the construc-
tion of knowledge. At the epistemological level he remains a constructivist.
Compensations are instrumental for the adaptation to a subject-dependent re-
ality. Nevertheless, objectively seen, interaction possibilities increase.
An interesting result of this is that the categorical distinction between the
logical/mathematical and empirical/physical knowledge (see section 1) ap-
pears to be less sharp. In this interpretation the elaboration of the structures
of logical/mathematical knowledge corresponds to the elaboration of the
empirical/physical knowledge structures because both contribute to the in-
crease in interaction possibilities (e.g., conservation). The subject is increas-
ingly able to realize his or her potentialities by grasping the structure of

interaction possibilities. What makes Piaget's position difficult to under-
stand, however, is that the fundamental interaction possibilities themselves
develop. They are not fixed.
Equilibration revisited
According to Piaget's dynamic structuralism, structures can change, but he
describes this change as if the structures were capable of transforming
themselves. We here follow his peculiar way of speaking, to stress the fact
that this transformation process is tacit for the most part. Structures not only
regulate interactions and transformations (e.g., operations), they are open
and gradually adapt themselves to the "material" they structure. This im-
plies that striving for cognitive equilibrium is a source of creativity. Schemes
make it possible to repeat an action while considering feedback provided by
previous executions of similar actions. In this way schemes become gradu-
ally elaborated. Nevertheless there might be perturbations that are still not
assimilable. Then the subject might try to understand why they are not
(although not necessarily on a conscious level) and corne to reorganize the
structure completely. An important distinction must be made, therefore,
between modifying the structure by integrating new elements, which leads
to slight elaborations of the structure, on the one hand, and more fundamen-
tal reorganizations of the structures by reflective abstractions, eventually
leading to a stage transition, on the other hand. In this way, by adapting and
reorganizing themselves, structures are supposed to counter real and poten-
tial disturbances and restore equilibrium at a new and improved level with a
new balance between affirmations and negations. According to Piaget this
cycle continues (under certain conditions) when new disturbances occur. He
calls this process, in its totality, an "optimizing equilibration."
Reflective abstraction can be interpreted also as looking for the (implicit)
reasons for success or failure of actions from the previous stage. This inter-
pretation is consistent with Piaget's suggestion that finding reasons means
fitting the facts into a structural framework where necessary relations are (or
could be) distinguished from actual and possible relations, which in tum
implies a balance between the affirmations and negations involved. In trying
to find the reasons behind success or failure there is a refocusing on the
activity itself (or the relevant operations, etc.).
But the question remains: how can the constructions inherent in reflec-
tive abstractions compensate for disturbances from outside, especially for
the empirical domain? According to Piaget the accommodation of cognitive
structures to content (the most important form of equilibration) leads to
refinement and elaboration of those structures. This is a constructive process
in itself, although limited in scope because the stage boundaries cannot be
transcended this way. However, this elaboration of structures ensures the
essential contact with the "environment" and this contact, in the long run,
accounts for the fact that constructions due to reflective abstractions con-
verge with increasing adaptation.
In summary, we can say that, for Pia get, the relation between the stages
is defined in reference to the process or mechanism (though not in any
mechanistic sense) of optimizing equilibration. This implies that that the
next stage is novel and better in virtue of the general properties of such a
developmental process.
Novelty in stage development, implying that the stages are qualitatively
different and structurally new, is related to the constructive mechanisms and
involves three steps: elaboration by feedback and feedforward regulations;
projection by lifting coordinations to another level in which their status is
changed as they become observables; and reorganization in that the new
(next) stage is not a simple continuation of the old with some new additions
but involves a radically new perspective, though admittedly one built on the
previous stage.
Progress in stage development, implying that the next stage is in some
respects better, is related to the claim that the central deficits of the previous
stage are resolved in the subsequent one. The new stage fills lacunae and
compensates for obstacles (contradictions and disturbances), even for poten-
tial problems. However, it should be kept in mind that this progress is
restricted in meaning. The claim defended by Piaget only pertains to under-
lying cognitive competencies. The cognitive structures of the higher stage
contain the structures of the previous stage as substructures in a reorganized
and better organized form . In addition, these structures are fine-tuned to the
problems that a subject may come across in interacting with the surrounding
world.
In this reconstruction of Piaget's theory, the justification of conceptual
development claims in the cognitive domain emphasizes the process, not
contents, of thinking about the world, and is based mainly on developmen-
tal considerations. Piaget himself often suggested that the ultimate criterion
for cognitive progress is an increasingly better handling of the material
world through better conceptualizations. However, his theory remains

problematic. The explanatory status of the developmental mechanisms he
proposed, described in this section, is not entirely clear, and so his much
stronger and more intriguing claim, that improvement follows exclusively
from the general properties of the developmental process, is still open to
question.
4 Conclusion
In this chapter we addressed the topic of development in the cognitive

domain. The nature of the cognitive domain as such was defined in relation
to truth claims, but our subsequent discussion concentrated on knowledge
of the material world, and paid special attention to Piaget's severely criti-
cized but still influential and philosophically interesting theory of cognitive
development. Piaget's vertical reconstruction of cognitive stages is closely
linked to developmental mechanisms. In his last and most profound in-
sights into the these mechanisms, the joint workings of reflective abstraction
and striving for equilibrium are considered responsible for novelty and
progress in development. However, if reconstructed as a justification of
evaluative development claims, Piaget's recent work, although interesting
for many reasons, is not entirely sustainable and the question remains open
as to what precisely makes one stage better than another.
9 Moral development
Michiel Korthals
In this chapter we will discuss some philosophical problems of theories of

moral development, particularly those of Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan. We
will focus on their underlying assumptions about the moral domain. There-
fore we will first introduce a rather broad concept of morality which may be
helpful in elucidating the various aspects of morality implicit in these the-
ories (horizontal analysis). It will become clear that the three theories cover
only certain restricted aspects of morality. Next we compare and d iscuss the
three approaches to the development of moral judgment (vertical recon-
struction). Then we will go into two philosophical problems connected with
these theories of moral development, namely the problem of the justification
of moral principles and the problem of the relation between judgment and
action.
1 The concept of morality
We can distinguish four aspects that are more or less apparent in the
thoughts and actions of persons who are acting morally (Apel, 1988; Haber-
mas, 1990b; Nowell-Smith, 1954; Peters, 1981; Rest, 1984).
In the first place, morality involves the competence to interpret the social
context as populated by persons who have feelings and desires, opinions
and points of view, and who feel moral obligations. Part of this competence
is the capacity for perspective taking, in the sense of knowing what it means
for persons to have feelings that can be hurt, or to feel obligated in certain
ways (Selman, 1980; Selman & Byrne, 1974).
In the second place, the morally acting person can more or less rationally
justify his or her moral norms. He or she is concerned to ask : is this moral
rule right? Some philosophers call this aspect of the justification of norms
the "legislating" aspect of morality (Nowell-Smith, 1954; Peters, 1981, p. 34;
Habermas, 1990b, pp. 182-184). The moral subject should take the position
of a legislator and justify to others the norms in accordance to which he or
119
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.), Philosoph y ofDevelopment. 119-133.
ｾ 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
she believes one should conducts one 's life. Kantian philosophers often con-
ceptualize this justification in terms of a procedure, although the conceptu-
alization of this procedure can be very different from one subject to the
other. The principles applied in moral justifications can be teleological, re-
ferring to the consequences of moral acts or rules, or deontological, referring
to intrinsic standards of duty.
In the third place, there is the juridical aspect of morality. The acting
person should be able to apply his or her norms to particular situations. The
moral subject has to take the perspective of a judge and ask: which norms
are relevant to this moral problem? The basic question here is: what ought I
to do here and now? In a particular situation not only moral norms but also
other considerations playa role. The acting person will have to balance these
different considerations and circumstances. For example, a person who
takes as justified the moral norm to tell the truth will sometimes have to
consider that only a minority of people do tell the truth, and that telling the
truth can endanger the lives of friends or others in a situation of civil war
(Blum, 1988). Weighing the different norms and values involved, this person
could decide in this case not to act on the general norm he or she still sin-
cerely endorses (Apel, 1988,p. 137).
In the fourth place, morality has a motivational aspect. The moral person
should be able to act according to self-chosen norms and considerations.
This requires ego control, the competence to delay other desires and to resist
defense mechanisms that might lead to constructing unstable or inconsistent
modes of resolving moral problems. Moreover, some measure of self-
confidence is needed in realizing particular moral acts . This relates to the
concept of moral identity.
In all four aspects of morality, cognitive as well as emotional factors play
a role, although their combination can be very different. In philosophical
ethics, for a long time most attention was given to the second aspect (justifi-
cation), often to the neglect of the other aspects. Modem de ontological and
teleological branches of moral reflection have concentrated respectively on
the norms and ultimate aims to be justified. However, they have often been
criticized for being formalistic or abstract. The older ethics of virtue and of
the good life (Plato, Aristotle) focused on the third and fourth aspects.
Theories of moral development do not deal with these four aspects equally.
Nowadays we find theories of moral development influenced by Kant's
ethics and restricting themselves to the second aspect, and others taking an
ethics of virtue as their point of departure and therefore concentrating on
the third and fourth aspects (Tobin, 1989). So at first sight these four aspects
Moral development 121
of morality seem to be conceptualizable as separate dimensions, although it

remains to be seen on closer inspection whether, and to what extent, these
aspects can really be grasped from a developmental perspective.
2 Three theories of the development of moral judgment
In order to discuss some philosophical problems of moral development

theories, we begin by introducing three patterns of moral judgment devel-
opment, as reconstructed by the early Piaget, the later Kohlberg, and the
early Gilligan respectively. In the next section we analyze some of the
philosophical assumptions underlying these theories, in the course of which
the above distinction between the four aspects of morality will be helpful.
Piaget : Heteronomous and autonomous morality

In his work on types of social interaction (1932), Piaget reconstructs two
stages of moral development, characterized respectively by the shifting
balance between constraint interaction of educator and child, and cooper-
ative interaction between peers. Piaget's conception of morality combines
the second and the third aspect of morality.
The first stage is that of heteronomous morality. Its most general feature
is unilateral respect, which has three characteristics. First, any act expressing
obedience to an adult or to a rule is good, regardless of what is being com-
manded. What is just or right is identified with what the rules require. Duty
is a collection of unilateral commands, corning from outside (heteronomy).
Second, the rules are observed in a literal way: they are ready made (moral
realism). Third, the child evaluates acts not in terms of the motives that have
prompted them but according to their precise conformity with established
rules (objective responsibility).
In Piaget's second stage, which he calls autonomous morality, various
features go together which at first sight seem difficult to combine: solidarity,
friendship, equality, universal reciprocity, and generosity (Piaget, 1932, pp .
70-71) . The notions of distributive and retributive justice playa pivotal role.
The principle of distributive justice is in the end what Piaget calls "equal-
itarianism in the direction of relativity" (Piaget, 1932, p. 317). Persons who
are equal in relevant respects are to be treated equally, and persons who are
in relevant respects unequal are to be treated unequally in proportion to
their differences (it is not entirely clear whether Piaget takes this relatively
sophisticated conception of justice to be a third stage). The same holds for

retributive justice, which means not applying the same punishment to all,
but taking into account extenuating and aggravating circumstances (Piaget,
1932, p. 317).
Kohlberg: The development ofjustice reasoning

In his first work about moral development, his dissertation of 1958, Kohl-
berg thoroughly discussed the theory of Piaget and replaced Pia get's two
stages with a sequence of six stages of moral judgment development. Over
the next 25 years Kohlberg published (by himself or with others) many
versions of his theory of moral development, sometimes quite different from
each other and sometimes containing different variants in themselves, usu-
ally followed by many elaborations and interpretations from other theorists.
Here we will concentrate on Kohlberg's latest and most interesting theory of
moral judgment development, which has been given little attention in most
commentaries.
Prior to 1980Kohlberg's critique of Piaget was essentially that Piaget had
distinguished only two stages of moral development, heteronomous and
autonomous morality. In his doctoral dissertation, Kohlberg argued that an
autonomous morality could easily be connected with an instrumental and
hedonistic point of view. He then proposed a sequence of six stages, of
which only the last one was incorporated into a Kantian notion of morality
with its emphasis on respect for persons. The non-Kantian elements of Pia -
get's notion of autonomous morality (concerning the third aspect of
morality) were at that time neglected by Kohlberg .
In his latest writings Kohlberg leveled further criticisms against Piaget's
developmental theory. He stressed that "heteronomous morality" is the
result of complex learning processes and not merely of the internalization of
the parents' moral judgments (d. Siegal, 1980). However, he also found that
heteronomy and autonomy are not stage or even substage characteristics,
but rather phenomena that develop across the life span and in conjunction
with the relation between moral reasoning and action. This means that the
distinction between heteronomy and autonomy lies at the heart of the fourth
aspect of morality. Autonomous persons are more disposed to engage in
moral action . As a developmental typology, heteronomy and autonomy of
moral thinking and acting are determined by the type of socio-eultural envi-
ronment (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987, pp. 328f.).
Kohlberg interprets and reconstructs the foundational structures of utter-

ances, in particular moral judgments, as follows : "They are, first, judgments
of value, not of fact. This distinguishes them from cognitive reasoning and
judgment studied by Piaget. Second, they are social judgments, judgments
involving people. Third, they are prescriptive or normative judgments,
judgments of ought, of rights and responsibilities, rather than value judg-
ments of liking and preference" (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987, p. 10).
Kohlberg probes the moral reasoning structure of subjects by asking
them questions about a set of hypothetical dilemmas that pose conflicts
between the rights or claims of different persons. An example is the well-
known Heinz dilemma:
In Europe, a women was near death from a very bad disease, a special case of
cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a
form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The
drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what
the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2000
for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to
everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could get together only about
$1000, which was half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was
dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later . But the druggist
said, "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it."
Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his
wife.
Kohlberg, 1981, p. 12
In order to validate the universal claims of his theory in non-Western coun-

tries, Kohlberg has adapted this dilemma with the help of ethnographic
data. The kinds of dilemmas and questions he uses make explicit his concept
of morality. This concept has changed, however. At first he identified the
concept of morality with the concept of justice; later he broadened his
concept of morality by taking into account other kinds of moral judgment as
well. As a consequence of the broadened view of morality, he took into
account so-called responsibility judgments (or as he also called them, "are-
taic judgments") embodying assumptions about responsibility in actual
situations (see Kohlberg, 1984, pp. 517-518) .
At first, Kohlberg concentrated on the second aspect of morality; fo-
cusing on the concept of justice. The judgments of his interviewees were
Contentof Stage
Level and Stage What Is Right? Reasons for Doing Right
Level I: Preconventional To avoid breaking the Avoidance of
rules backed by punishment, and the
Stage 1 - Heteronomous
punishment, obedience superior power of
Morality
for its own sake, and authorities.
avoiding physical damage
to persons and property.
Stage 2 - Individualism, Following rules only To serve one's own needs

Instrumental Purpose, when it is to someone's or interests in a world
and Exchange immediate interests: where you have to
acting to meet one's own recognize that other
interests and needs and people have their
letting others do the same. interests, too .
Right is also what's fair,
what's an equal exchange,
a deal, an agreement.
Level II: Conventional Living up to what is The need to be a good

expected by people close person in your own eyes
Stage 3 - Mutual
to you or what people and those of others. Your
Interpersonal
generally expect of people caring for others. Belief in
Expectations,
in your role as son, the Golden Rule. Desire to
Relationships and
brother, friend, etc. maintain rules and
Interpersonal Conformity
"Being good" is important authority which support
and means having good stereotypical good
motives, showing concern behavior.
about others. It also
means keeping mutual
relationships, such as
trust, loyalty, respect, and
gratitude.
Stage 4 - Social System Fulfilling the actual duties To keep the institution
and Conscience to which you have agreed. going as a whole, to avoid
Laws are to be upheld the breakdown in the
except in extreme cases system "if everyone did
where they conflict with it", or the imperative of
other fixed social duties. conscience to meet one's
Right is also contributing defined obligations.
to society, the group, or (Easily confused with
institution. Stage 3 belief in rules and
authority; see text.)
Moraldevelopment 125
Level III: Being aware that people A sense of obligation to

Postconventional, or hold a variety of values law because of one's
principled and opinions, that most social contract to make
values and rules are and abide by laws for the
Stage 5 - Social Contract
relative to your group . welfare of all and for the
or Utility and Individual
These relative rules protection of all people's
Rights
should usually be upheld, rights. A feeling of
however, in the interest of ｣ｯｮｴｲ｡ｵｬｭｩ･ｾ
impartiality and because freely entered upon, to
they are the social family, friendship, trust,
contract. Some and work obligations.
nonrelative values and Concern that laws and
rights like life and liberty, duties be based on
however, must be upheld rational calculation of
in any society and overall utility, "the
regardless of majority greatest good for the
opinion. greatest number."
Stage 6 - Universal Following self-ehosen The belief as a rational

Ethical Principles ethical principles. person in the validity of
Particular laws or social universal moral
agreements are usually principles, and a sense of
valid because they rest on personal commitment to
such principles. When them.
laws violate these
principles, one acts in
accordance with the
principle. Principles are
universal principles of
justice: the equality of
human rights and respect
for the dignity of human
beings as individual
persons.
Table 1. The Six Moral Stages (Adapted from Kohlberg, 1984, pp. 174-176.)
typical forms of justice reasoning: reasoning about duties and obligations

with respect to others. He excluded reasoning about positive obligations
and about issues of moral goodness beyond duty (supererogatory acts). In
his latest description of stages of justice reasoning, five justice operations
playa pivotal role on each of the six stages: equality, equity, reciprocity,
prescriptive role-taking, and universalizability (see Table 1).
From 1983 onwards, Kohlberg broadened his description of the domain

of morality by taking into account not only the principle of justice, but also
the principle of benevolence. He explicitly renamed his stages as "stages of
justice operations" (e.g., Kohlberg, 1984, p. 621) and made his theory about
these stages a subdivision of his renovated general theory of moral judg-
ment. The six stages of moral judgment "provide a general organization of
moral judgment and serve to inform and unite other more specific moral
concepts such as the nature of morally right and good, the nature of moral
reciprocity or moral rules, of rights, of obligation or duty, of fairness, of
welfare consequences, and of moral values such as obedience to authority,
preservation of human life, and maintenance of contracts and affectional
relations" (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987, p. 16).
Here again we encounter the three levels (preconventional, conventional,
and postconventional). As we have seen in the preceding chapters, the indi-
vidual takes an egocentric or concrete individualistic perspective at the
preconventionallevel. At the conventional stage, morality is seen as a so-
cially shared system of moral rules, roles, and norms. In the postconven-
tional stage, the point of view is a universal, prior-to-society perspective.
Social obligations are to be defined in ways that can be justified to any moral
individual (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987, pp. 19-20).
Kohlberg has tried to analyze the fourth aspect of morality, the moti-
vational component, with the help of so-called responsibility judgments.
They answer the question, "what should I do and why must I do it?"
(Kohlberg & Candee, 1984, pp. 498f.). We will come back to these later.
Gilligan: Care andresponsibility

The first signal that something was wrong with Kohlberg's early sequence of
justice reasoning was Gilligan's finding that a significant percentage of
women seemed to regress in the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
They appeared in the end to prefer stage 3 reasoning above stage 4 rea-
soning on Kohlberg 's scale . In other words, many women turned out to
prefer a personal, contextual approach to moral problems. The persistence of
this apparent regression suggested a need to revise the Kohlbergian theory.
In her book In a Different Voice (1982) and in various articles Gilligan
comes to the conclusion that a different theory of moral development
should be devised. She argues that male and female moral experiences
generate divergent developmental structures and sequences, and criticizes
Kohlberg for generalizing from what is in fact a typical male logic of moral
development to a "human" logic of development. In contrast to his orienta-
tion toward the concepts of justice and moral autonomy, she defines the
moral point of view with the concepts of care, duty, and responsibility.
Overall, women are more interested in these concepts, along with their
general disposition to think in terms of relationships, instead of indepen-
dence as men do. She criticizes Kohlberg also for using hypothetical dilem-
mas, and applies real-life dilemmas instead.
Gilligan has asked women about their judgments for or against abortion.
She subscribes to the general scheme of the three levels of preconventional,
conventional, and postconventional moral orientation but she proposes new
definitions of the levels and stages. The three levels which can be distin-
guished within the care and responsibility orientation are the following.
First, moral judgments express an orientation directed at survival of the
person and, consequently, at care for the self. The second, conventional level
is primarily concerned with caring for others. The person is now conscious
of the relation between the self and others, and feels responsible for persons
who cannot care for themselves or are in an unequal position. In the third,
postconventional level the person has reached a balance between self and
others; care for the self and care for others are balanced.
In general, Gilligan argues that female moral judgments are more con-
textual, more immersed in relationships and narratives. Women show a
greater propensity to take the standpoint of the particular other, and appear
more adept at revealing feelings of empathy and sympathy.
3 Some problems and assumptions in the moral domain
Of crucial importance in the theories of moral development here analyzed is

their conception of the last stage. It contains the concept of morality on
which the rest of the theory is supposed to be built. The theorist's recon-
struction of the last stage of moral development determines the way the
preceding stages are conceptualized. It is here that philosophical considera-
tions are paramount, although certainly empirical features are relevant as
well. We will now make some remarks with regard to the three theories of
moral development described above.
Piaget
In view of the concept of morality we proposed in the first section, Piaget's
second stage is rather wide-ranging and lacking analytical distinction. It is
unclear, for instance, what procedure is to be followed in the hierarchization
and justification of norms. Should cooperation be the decisive criterion in all
cases? Or are agreement and solidarity with the group to which one belongs
the overriding considerations? Also, cooperation does not exclude an instru-
mental autonomous attitude in which other persons are not recognized as
ends in themselves on the basis of mutual respect (Weinreich-Haste, 1982;
Korthals, 1992). Piaget's concept of cooperation is too wide and has too
many functions to be able to provide solutions to such questions.
Kohlberg's reaction to Gilligan's critique

Compared to Piaget, Kohlberg is much more precise and promising. How-
ever, in his earlier reactions to Gilligan's work he dismissed the idea of an
alternative pattern of moral development stages that is characteristic of
women (Kohlberg, 1981). Later, however, he has taken the arguments of
Gilligan more seriously and has given several reasoned responses to her
critique.
On the basis of methodological and other arguments, Kohlberg denied
Gilligan's claim that his justice sequence is sex-biased. Empirical research
has not yet shown that moral reasoning is fundamentally sex-bound (d.
Auerbach, 1985; Vreeke, 1992). Gender differences may arise because many
women do not function in secondary institutions of work, which means that
they are not provided with adequate settings for perspective taking. But
although he resisted the tendency to divide morality along gender lines,
Kohlberg did not reject Gilligan's ethics of care. Rather he took pains to
integrate the two approaches.
First, he argues "that concerns of care, responsibility, and personal
relationships fall within the domain of justice (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987, p.
24). In his latest writings (Kohlberg, 1986; Kohlberg, Boyd & Levine, 1990),
he says that they stand on an equal footing with justice, whereby both care
and justice can be derived from mutual respect for persons. Second, he
argues that his justice dilemmas in general not only elicit justice reasoning
and reasoning about the distribution of rights, but also allow for a care
orientation. Moreover, he thinks it better to distinguish between justice
dilemmas in the narrow sense and personal dilemmas or dilemmas of
special relationships with family and friends. Corresponding to the differ-
ence between the justice and care orientations, he distinguishes several types
of dilemmas. In general, however, moral situations and dilemmas do not
require choosing between the one or the other orientation, but rather call for
a response which integrates both (Kohlberg, Levine & Hewer, 1983, p . 134).
Basically, therefore, Kohlberg's answer to Gilligan is the integration of care
and justice. They are not two different tracks, independent of each other or
even in opposition to each other. Gender differences do playa minor role,
but more important are the types of dilemmas and the characteristics of the
situation from which the interviewees respond. Care and justice concerns
converge, and on the postconventionallevel they are integrated.
In fact, Kohlberg's response to Gilligan's critique has broadened his own
definition of the moral domain. Therefore we should take a closer look at
this last stage. In his later descriptions, Kohlberg tries to take into account a
care and contextual orientation, just as Gilligan has done. In addition, he
seems implicitly to distinguish between care as duty and care beyond duty,
this last type including acts of supererogation and acts of special obligation
to friends and kin (Kohlberg, Levine & Hewer, 1983, p . 132; Colby &
Kohlberg, 1987, p . 24). This distinction may not be acceptable to Gilligan (d.
Benhabib, 1986). But in line with her approach he came to criticize Rawls's
theory of justice, which in his earlier phase he had strongly endorsed
(Kohlberg, 1981, p . 200). To ground moral principles of justice, Rawls imag-
ines a group of ethical subjects who try to select moral principles from under
a "veil of ignorance." That means that the hypothetical subjects deciding on
moral principles do not know which particular positions and interests they
will have in society. Furthermore, as Rawls develops his analogy, the
individuals choose with minimal discussion among themselves, which
makes a virtual shroud out of the veil of ignorance. Kohlberg originally
endorsed th is relatively monologic point of departure. In his later writings,
however, he thinks that persons should participate in moral discussion, and
just not retreat behind a veil of ignorance when deciding which solutions to
moral conflicts are right or the lesser evil (Kohlberg, 1986, pp. 163, 220;
Kohlberg, Boyd & Levine, 1990). "Moral musical chairs" now means that
one should imagine the particular interests and considerations of all persons
involved in the dilemma, for example, the druggist, Heinz's wife, and so on.
One should take into consideration the concrete positions of all the persons
involved, and then there will be a reasonable chance that one can either
come to a consensus with them or at least envision what that consensus
would be .
The fundamental principle of this last stage still is respect for persons.
From this principle two other principles are derived. The first is benevo-
lence, which is effective through the operation of taking the concrete per-
spective of the other and trying to reconstruct his or her interests. The
second principle is justice, which is effective through the operation of uni-
versalization. This second principle in its tum means, first, consistency and,
secondly, looking for a solution to a moral conflict that is acceptable to
everyone involved. Justice and benevolence can only be integrated through
dialogue, in which the above-mentioned capacity for considering the
concrete position of the other is the basic starting point.
Let us again stress the relevance of this definition of the last stage. With a
particular description of a final stage, Kohlberg implicitly develops the
assumptions of his argument as to why later stages are better than pre-
ceding ones. As regards his last stage, Kohlberg argues for the principle that
people should consider the interests and considerations of others. Moral
musical chairs means that one puts oneself empathically into the position of
the other, ponders his or her interests, and so tries to reach an agreement in
cooperation. We now wish to suggest three points of criticism, having to do
with the second and third aspects of morality, with respect to this definition.
The first point refers to the "em otivist" flavor of Kohlberg's definition of
the last stage, and the related justification of the whole sequence (see
Kohlberg, Boyd & Levine, 1990). We think that Kohlberg puts too much
stress on sympathy with actual others and on discussion as a means to reach
an agreement. Already in his earlier formulations of the sixth stage there is a
tendency in Kohlberg to overestimate the possibilities for a morality on
which all people not only can but actually would agree, and with which all
moral problems can and would be solved (Kohlberg, 1981, p. 161). Perhaps a
more abstract and at the same time more humane definition of a stage 6
principle of discourse is to be preferred, namely, that in discourse, one
should compare one's arguments with the possible arguments of possible
others, rather than with the actual statements of concrete other people, and
one should try to put oneself in the place of any other person affected by the
decision in question. This principle implies a different type of legislating
procedure than that of Rawls or the early Kohlberg, since it presupposes a
concept of impartiality and purely rational discourse. Discourse in this sense
is not a medium of communication with some kind of constraint to corne to
an agreement. Habermas's discourse ethics comes closer to this approach.
However, according to him this requires a rather abstracted attitude from
the side of the participants, the so-called hypothetical attitude, which en-
ables the subject to abstract from the interests of other people. One need not
endorse this implication of Habermas's discourse ethics to find his critique
of Kohlberg plausible.
A second issue concerns the difference between the principle of benevo-
lence and that of general solidarity. Kohlberg's second principle of benev-
olence is strongly oriented to individual welfare, and less to the general
welfare, the welfare of everyone. Kohlberg's perspective is particularistic, in
that he takes the individually judging person as the start and endpoint of his
theory. Many (e.g., Flanagan, 1984; Gilligan, 1982; Benhabib, 1986) have
criticized this so-called Robinson Crusoe individualism. Habermas (1990a)
has criticized Kohlberg for taking benevolence and concern for the welfare
of concrete other persons involved as his second principle, instead of soli-
darity with and concern for the welfare of humanity as a whole. Habermas
is right, we think, in arguing that the concept of justice requires a point of
view involving universal solidarity.
A third point is that Kohlberg does not distinguish sufficiently between
the justification or grounding of principles and the application of norms. His
description of the last stage does not differentiate between these two aspects
(see section 1). Although he seems to discuss the second aspect of morality,
he is in fact only analyzing the third. For example, in his final article about
the last stage (Kohlberg, Boyd & Levine, 1990), the dilemmas and questions
he asks his interviewees are really questions of application, not problems of
justification. He is asking what would be a responsible solution to a dilem-
ma, not what moral principles can be justified and why . Several critics have
blamed Kohlberg for this lack of clarity concerning questions of justice and
questions of application and responsibility. But these critics have mostly
concluded that as regards the aspect of moral identity and the good life (the
third and fourth aspects of morality), other ethical views on justice are
morally better; for example an ethics of family ties should be more comfort-
ing and favorable to the development of a balanced identity (d. Flanagan,
1984). Criticizing an analysis of the justification of norms from the point of
view of the other aspects of morality, however, neglects the substantial
differences between these aspects. Therefore neither Kohlberg nor these
critics sufficiently distinguish between justifying principles and other ethical
problems. With regard to a procedural justification of moral principles,
questions of moral identity and moral responsibility are secondary.
The real contribution of Gilligan has to do with the third and fourth
aspect of morality. Concerning these aspects, she does not add something
new to the pattern explicated by Kohlberg but instead develops a totally
new sequence of moral reasoning about responsibility and balance between

ego and others. Even so, much research remains to be done here.
In summary, we have argued that Piaget's logic of development is less
specific than Kohlberg's, and that Gilligan rightly inspired Kohlberg to
broaden his theory by integrating care orientations into it. Interestingly,
Kohlberg and Gilligan are on a par with respect to neglecting the distinction
between justification and application. However, we argued that Kohlberg's
latest description of the final stage is not successful and that there may be
other more adequate types of legislating procedures than the one he
described, and other moral principles to be preferred.
4 A gap between moral reasoning and acting?
One of the central problems of any theory of moral development is the

connection between thinking and action. Kohlberg has often suggested that
the more developed interviewees are more likely to act upon their judg-
ments than lower-stage subjects, but the evidence is ambiguous (see Blasi,
1980).
In considering this point, we should avoid too sharp a separation be-
tween moral thinking and moral acting. Of course, weakness of the will
(akrasia) is a commonplace fact. People are often so overwhelmed by coun-
ter-inclinations that their moral considerations are overruled in acting
(Straughan, 1986). But this fact cannot justify the crude dualism between
moral judging and acting that one finds in many moral theories, especially
utilitarian ones. In most cases, when an utterance is justified as a moral obli-
gation, persons involved do feel obliged to act accordingly and put other
considerations aside. Subjectively speaking, the notion of obligation in-
cludes that of feeling obligated.
Yet there is no automatic connection between a moral judgment and the
final decision to put that judgment into action. In terms which recall our
distinction between the juridical and motivational aspects of morality,
Kohlberg has distinguished between deontic judgments and judgments of
responsibility and between justifying reasons and motivating reasons (Kohl-
berg, Levine & Hewer, 1983). Judgments of responsibility answer the ques-
tion: "Why me?" They single out the features of a situation in which a per-
son is to realize a certain morally required action.
Two considerations are important here. The first is that the motivational
component of morality can be subject to development just as the juridical or
legislative aspects are. This underlines Kohlberg's observation that the rela-
tion between judgment and action is stage dependent. The second is that
there is a connection between the concept of moral identity and the broader
concept of personal identity. When one considers moral claims to be im-
portant with respect to one's identity, one also takes into account some
personalized definition of what it is to be a person. However, the concept of
responsibility judgments only covers part of a person's conception of moral
identity. Other research instruments will be needed to analyze adequately
the relations between morality and life problems.
5 Conclusion
We may conclude by pointing at the educational relevance of theories of

moral judgment development. Although we are far from suggesting that the
sequences themselves constitute aims of education, we do believe that they
are relevant to the aims of education and should be reflected on whenever
those aims are under examination (see chapters 14 and 15). These theories
open our eyes to the different meanings children can attach to moral core
concepts such as justice and conscience. They make it clear that there is such
a thing as moral experience and learning that affects development. A stage
theory may help us to understand the different ways people think in the
course of their moral development.
We have stressed from the outset that the moral domain consists of at
least four aspects, and that the standard theories of moral development
effectively cover only one of them. However, the developed moral person
has acquired capacities which relate to all these aspects even if they do not
always display a stagewise pattern of moral growth.
10 Aesthetic development
Jos de Mul
In the aesthetic domain the word "development" is often used with regard
to the styles or oeuvres of an artist, a specific art form (e.g., the sonnet or the
fugue), or aesthetic preferences of individuals or groups. However, there
have always been hesitations to make conceptual development claims, as
defined in this book, within or concerning the aesthetic domain. This may be
the reason why until recently there has been relatively little empirical
research in this field.
In order to determine whether or not development claims can be made
within this domain, we have to consider its specific character. Therefore we
start with a horizontal reconstruction (section 1). Next we will describe the
theory of Michael Parsons, concerning one developmental dimension,
namely individualjudgment, with regard to one specific aesthetic sub domain,
namely painting (section 2; see also chapter 13, where we discuss collective
development in visual art) . We then proceed with a discussion of the logic of
Michael Parsons's aesthetic development theory (section 3). Finally, we
consider the relations between aesthetic development and development in
the cognitive and sociomoral domains. In this context some issues belonging
to the dynamic of developmental theories will also be addressed (section 4).
1 Horizontal reconstruction of the aesthetic domain
Perhaps even more than the intellectual and sociomoral domains, the
aesthetic domain covers a broad variety of experiences and objects. A central
notion in this domain is aesthetic attitude. Most commonly the aesthetic
attitude is opposed to the practical attitude in the sense that it is - to use the
famous Kantian phrase - disinterested. To view something aesthetically one
must perceive for perceiving's sake, not for the sake of some ulterior pur-
pose (Kant, 1790/1965, p. 10; see Hospers, 1979, p. 36). For that reason the
aesthetic attitude also has to be distinguished from the intellectual attitude.
Being intellectually able to identify a painting as a van Gogh may be helpful
135
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.), Philosoph y ofDevelopment. 135-152 .
© 1997 All Rights Reserved.
for the aesthetic experience, but it is not the same as enjoying the perceptual
experience of the painting as an end in itself.
It is often stated that aesthetic experience, compared to intellectual and
moral experiences, is completely subjective, and for that reason is not open
for rational discussion. However, although beauty (and other aesthetic
qualities) may said to be in the eye of the beholder, aesthetic qualities are
also connected in one way or another with the object of aesthetic experience.
As Kant has shown, aesthetic judgments in this respect are to be distin-
guished from mere judgments of taste. Saying that one does not like mar-
malade is a sheerly subjective judgment, and although judging that a certain
painting has no aesthetic value undoubtedly exposes something of the
conceptual framework of the beholder, it at least pretends to say something
about the qualities of the painting as well .
Another argument that has often been raised against developmental
claims in the aesthetic domain is that the aesthetic has mainly to do with
feelings and emotions that are not open to rational discussion. Unlike the
intellectual domain, in which reason judges on rational grounds, aesthetic
actions, feelings, and judgments are held to be irrational. According this cri-
tique, the classical adage de gustibus non est disputandum still retains its va-
lidity with regard to the aesthetic domain. And consequently, the argument
runs, developmental claims cannot be made in the domain of the aesthetic,
because such claims presuppose the possibility of rational justification.
We do not find this objection convincing. In the first place, feelings and
emotions should not be excluded from the sphere of reasons and justifi-
cations (see section 2 of chapter 4). Whether or not a particular work of art
moves us is an important factor in our judgment about this work. Moreover,
our everyday experience shows that the fact that emotions play an impor-
tant role in aesthetic experience and judgment does not prevent us from
making claims about the quality of artworks and about developments in the
arts. After all, in such cases we do not just utter unarticulated feelings, but
try to justify our judgment with rational arguments.
In our view the objection at stake presupposes too sharp a contrast
between emotion and reason. Unlike feelings like thirst and hunger, emo-
tions are not brutish, unreasonable, unlearned drives, but on the contrary
extremely subtle, intelligent and learned (de Sousa, 1987; see Pott, 1992,
P: 80). And higher emotions like the aesthetic are rational par excellence:
they are susceptible to reasons and cultural influences, and they are
educable as well. This implies that the fact that emotions play an important
role in aesthetic experience does not a priori exclude aesthetic development.
Aesthetic development 137
However, when we want to examine aesthetic developments, we may

not forget that the aesthetic domain covers many different entities. First, the
aesthetic attitude is concerned with both natural objects and man-made
objects. In this chapter we will restrict ourselves to the domain of works of
fine art. We define works of fine art as those man-made objects that function
either entirely or primarily aesthetically in human experience (Hospers, 1979,
p . 40). The advantage of this rather broad definition is that it does not rule
out in advance the possibility of certain categories of man-made objects
being works of art. It includes, for example, objects that, although they
originally were not intended to be works of art, are regarded as such today,
like cave paintings or ready-mades like Duchamp's urinal and Warhol's
Brillo boxes.
With regard to the fine arts we further have to distinguish a number of
different subdomains, such as visual arts, photography, dance, theater,
cinema, music, and literature. Furthermore, within all of those subdomains
we have to distinguish several dimensions, such as production, perception,
judgment, interpretation, and criticism. With regard to all such dimensions,
developmental claims can be made. Moreover, these development claims
can refer either to individuals (e.g., when we speak about the development
of a person's taste) or to collectives (e.g., the development of central per-
spectivism in renaissance painting). When we reflect on these distinctions, it
soon becomes clear that it is very difficult or perhaps even impossible to talk
about aesthetic development in general. After all, the distinctions just made
imply that the term "aesthetic development" can refer to developmental
processes that can have rather different patterns of development. Firstly,
each art-form requires unique capacities. It is not hard to realize that the
development of our reception of music is quite different from the develop-
ment of our reception of literature or of painting. Further, production,
reception, interpretation, and criticism of art each have their own criteria of
excellence, which do not always coincide. Finally, individual and collective
developments may differ in the logic and particularly in the dynamic of
their respective theories.
Because of the great variety of sub domains and dimensions we will be
modest in our theoretical proposals and limit ourselves to one, strictly
defined dimension of one aesthetic subdomain. Only when a theory con-
cerning such a single aspect of development has been worked out can one
investigate possible parallels between different aspects in the family of
aesthetic development. Initially, such a parallel can only be a research hy -
pothesis, not an ontological postulate.
In this chapter, for practical reasons concerning the availability of em-

pirical research, we will restrict ourselves to the development of theindividual's
judgment concerning paintings. However, before we direct our attention to
this specific dimension, we will try to give a more general account of the
nature of the aesthetic domain, consulting the disciplines traditionally
concerned with the definition of art : aesthetics and philosophy of art. In our
philosophical tradition the aesthetic domain often is associated with the
category of the beautiful. From Plato on, Beauty has occupied a special place
between the ideas of Truth and Goodness (which are the central concepts
with regard to cognitive and moral development). When we take modem art
into consideration, however, we must notice that beauty is no longer the
only, nor even the central, concept in the aesthetic domain. Unless otherwise
noted, what we say about beauty in this chapter also applies to other art-
related categories like the absurd and the atonal, all of which are grouped
under the general concept "aesthetic."
When we consult philosophers of art and aestheticians we soon discover
how many different theories of art have been developed, even when we
restrict ourselves to Western philosophy. Without doubt, this variety is due
in part to the multiplicity of art forms, in part to the dynamic character
of the aesthetic domain. Art changes continuously, and aesthetic theory
changes with it. Nevertheless, it is possible to distinguish between three
main types of aesthetic theories (see Stolnitz, 1960, part 2; Sheppard, 1987).
Mimetic theories regard mimicry as the essential feature of art. According
to mimetic theories, the main function of art is to represent reality, or better,
the essence of (material or spiritual) reality. Theories like those of Plato and
Aristotle belong to this type, but modern theories like nee-Marxist aesthetics
also subscribe to the mimetic function of art. Even theories concerning
abstract visual art or music (e.g., formalism) sometimes show this mimetic
character. The mimetic definition of art not only functions as a descriptive
theory, it also provides evaluative criteria: the more a work of art succeeds
in depicting reality, the more it fulfills its aesthetic function.
In the expressionist type of theories of art, art is considered to be essen-
tially a means of expression of human thoughts and feelings. Although this
type is recognizable already in classical aesthetics (e.g ., in Aristotle's
catharsis theory) it has been especially developed in Romanticism and -
more recently - in psychoanalytical aesthetics (Freud, 1982, Vol. 10; see
Spector, 1972). A work of art in this case is considered a unique expression
of the equally unique character of its creator. This type of theory also im-
plies evaluative criteria: originality and authenticity of the expression pro-
vide the standard of aesthetic quality. Of course, as in mimetic theories,

there is room for much dispute about the right interpretation of these
criteria.
In the formalist type of aesthetic theory art is considered to be an auton-
omous organization of aesthetic elements such as forms, colors, or lines.
Especially in twentieth-century aesthetics, this type has been developed in
(to name just a few theories) the New Criticism, formalism, and (neo)struc-
turalism (see Hawkes, 1977). Aesthetic criteria developed in this tradition
deal primarily with formal properties like rhythm, balance, contrast, har-
mony, and repetition.
The problem with all these theories is that they absolutize one feature of
the complex aesthetic domain. Such abstractions from other features may be
theoretically fruitful, but at the same time they disregard the fact that our
aesthetic experience is a mingling of all three factors. Another important
feature of the aesthetic experience and judgment is its "openness" (see Eco,
1989; Barthes, 1971). The structure of a work of art allows for a number of
different interpretations that can be equally valid. "Openness" makes it
possible for the artwork to remain significant in various historical or cultural
contexts. Because of this, L. Prox claims that "a work of art is 'timeless' and
'historical' at the same time, because on the one side the identity of its
structure remains the same, while on the other side it undergoes a process of
development" (Prox, 1972, p. 290 [transl . de Mull). The "historical" character
of the work of art is derived from the fact that each succeeding structure of
judgment implies new interpretations.
Aesthetic experience may be regarded as the cornerstone of the aesthetic
domain. However, it is very difficult to grasp it in its "pure state." Fortu-
nately in aesthetic creations and aesthetic judgments we express our aes-
thetic experience in a way that makes it accessible to others. Aesthetic
creation and judgment can be said to have their ground in aesthetic
experience. Although aesthetic experience can be regarded as being broader
than creation and judgment, it cannot be completely distinguished from its
expressions. On the contrary, our experience is strongly governed by our
acting, our conceptualization of the aesthetic domain, and the linguistic
structure of our judgment. Feeling, creating, perceiving, evaluating, and
judging all are features of one structured and complex process. Thus
Gadamer, like Heidegger before him, states that language is not a trans-
parent window through which we can see reality as it really is. Instead, our
language structures our acting, perception, evaluation, and even the human
world itself (Gadamer, 1989, p . 450). Likewise, in structuralist and neostruc-
turalist theories this constitutive character of language has often been

stressed. According to these theories not only utterances but also actions and
perceptions are structured by a sign system that may represent the uncon-
scious structure of the human mind (Levi-Strauss, 1958, p. 81; see Gardner,
1972). Although experience, creation, and judgment are not identical, we
will focus on aesthetic creations and judgments in our study of aesthetic
development.
2 Vertical reconstruction of the aesthetic judgment about paintings
In a vertical reconstruction of the stages of a dimension of human develop-

ment, both empirical research and philosophical analysis play an important
role. Exploratory empirical research of aesthetic judgments of persons can
provide a basis for a philosophical reconstruction of a developmental pat-
tern. This pattern can be refined through further empirical research, and
then dynamic questions may also come into play.
As noticed in the introduction, in contrast to cognitive and moral or
sociomoral development, little research has been done until recently with
regard to the aesthetic domain. Housen's (1979) review of research in this
field is indeed inevitably limited. Housen argues that with regard to the
study of aesthetic judgment a division can be made between studies that
focus on one isolated detail of aesthetic judgment (e.g., color response) and
more general approaches that try to consider the development of aesthetic
judgment as a whole (Housen, 1983).
One of the most interesting "holistic" approaches of aesthetic judgment
with regard to paintings is that developed by Michael Parsons over the last
twenty years. His method is comparable to Kohlberg's, though until some
years ago it was less systematic and not longitudinal. Parsons and his
colleagues interviewed a large number of persons of different ages. Each
person was asked to make a judgment about one of a small series of
paintings and (what is more important, from a genetic structuralist point of
view) then was asked to give reasons for the judgment. On the basis of these
interviews, Parsons reconstructed five stages of aesthetic judgment about
paintings. Some tentative overviews of his research were given in a number
of articles; a more complete and detailed model is presented in his book
How We Understand Art (Parsons, 1987a; see Parsons, 1976, 1979, 1987b;
Parsons, Johnson & Durham, 1978; Parsons & Blocker, 1993).
Each of the five stages Parsons distinguishes is characterized by a dif-

ferent structure of judgment and conceptualization of the aesthetic domain.
Before discussing the developmental-logical features of his model, we will
first offer a short description of the five stages, based on How we Understand
Art . It should be stressed once more that stages are not like boxes to be used
to put people in, but that they constitute a pattern of development (see
chapter 4). They are the outcome of a rational reconstruction of the different
structures people use when they judge about paintings. Real persons are not
always consistent in their reasoning and they often judge according to
different structures. For example, to speak about stage 3 persons is to refer
to persons who, when talking about pa intings, for the greater part use
reasons that are typical of the third stage of the reconstructed developmental
pattern of structures of aesthetic judgment.
The first stage Parsons distinguishes is characterized by an associative
structure of judgment. The reasons given to support a judgment such as
"The Mona Lisa is a beautiful painting" are based on the associations that are
evoked by the aesthetic object. We may call this a pictorial realism: the object
represents other objects that it evokes in the consciousness of the person
judging (see Gombrich, 1969a). The main criteria of judging derive from the
associative character of the judgment. Especially colors and contrasts in
colors seem to arouse all kinds of associations. An interesting point is that at
this stage of judging the distinction between moral and aesthetic judgment
has not yet been made. A "good" aesthetic object depicts a morally good
thing or situation.
In the second stage judgment has a mimetic structure. The reasons that
support judgment are based on the conceptualization of the aesthetic do-
main as representation. An aesthetic object is regarded as aesthetically good
according to how well it succeeds in correctly representing an external
object. In this stage the painting is regarded as a transparent window
through which we can come into an immediate contact with reality itself.
Aesthetic expression and the qualities of the medium only attract attention
when they disturb the transparency. Therefore, in stage 2 they can count
only as negative qualities. The notion of a correct representation, however, is
not univocal. In this stage we can distinguish between at least two
conceptions of representation. In the terminology of Gombrich, we may call
the first "schematic representation" (Gombrich, 1969a). In this substage a
portrait is regarded realistic when it contains the main cues of the object,
like two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth. For persons in this substage a
portrait by Karel Appel can be deemed to be as realistic as a portrait by
Rembrandt. In the second substage, specific criteria for "photographic

representation" are used, like central perspectivism and treatment of light
and dark. Because these criteria are highly conventional, they can differ
from culture to culture and are the results of a difficult process of learning.
But, in contrast to stage 1, the embedded moral judgment concerns only the
object represented and no longer the representation itself.
The third stage of aesthetic judging is characterized by an expressive
structure. In this stage the aesthetic object is no longer primarily a physical
object, but a psychical one. An aesthetic object, according to a stage 3
judgment, is an expression of its creator, and its significance is the result of
an intentional act of the artist. Association and realism still play their part in
the judgment, but they only do so with respect to the overall criterion of
expression. Consequently, the main criteria in this stage are originality and
authenticity. In stage 3 the perceiving subject recognizes that other people
can make different judgments (which is not the case for stage 1 and stage 2
subjects) but has no criteria for comparing these judgments. Artistic tech -
nique, in the second stage conceptualized as detailedness of representation,
is now understood as expressive skill. Moral reasons cease to be important
at this stage: it is not the moral rightness, but the authenticity of the
expression that matters.
The fourth stage has a formal istic structure of judging. In this stage the
aesthetic object qua aesthetic object is the central issue. Reasons given to
support the judgment therefore relate to the formal and material organiza-
tion of the aesthetic object: they point to the texture of the painting, to the
arrangement of colors and shapes. Associations, realism, and expressiveness
all are subordinated to the formal organization of the aesthetic object and
can be positively regarded if they support this new overall criterion.
Properties of the object such as balance, harmony, repetition, and variation
become important issues. Real discussions with other perceivers are
possible for the first time, because only in this stage are judgments
supported by reasons that point to concrete, intersubjectively noticeable
features of the aesthetic object. The creator of the work of art no longer
occupies a privileged position: the artist is seen as just one interpreter along
with other perceivers. In a hermeneutic sense it may be argued that the
significance of a work of art is the result of the discussion between com-
petent actors . Nevertheless, the aesthetic object in this stage is regarded as
an autonomous whole in the sense that the discussion is based on inherent
characteristics of the aesthetic object. Technical skill in this stage is under-
stood as the interaction with the medium that respects the character of the
medium for its intrinsic qualities.
The fifth and - at least provisionally - last stage is characterized by an
open structure of judgment. Whereas in each of the former stages a certain
criterion served as an unquestioned belief that in the final analysis justifies
the judgment, the fifth stage is characterized by a fundamental examination
of these criteria themselves. In this sense it could be said that this stage has a
character. Judgments are self-referential: they point not so much to aesthetic
objects as to the criteria used in aesthetic judgment itself. Criteria derived
from earlier stages still playa role in judging works of art, but because none
of these criteria has the character of an unquestioned belief, the judgment
remains essentially open. In stage 5, works of art do not have one single,
fixed meaning, but a meaning that changes with the continuous change of
perspectives and interpretations. The openness of the work of art, and hence
of the judgment about it, is regarded in this stage as an essential charac-
teristic of the artistic domain. Technical skill in this stage may be regarded as
the process of "signifiance" (Barthes) based the structure of the work of art,
ultimately taking place in the aesthetic judgment. Because the boundaries of
the aesthetic domain are no longer clear, other criteria can come to playa
role; thus moral criteria can become important again.
3 The logic of aesthetic development
One of the reasons for our hesitation to approach the aesthetic domain in
terms of development claims is that many thinkers about art hold that, un-
like in the cognitive and sociomoral domain, there is no progress in art.
However, as we have repeatedly argued, development should not be iden-
tified with progress. In a reconstructive claim it is asserted that a certain
process shows a specific pattern of development without making a nor-
mative judgment about that pattern. Provided that we properly distinguish
between reconstructive and evaluative claims, it makes perfect sense to talk
about a specific pattern of development in judging art without claiming that
this development is an advance. Of course, an evaluative claim is not out of
the question. However, such a claim requires additional justification. Hence,
when someone claims that there is development in judging paintings in the
evaluative sense - i.e., that some judgments are better than others - that
person not only has to offer a developmental pattern but also has to provide
a justification for the normative criteria used.
Parsons does indeed claim that the development he charts shows pro-
gress: "The claim is that our understandings of paintings develop through a
sequence of interrelated assumptions, and that each successive set of
assumptions provides a more adequate way of understanding paintings than
the previous one." (Parsons , 1987b, p . 37). However, because he does not
always make a clear distinction between reconstructive and evaluative
claims, and between the logic and the dynamic of developmental theory, he
sometimes identifies aesthetic development with aesthetic progress and
(perhaps for that reason) does not provide the required normative justifi-
cation for his claim. In the following paragraphs, we will try to sharpen the
logic inherent to Parsons's model by using some concepts from genetic
structuralist theory concerning cognitive and sociomoral development in
order to gain more insight into some specific normative features of the
aesthetic domain and the way it is related to those other two domains.
In chapter 4 we distinguished between expressions, reasons, and foun-
dations. This distinction provides a better understanding of the differences
between the five stages in Parsons's model. These differences are not readily
apparent at the level of expressions, where two people might say that they
like a particular painting of van Gogh, even though they are not "in" the
same stage. What distinguishes them are not the judgments they express but
rather the reasons they use (explicitly or implicitly) to support their
judgments. At this second level it becomes clear why persons judge the way
they do. However, underlying these reasons are certain basic notions with
regard to the nature of the aesthetic order itself. These notions constitute
different aesthetic ontologies, which make up the third level, that of the
foundations of aesthetic judgment. For example, in Parsons's second stage all
elements of aesthetic experience, such as response to color, recognition of
subject, emotion, and formal arrangement, are structured around the basic
foundational notion of mimesis. In the third stage these elements do not
cease to be significant, but they are included in a new overall structure
whose foundational notion is artistic expression. Mimetic features are rein-
terpreted within the structure of expression, and thus they gain a qualita-
tively new sense.
An interesting question is just how far basic notions imply specific
reasons and expressions, or vice versa. Apparently there is some such link-
age. Parsons's empirical data suggest that each foundation allows only a
limited sort (though within this type an infinite number) of reasons and
expressions. Certainly, this has to do with the fact that the development of
aesthetic judgment is also a development of the way one conceptualizes the
aesthetic domain itself. Depending on the conceptualization of this domain,

which is different in each stage, certain objects are regarded as belonging to
this domain while others are not. Moreover, each structure involves a
preference for certain objects. Within a stage 2 structure of judgment, for
example, a person will only regard objects as belonging to the aesthetic
domain when they meet the requirements of mimesis, and will give a
positive aesthetic judgment only when they meet these requirements better
than other objects do. In contrast, within a stage 3 judgment, a painting by
van Gogh will more easily meet the requirements of artistic self-expression
than will a painting by Mondriaan; and a van Gogh is more likely to be
judged better, given these requirements, than, for example, a neoclassicist
portrait.
If we look at the developmental pattern as a whole, we can refine this
pattern with the help of some genetic structuralist criteria. In the first place,
aesthetic judgment is characterized by increasing reflexivity. In the first
stage one's own aesthetic perspective is the only one, whereas in the later
stages other perspectives are gradually distinguished from one's own. Since
criteria for realism have a conventional character, already in stage 2 a
community point of view is beginning to develop. In the third stage the
artist comes to be seen as an intentionally creating subject, whereas in stage
4 the community point of view has gained a dominant position within the
structure of judgment. At the same time the judgment becomes more
decentered in each stage. With each succeeding structure it is easier to
abstract from one's own perspective. Also there is a growing tendency over
the first four stages to conform one 's own judgment to those of others (or as
G. H. Mead puts it, the "generalized other"). However, in the open structure
of judgment of the fifth stage this community point of view is no longer the
final criterion. The judgment here is extremely reflexive in the sense that it is
self-referential. This pattern of aesthetic development allows us to
distinguish a preconventional level (stage 1), a conventional (stages 2-4),
and a postconventional (stage 5) level.
Piaget, influenced by biology, often uses differentiation and integration
as criteria for human development. However, in a nonbiological context
these criteria are at best heuristic instruments with regard to the
development of aesthetic judgment (see chapter 3). In each stage more
features of the aesthetic domain are recognized. Whereas in the first stage
associations are the only determinants (so that no distinction can be made
between representation and association or between moral and aesthetic val-
ues), in the later stages representation, expression, and the formal qualities
of the aesthetic object begin successively to play their roles in judgment. The
criteria of the former stages do not vanish, but return in each later stage and
gain new significance within each new overall structure of judgment.
At first sight it may seem that the stages are constructed between the two
poles of subject and object. Whereas in the first stage (association) subjective
feelings are dominant, objective factors occupy a central position in stage 2
(representation). In the third stage (expression) the subject again has a
central place in judgment, whereas in the fourth stage the objective features
of the work of art are stressed. Only in the last stage is a certain balance
between subjective and objective factors reached. This picture is misleading,
however, since each stage in any developmental sequence (not just aesthetic
ones) is regarded as a stage precisely because it somehow strikes a balance
of stage characteristics. In each stage the differentiated features are inte-
grated in an overall structure. In stage 4 a great number of features, like
association, color, subject, expression, and medium, are distinguished, but at
the same time these features are integrated in the overall structure of formal
organization.
At a conference at the University of Nijmegen in 1985, Parsons men-
tioned another type of differentiation in the development of aesthetic judg-
ment. He distinguished between description, interpretation, and evaluation.
In stages 1 and 2 the distinction between these three activities has not yet
been made. In stages 3 and 4 the distinction between describing on one side
and interpretation and evaluation on the other gradually becomes clear. In
the last, postconventional stage, the interpretation of a work of art is finally
distinguished from its evaluation. Putting all this together, we find that
there are good reasons for considering the development of aesthetic judg-
ment as cumulative in two related senses. In the first place, we may say that
aesthetic development is cumulative in a descriptive sense: criteria from
former stages do not lose their meaning in later stages. Although these
criteria are no longer sufficient, they remain significant. In a stage 3
judgment the realism of the representation of a face still can be a factor in
evaluation, but only insofar as it is integrated in the overall structure of
expression. In the second place, we may also speak of aesthetic development
as cumulative in an evaluative sense. The subject of development regards
each successive stage as more adequate than the previous ones. Only at the
fifth, self-referential and more or less relativistic stage is this positive self-
evaluation sometimes open to doubt.
These last points enable us to broach some related questions about eval-
uative claims. The criteria we have mentioned are mainly descriptive. A
development claim based on such criteria only contends that the individual
will follow a certain pattern in his or her aesthetic development. It is not
claimed that the later stage necessarily provides better aesthetic judgments
than earlier ones. We want to make three remarks now about the possibility
of evaluative claims, not with regard to concrete paintings but with regard
to different ways of responding to paintings.
In the first place it must be noticed that descriptive criteria, like increas-
ing differentiation, by themselves never can provide a reason for evaluative
improvement. It might be argued just as well that the better aesthetic
judgment is more likely to have an undifferentiated ("oceanic") character
(see Freud, 1961, pp. 72-73) . In any case, an evaluative developmental claim
requires an additional normative justification of the stage criteria. In order to
make an evaluative claim, we ought to be able to justify the more dif-
ferentiated structures of judgment as being aesthetically more valuable. This
additional justification cannot be made without reference to the horizontal
and vertical reconstruction of the domain (see chapters 5 and 6). The
horizontal reconstruction has to provide all relevant features of the domain
concerned, whereas the vertical reconstruction has to justify the belief that
the last stage S(n) is aesthetically better than S(n-1), S(n-2), etc. In the
foregoing we argued that a proper aesthetic judgment ("proper" in the
normative sense) requires the considering of three foundational ideas:
mimesis, expression, and formal organization. An evaluative claim has,
firstly, to prove that the development of the aesthetic judgment leads to a
conceptualization of the domain which is in accordance with this recon-
struction. Parsons's data at first sight seem to make this possible. But
secondly, a justification of the normative foundation of this conceptual-
ization is required. Without this second step the evaluative claim about the
last stage threatens to involve a naturalistic (genetic) fallacy.
In the second place we must notice that a claim concerning development
in an evaluative sense always is made by people who are themselves at a
certain stage of development. Claims of aesthetic progress may be made by
a person talking about his or her own development or a theorist making
developmental claims about another person. In these two cases the character
of the justification may differ. In the first case the justification could be
called an internal evaluative justification of a development in the concep-
tualization of the aesthetic domain (see van Haaften, 1990b) . Such an
internal justification is characterized by the following elements: (1) The
person who makes the claim points to the fact that he or she has passed
through a certain de velopment in conceptualization; (2) as a consequence, he
or she now has developed a different view on problems typical for the
dimension concerned (and on the domain itself); (3) for that reason, earlier
ways of dealing with those problems are now regarded as less adequate or
even wrong; (4) so that the person regards his or her development as pro-
gress. When a theorist makes the claim with regard to another person, the
developmental justification may not be definitive: the theorist might mean
that, even though a person makes more adequate judgments than he or she
did before, the new structure of judging is still not entirely adequate because
the other person has not yet reached the structure of judgment employed by
the theorist him or herself. Ironically, because of the relativist tendency in
the stage 5 structure of judgment, persons judging according to this struc-
ture may doubt the very notion of development and on this ground hesitate
to think of their own changes in judgment in terms of progress (or decay).
Our third remark concerns the question whether a genetic structuralist
model enables us to gain a better insight into evaluative discussions about
art. When two persons differ in their judgments about a certain piece of art,
there are two possibilities: their judgments reflect the same stage or they do
not. In the first case, differences in judgment are the result of a different
preference for contents. Therefore in principle it will be possible for dis-
cussion to lead to agreement, because both discussants use the same stage-
specific standards (criteria) for evaluating art. Two stage 2 persons may
disagree about a certain painting, but because they both regard realism as
the decisive criterion for their judgment, they may reach agreement in
discussion, for example, by pointing at the subtle way space is represented.
Even so, when preferences for certain contents differ radically (e.g., in the
case of a strong like or dislike for certain colors), it is still possible for dis-
agreement to remain. However, when two discussants are not in the same
stage and hence have different aesthetic ontologies, they are less likely to
come to agreement on the level of reasons although they may both like the
same painting. Even when they agree that a van Gogh painting is beautiful,
a stage 2 person will support this judgment by pointing to its realism, while
the stage 3 person will point to its expressiveness. Because of the cumulative
character of aesthetic development, it is nevertheless possible that the stage
3 person recognizes and accepts the reasons offered by the person at stage 2,
but will find them insufficient. Moreover, a discussion between a stage 2 and
a stage 3 person may in the end lead to acceptance by the stage 2 person of
justifications typical of stage 3. This fact has interesting educational con -
sequences, to which we shall return in chapter 14.
4 Intellectual, sociomoral, and aesthetic development
As we have seen, the relationship between the various domains of human

development can be analyzed in two theoretical contexts, the logic of a
developmental theory and the dynamic of that theory. In the first case, we
have the logical question of whether development in one dimension is a
necessary condition for developments in other dimensions. In the second
case , regarding the dynamic of development, questions arise concerning the
actual mutual influences of developments in various dimensions. In this
section as in the rest of this book we will focus on the logical questions. We
begin by analyzing the connections between cognitive and aesthetic
development.
A number of researchers in developmental psychology suggest a certain
hierarchy among the various domains of human development, in which the
cognitive domain is usually given priority. In general it can be argued that
the development of aesthetic judgment requires a certain cognitive develop-
ment. The development of pictorial realism in the first stage of aesthetic
judging presupposes pre-operational thought: the person has to be able to
conceptualize objects symbolically. In the second stage of aesthetic judging,
in which schematic and photographic realism are being developed, concrete
operational thought is presupposed. The more abstract interpretations in the
fourth and fifth stage presuppose formal operational thought.
Coffrey (1968) provides empirical evidence for this hypothesis. Starting
from Piaget 's theory of cognitive development, Coffrey investigates the
relation between cognitive development and the response to paintings in
subjects of different ages. In his research Coffrey paid special attention to
what he called representational thought, in which he distinguishes three
Piagetian stages. In the first, pre-operational stage, the main features are
attention to concrete qualities of the painting like color and subject, ego-
centrism/ and pictorial realism. In the second, concrete operational stage,
decentering occurs, and the child acquires the concept of conservation. This
enables him or her to compare the real object with the representation of it. In
the third, formal operational stage the subject is not primarily focused on
concrete features of the painting, but on more abstract features such as style
and composition. The subject in this stage transcends conventional criteria of
realism and compares his or her criteria with those of others.
Although Coffreys model is not very differentiated (for example, he
does not distinguish between different modes of realism), it is in general
accord with Parsons's model. It must be stressed, however, that although
cognitive development is a necessary condition, it is in no way sufficient.

Many of Parsons's interviewees combine a formal operational mode of
thought with only a stage 2 or stage 3 aesthetic reasoning. This is perhaps
due to the marginal place aesthetic education occupies in general education
as compared to cognitive and sociomoral education. The fact that cognitive
development is presupposed in aesthetic development does not mean it
would be impossible for aesthetic development to stimulate cognitive
development. After all, aesthetic reasoning has not only affective aspects,
but a cognitive dimension as well (see section 1). The analytical distinction
between the different domains of human development should not mislead
us into construing this difference as an ontological cleavage. In conceptual
development the various domains of development continuously interact and
stimulate (or retard) one another.
When we compare the development of aesthetic judgment to that of
moral reasoning and perspective taking, a number of interesting similarities
can be observed. In the first place, it can be noticed that in all three domains
or dimensions preconventional, conventional, and postconventionallevels
can be distinguished. In the development of aesthetic judgment the first
stage has a preconventional character. Personal preferences are dominant,
and the capabilities required to take a community perspective are not yet
developed. This community perspective develops gradually in the second to
fourth stages. Consider the especially important notion that the significance
of a painting is the result of interpretations in the total "art-world." Danto
(1978) stresses the conventional character of these stages. Tradition here is
the final criterion. In the fifth stage, however, a postconventional way of
interpreting and evaluating paintings is prominent. Conventional values are
no longer unquestioned beliefs, but are themselves constantly evaluated.
As regards the relation between the development of aesthetic judgment
and social perspective taking, there seems to be a structural relation with
Parsons's stages. In the first stage of social perspective taking (which is
called stage 0 by Selman), as well as in the first stage of aesthetic reasoning,
egocentrism is the central feature (see Selman, 1984). The person in this stage
cannot yet distinguish between the perspectives of others and his or her
own. As this is the only perspective, in aesthetic judgment an object may
represent anything that it evokes. Intersubjective falsification is not possible,
and description and interpretation are not yet distinguished. The second
stage of aesthetic judging is characterized by what Selman calls subjective
perspective taking. Someone in this stage recognizes that other persons have
their own perspective, but thinks that these perspectives do not differ
essentially from one's own. Even when one notices that other persons do
prefer other ("ugly") paintings, one cannot believe that other persons are
justified in doing so. In the third stage of aesthetic judging, self-reflexive
reciprocal perspective taking develops. The subject discovers the person
"behind" the paintings as a person with an individual subjective perspec-
tive, and now learns to put himself or herself in the position of this other
person. The aesthetic judgment will from now on be structured around this
newly gained insight. In the fourth stage a community perspective is
developed, as we have seen. Aesthetic judgment no longer merely refers to
the intentions of the artist, but also arises from the "art-world." An aesthetic
judgment is considered to be the product of the generalized other. The last
stages of aesthetic judgment and perspective taking can be seen as
postconventional in the sense that both are characterized by the subject's
transcending the limited perspectives of society.
Again the inter-domain question can be asked, as to whether aesthetic
development logically presupposes social perspective taking. Perspective
taking, it must be stressed, plays an important role in virtually every human
interaction. Therefore, from a dynamic point of view this dimension of
human development cannot be studied in isolation from the intellectual,
moral, or aesthetic domain. However, from a logical point of view it is pos-
sible to reconstruct perspective taking as a distinct dimension belonging to
every interactionist domain of human development. Perspective taking thus
may be regarded as a feature that moral, social, and aesthetic development
have in common when these domains are studied from a more abstract
point of view. Hence we may regard perspective taking as a precondition for
aesthetic development, even though we do not take this in a chronological
sense. This also would make it understandable; that the various interactionist
domains can stimulate one another with regard to the shared aspect of
perspective taking.
We will conclude with some remarks on the relation between moral
development and aesthetic judgment. This relation is a very complex one, as
quickly becomes clear when we look at the philosophical and political
discussions about censorship since Plato's Republic (607b-d). In the first two
stages of aesthetic development, according to Parsons, moral overtones are
clearly present. In the first stage, moral and aesthetic considerations can
hardly be distinguished: the predicate "good" points to moral and aesthetic
qualities simultaneously. Although from the second stage on the two
domains gradually separate, in the fifth stage, where there is no very rigid
boundary between the aesthetic and other domains, moral considerations
may gain new importance. The relation between moral and aesthetic devel-
opment seems to resemble the relation between moral and social dev-
elopment, as understood by Selman (1984). Selman suggests that in the latter
process an original convergence is also followed by divergence, while in the
last stages of the development social and moral reasons become inter-
mingled again. Swanger (1985)also points to an interesting parallel between
moral and aesthetic reasoning. According to him the understanding of open
forms plays an important role in both cases. Just as in aesthetic judging at
the fifth stage the openness of the aesthetic object prevents dogmatism, in
moral reasoning at the last stage it is also impossible to defend dogmatism,
since it is seen that a dilemma like that of Heinz (see chapter 9) cannot be
settled once and for all.
An important difference between moral and aesthetic developments,
however, concerns their different cumulative characters. In moral develop-
ment in each stage the new way of judging is regarded as the most adequate
and in that sense most correct one, whereas in aesthetic development former
criteria remain significant and effective, although within the newly-gained
overall view they take on qualitatively different meanings. In other words,
the aesthetic domain seems to be characterized by a greater openness to
different views than the moral domain, in which it is often assumed that
only one answer can be correct.
5 Conclusion
In this chapter we have discussed aesthetic development, especially the dev-

elopment of aesthetic judgment in individuals. We started with a horizontal
reconstruction of the aesthetic domain, in which mimetic, expressive, and
formal features were distinguished. We then proceeded with an analysis of
Parsons's vertical reconstruction of the development of aesthetic judgment
about paintings in individuals. Finally, we compared this pattern of devel-
opment with intellectual and sociomoral developments. Although important
distinctions - such as between descriptive and evaluative claims, or logic
and dynamic - sometimes are confused in current empirical research,
we conclude that on the whole this research shows that a developmental ap-
proach of the aesthetic domain is fruitful.
11 Scientific development
Guy
In this chapter we will discuss an example of collective development: the

development of science as a social practice or, more specifically, conceptual
development in the natural sciences. The development of science is a major
issue in philosophy of science. In fact, the relation between different con -
ceptualizations of reality in science is a central problem of contemporary
philosophy of science. One of the aims of this chapter is to show how a
philosophy of development might contribute to philosophy of science.
The structure of this chapter parallels that of the previous chapters. We
will first give a definition of the scientific domain and the dimensions within
this domain (section 1). Then we will deal with the logic of development
within the dimension of the natural sciences (section 2). Next we will discuss
the evaluative justification of scientific development by focusing on the
problem of scientific rationality (section 3). In our discussion of the
development of science, we will briefly and informally summarize several
well-known approaches w ithin the philosophy of science (empiricism,
Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos).
1 Horizontal reconstruction: What is science?
A central theme in philosophy of science is the distinction between science

and other systems of knowledge. According to empiricism, as represented in
classical modern philosophy by Hume, and in this century by logical
positivists such as Rudolph Carnap, science is distinguished from non-
science in that it consists of empirical statements, that is, statements which
can be verified. Empiricism presupposes that facts can be observed without
any conceptual framework, and that theories are the result of generalization
of empirical observation. Thus for empiricism, science is based upon the
principle of verification (Chalmers, 1976).
This definition of science is criticized by Karl Popper, who emphasizes
that every observation is theory-laden. Our frame of reference determines
153
W. van Haaft en et al. (eds.) , Philosophy ofDevelopment, 153- 161.
the empirical observations that we make. According to Popper, the starting

point of science is not observation, but theory formation. Science consists of
theories which construct general relations between events and is distin-
guished from non-science because scientific theories are open to tests. Sci-
ence proceeds by testing specific hypotheses which follow from precon-
ceived theories. Thus Popper replaces the notion of verifiability by that of
falsifiability (Chalmers, 1976; Popper, 1969).
Popper gives a central role to conceptual frameworks in science. Accord-
ing to him scientific development is a change from one conceptual frame-
work or theory to another, which comes about through critical tests. His
view of science presupposes that conceptual frameworks can be tested, and
this presupposition is expressed in the criterion of falsifiability. However,
the notion of falsifiability has been questioned by Thomas Kuhn . According
to him scientific statements are part of a larger frame of reference which
includes metaphysical assumptions about the nature of reality. Scientist
share a conceptual structure which cannot be tested as a whole. According
to Kuhn scientists do not test theories; they solve puzzles within conceptual
frameworks, and pieces which do not fit (anomalies) are put aside. In peri-
ods of normal science the framework, or paradigm, remains unques tioned.
A paradigm may, however, lose its power. Then science enters a revolu -
tionary period, in which scientists start looking for a new conceptual frame-
work (Chalmers, 1976;Kuhn, 1970).
Our conception of conceptual development is more in line with the view
of Kuhn than with that of Popper. Conceptual frameworks cannot be tested,
because they are the background of our knowledge and the precondition of
our interventions (see chapter 4). Since reality is always interpreted in terms
of a conceptual framework, this framework as such cannot be true or false.
Still the usual understanding of conceptual development is that later con-
ceptual frameworks are somehow better than earlier ones. The question thus
remains, in what way a later framework is better, if the earlier one is not and
cannot be falsified. We will tum to this question in section 3.
With Kuhn the emphasis shifts from the individual researcher to the
scientific community. Science is not an individual enterprise, but a social
endeavor. Conceptual structures in science are not the invention of an in-
dividual, they are ways of making meaning, shared by a community.
Science is therefore not only an internal, cognitive affair: it also presupposes
cooperation of scientists within specific institutions. Science is not primarily
a bundle of statements, but a socially constructed way of understanding the
Scientific development 155
world and of intervening in the world (through experiments, calculations,

measurements, etc.).
We may conclude that the domain of science consists of socially shared
and institutionally bound conceptual frameworks, which embody a view of
the world of events and which regulate interventions in the world of events.
This domain has at least two subdomains or dimensions. One is the
dimension of the physical or, as we shall call them here , the natural sciences,
and the other is that of the social sciences. Both in the natural and in the
social sciences we can discern events and relations between events. In the
natural sciences, events are facts of nature, and relations between events are
considered to be law-like. In the social sciences events are human actions,
which are related through processes of coordination that encompass
interpretation. Since the conceptualizations of the natural sciences and those
of the social sciences involve different categories, the development of
conceptual frameworks in both dimensions will be different. In the remain-
der of this chapter we will focus on the natural sciences.
2 Vertical reconstruction: The development of science
Philosophy of science is interested in the development of science as well as

in its latest conclusions. For empiricists this development comes about
through an accumulation of facts, which results into the formation of laws .
Scientific development is therefore quantitative rather than qualitative in its
changes, as far as this view is concerned. According to Popper, scientific
development results from the testing of theories. As refuted theories are
changed for new ones, he claims, science comes "closer to the truth."
Although the changes are supposed to be qualitative, there is no logic of
development implied in Popper's approach. The same holds for Kuhn's
view of scientific development. For Kuhn, science shows qualitative changes
in conceptual structures (or paradigms), but he presupposes that later
structures cannot be compared to earlier ones - they are literally "incom-
mensurable."
Piaget claims that he has a model of scientific development which in-
cludes Kuhn's notion of paradigm, but has more to say about the internal
logic of changes from one paradigm to the next. In this section we will
consider Piaget's vertical reconstruction of the development of natural
science. In the next section we will compare his developmental perspective
with the approaches of Popper and Kuhn.
Piaget draws a parallel between the child's stages of intellectual develop-

ment and stages of collective development in prehistorical and early histor-
ical times (see Kitchener, 1986, p . 164). According to him the anthropoid's
cognitive stage is similar to the sensorimotor stage, the prehistoric stage
resembles the pre-operational stage, and concrete-operational thinking can
be found in Chaldean astronomy and Egyptian geometry. Formal opera-
tional thinking is characteristic of the Greeks. To say the least, this parallel is
rather speculative. Moreover, it is not very interesting for philosophy of
science, since it ends where most treatises in philosophy of science begin. It
seems that science requires the attainment of the stage of formal operational
thought.
More interesting is Piaget's view on the development of cosmology from
Aristotle through Newton to Einstein. According to Piaget this development
shows a specific decentration. From Aristotle to Ptolemy the subject is the
center of the universe, and knowledge of reality is guaranteed because the
subject has access to reality as it is. Newton describes a world in which the
subject no longer has a privileged place. The world of objects is seen as
independent of the subject. Knowledge of the objective world can only be
acquired if all subjective influences are discarded. Einstein develops a
worldview in which neither subject nor object has an absolute position. The
shift from Newton to Einstein is marked by the awareness that the role of
the knowing subject can never be put in brackets. The turn from naive
objectivism (Aristotle) to absolute objectivism (Newton) and finally to some
kind of relative objectivism (Einstein) results from the growing awareness of
the role of the subject in experience and perception (see De Mey, 1982, pp.
221£.). In the first stage, the subject is unaware of its role. In the second stage,
the subject becomes aware of its role, but presupposes that this role can be
neglected if the proper methods are followed. In the third stage, the subject
acknowledges that its role can never be circumvented. Thus the develop-
ment from Aristotle to Einstein manifests an increasing decentering of
privileged points of view and a progressive construction of relative refer-
ence frames (Kitchener, 1986,p. 169).
Piaget's views on the logic of development of the natural sciences are
elaborated further by Krohn (1977), who focuses on the transition between
the Aristotelian and the Newtonian worldview in the Renaissance. His
study covers the period from 1300 to 1700, which starts with the upsurge of
nominalism in late scholastic philosophy and ends with the scientific
revolutions of Harvey, Galilee, and Bacon. Krohn distinguishes three major
features of scientific development in this period: the introduction of the
notion of scientific progress, the introduction of the experimental method,

and the introduction of the notion of natural law . Each of these features is
related to modem (Newtonian) natural science : the notion of progress is
characteristic of the modem approach to science, the experimental method is
characteristic of modem scientific endeavors, and the notion of natural laws
is characteristic of the modem scientific worldview. According to Krohn,
these three features are logically independent, and related to various social
contexts. All three, however, can be described as reflexive abstractions in the
Piagetian sense (Krohn, 1977, p . 32; see also chapter 8 above). They show
decentration, in that subject and object are distinguished and the subject's
actions are seen as having objective results. The notion of scientific progress
entails that science is dependent on historical actions of scientists within a
scientific community; the experimental method implies that scientific
knowledge is dependent upon human interventions; the notion of natural
law shows that natural regularities can only be known in relation to
intellectual constructions (Krohn, 1977, p. 104). Thus the transition from the
Aristotelian to the Newtonian worldview can be described in terms of
decentration. The conceptual structure of the modem natural sciences is less
egocentric than the conceptual structure of its medieval predecessors,
because it has more awareness of the role played by the knowing subject
(the scientific researcher) in the process of acquiring knowledge.
Krohn's study shows that a developmental perspective on science can
have a heuristic value. Using the concepts of reflexive abstraction and
decentration, he is able to clarify the distinctions between Aristotelian and
Newtonian natural science, and to show that both can plausibly be seen as
qualitatively different stages in the development of science . Moreover, he
shows resemblances between various changes in the period between 1300
and 1700, and thus gives a more coherent view of the Renaissance as a
period of transition. Other authors have told the story of the development of
science differently, but we need not decide here whose stories are best. The
important points are that the history of science can be reconstructed as a
stage developmental story, and that doing so enables us to see new facets of
historical change.
3 Scientific rationality and evaluative justification
A central theme in philosophy of science is scientific rationality. What makes

science a rational endeavor? According to empiricism scientific ratio-
nality is guaranteed by unprejudiced observations. Science differs from be-

lief in that it is built upon established facts. The fundamental presupposition
of empiricism, namely the possibility of unbiased observation, is demolished
by Popper, as we saw above . Post-empiricist philosophers of science agree
with Popper that pure observations do not exist, because every observation
takes place within a conceptual framework. Science does not progress by
accumulation of facts, but by changes in conceptual frameworks. Science is
rational if these changes are rational. This principle is central to the
philosophy of Popper, who defines scientific development as a process of
theory changes. Theories should be severely tested, and rejected if they are
falsified by experiments. Through conjectures and refutations wrong
theories can be put aside, so that we get "nearer to the truth" (Popper, 1969).
Popper presupposes that conceptual frameworks in science can be tested,
and he claims that competent scientists do test their frameworks. Kuhn
criticized both points. First, Kuhn holds that scientific theories are based
upon the worldview of the scientific community, and always contain
"metaphysical" elements, that is, claims or suppositions that by their very
nature are not falsifiable. Second, Kuhn argues, the history of science shows
that competent scientists do not test theories. They solve puzzles within the
frame of their worldview or paradigm (Kuhn, 1970). Whereas Popper has a
clear picture of scientific development as a process of elimination of false
theories, which brings us closer to the truth, Kuhn's view of scientific devel-
opment is much more intricate. He distinguishes between periods of normal
science, in which the scientific community works on the basis of an estab-
lished paradigm, and periods of revolution, in which the old worldview has
broken down and a new one has to be constructed. According to Kuhn a
change of paradigms in a period of revolution can be called rational, in that
it comes about through processes of argumentation. There are, however, no
external criteria for comparing the new paradigm with the old one. Thus the
new paradigm cannot be said to be better than the old one, apart from the
fact that it is preferred by the members of the scientific community. This
means that the notion of scientific progress becomes very thin.
Imre Lakatos has tried to rehabilitate a Popperian idea of scientific
growth without trivializing Kuhn's criticism of Popper . He agrees with
Kuhn that science is built on metaphysical presuppositions. These are part of
the scientific research program, which (like Kuhn's paradigm) encompasses
several theories. Lakatos also agrees with Kuhn that competent scientists do
not test their most crucial ideas, which are in the center of their re-
search programs. In line with Popper, however, Lakatos thinks that scien-
tists should test some theories, namely those which are peripheral to the
research program. If the experiment falsifies the theory, the theory does not
have to be immediately rejected, however. Falsifications can be used to
detect wrong presuppositions, and thus to improve the theory (Lakatos,
1978a).
Although Lakatos is able to counter Kuhn's arguments against Popper,
he has little to say about the rationality of a change from one conceptual
framework (research program) to the next. According to Lakatos a research
program should be replaced by another one if it is no longer progressive -
i.e., if it no longer generates new theoretical or empirical insights. Lakatos
fails, however, to give further criteria which may be used to distinguish
between research programs or to judge a new program as superior to the old
one. As regards the rationality of scientific development from one con-
ceptual framework to another, post-Popperian philosophy of science seems
to have got into a dead end street.
Piaget purports to give a way out of this situation. He agrees with Kuhn
that scientific development is characterized by radical changes in conceptual
frameworks. However, according to Piaget these changes are not arbitrary,
but rather follow a logic which has been documented in psychological
research (Piaget & Garcia, 1989, p. 164). Piaget thus claims that there is a
strict parallel between the intellectual development of the child and the
development of science. In both cases later stages are decentered in com-
parison with earlier stages, which means there is a progressive awareness of
the possibility of various frames of reference and various perspectives.
Piaget's thesis of a parallel between individual intellectual development
and the development of science is problematic. It obscures the fact that the
history of science shows not only gains but also losses in explanatory power.
Moreover, it carries the unwarranted suggestion that later conceptual
frameworks in the history of science are logically superior to former ones.
But if we drop the presupposition of a strict parallel, there are still important
similarities between individual development and the development of
science. The notion of decentration seems to be applicable to both (Siegel,
1982, P: 385) and this might be taken as a point of departure for a third, more
acceptable approach. As sketched above, the notion of decentration enables
us to construct a logic of development which makes it possible to discern
and compare various stages in the natural sciences . From this perspective,
the shifts from Ptolemy to Newton and from Newton to Einstein can be said
to be "rational" in a specific way.
A decentration-oriented approach would resemble both Popper's and

Kuhn's views on scientific development but would be fundamentally dif-
ferent from each of them. Within this approach the criterion of decentration,
like Popper's criterion of corroboration, could enable us to compare various
frameworks in the history of science and say that later frameworks are
normally better than earlier ones. This focus on decentration does not,
however, mean that scientific development is to be identified with method-
ological rules or their applications. Popper's principle of corroboration tells
scientists what to do (they should test various theories, and embrace the
theory which withstands the most severe test), but this does not hold for the
notion of decentration. Decentration is not a scientific or methodological
principle at all: it is a part of a logic of development, or at least would be for
any developmental theorist who, following the lead of Piaget, assumes
either that decentration is part of development tout court or that decen-
tration is inherent in some developmental pattern. In this respect an ap-
proach which focuses on decentration is more in line with Kuhn's view of
scientific development, since both are concerned not with methodological
rules but rather with the structure of various conceptual frameworks .
Contrary to Kuhn, however, the notion of decentration implies that these
structures can be compared to each other and even evaluated in terms of
progress or regress.
An approach starting from the notion of decentration is also different
from Lakatos's combination of Popper and Kuhn, for the same reason,
namely, that individual research programs are not judged on methodolog-
ical grounds. Rather, subsequent conceptual frameworks are compared from
a structural point of view . Lakatos was right in claiming that scientific
rationality implies that later frameworks are normally somehow better than
earlier ones. However, scientific rationality cannot be reduced to the
application of an abstract methodological principle, but has to be related to
the practical activities of concrete, historical scientists.
Because a decentration-oriented approach incorporates some notion of
progress, it has obvious affinities with the approaches of Popper and
Lakatos. It is, however, even closer to Kuhn's position. Whereas Popper and
Lakatos tend to stress the inadequacy of earlier conceptual frameworks
(Popper even goes so far as to say that all our theories are necessarily
wrong), Kuhn holds that every conceptual framework is characterized by a
specific way of making meaning and thus exhibits rationality. Whereas
Popper and Lakatos identify scientific rationality with methodological
scrutiny, Kuhn emphasizes the practical rationality or tacit knowledge that

is bound up with conceptual frameworks .
Contrary to Popper and Lakatos, and in line with Kuhn , an approach
which defines development of science in terms of decentration relates ratio-
nality to forms of life. However, such an approach differs from Kuhn's in
that it holds that forms of life may be more or less critical, more or less open
to other perspectives. More developed forms of life are characterized by a
greater awareness of a variety of possible perspectives. Thus Popper's
notion of criticism does play a role within this approach, not as a
methodological principle governing scientific development as a whole, but
as a characteristic element of later stages of scientific development. Scientific
rationality is not to be identified with a procedure of testing one's actual
conceptual framework. It is related to the process of meaning-making
characteristic of each of the various conceptual frameworks or stages of
scientific development, and shows itself in an increased awareness of pos-
sible perspectives and in a growing openness to critique, both of which can ,
logically, be reconstructed in a pattern of stages of scientific development.
4 Conclusion
In this chapter we discussed scientific development from the viewpoint of

philosophy of development. In order to see how fruitful the Piagetian notion
of decentration can be, we elaborated a perspective on the development of
the natural sciences which distinguishes several stages, and which is
sensitive to various features that contribute to making the next stage
qualitatively different from and structurally better than the former one. The
notion of decentration also appeared to be fruitful for the discussion of the
nature of scientific rationality. Some of the fundamental problems in
philosophy of science are equally basic for a philosophy of development. It
is to be hoped that the two fields of inquiry can profit from each other's
insights.
12 Societal development
Michie! Korthals
The idea of societal development has often been connected with the idea of
progress, for better or worse. Both ideas have met with severe criticisms,
especially in anthropology and sociology, and it would be an understate-
ment to say that in the present intellectual climate the very notion of a
universal, progressive, cumulating development of society is not very pop-
ular. It is appropriate to begin this discussion by acknowledging the
negative points of traditional stage theories of societal development. But we
also note at the outset that doing serious social science with no develop-
mental claims whatever is simply not possible. The idea of development is a
lady without whom social scientists cannot live, but with whom they are
ashamed to be seen. It is not only social scientists who cannot evade dev-
elopmental issues: all sorts of modern and contemporary writers regularly
refer to some pre-, proto-, or postmodern time in order to orient themselves
in the whirlwind of cultures, trends, and new producers of meaning. Those
who want to understand their own present socio-cultural conditions can do
so only by comparing them with other conditions - postmodern, pre-
modern, or protomodern - and hence it seems clear that we all need some
kind of stage development theory of society .
So it is time to reconsider the case for societal development and to look
for alternatives which do not run into the traditional troubles, and which
can in principle help satisfy the deep-seated desire to understand the variety
of h istorically developed cultures and somehow relate them to each other.
In the present chapter we will use the philosophical principles presented in
the first part of this book to show what a developmental theory would look
like that satisfies these requirements. The approach to human history pro-
posed here brings together ideas from several existing theories, and al-
though not itself a full -blown theory it illustrates (and identifies) dimen-
sions of development, tries to justify evaluative claims of progress and
regress, and shows what it means to be falsifiable by empirical research.
There is at least one sense in which this approach is not just another
163
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.), Philosophy ofDevelopment, 163-181.
traditional theory: it is not a worldview nor does it constitute a moral diag-

nosis of our time.
With respect to social change, we can distinguish three senses of devel-
opment. First , there is the development of individuals in a collective that
affects individual learning processes (d. Miller, 1986). Secondly, there is the
development of an individual's social competencies, for example, the devel-
opment of perspective-taking (d. Selman, 1980). Thirdly, there is the dev-
elopment of a social collective and, correspondingly, the learning processes
of a collective. In this chapter, we will focus on the third sense.
We begin with some objections to the very idea of societal stage theories,
after which we will show why stage development theories are useful,
notwithstanding these arguments. Then we will review what was said in
chapter 4 about the notions of a domain and its dimensions, by discussing
some traditional proposals having to do with the sociomoral domain. In
light of this review, we will propose our alternative approach, which is
centered around three stages of sociomoral development. Next we will
discuss problems of the justification of societal development claims of this
dimension, and finally we will sketch some dynamic factors.
1 Doing away with theories of societal stages development?
In contemporary sociology and anthropology arguments against develop-

mental theories are ubiquitous. Two fundamental objections concern their
"crypto-normativism" (often concealing ethnocentrism) and their empirical
inadequacy. The first of these objections is that behind their description of
the facts, traditional theories of development hide the normative yardstick
they use to distinguish stages of human history. This cover-up of their own
standpoint is made possible by very implausible epistemological presup-
positions concerning the position of the historian himself or herself. Accord-
ing to these presuppositions theorists have only to free themselves of their
prejudices in order to find the key to unlock the secrets of human history.
Thus Voltaire, Montesquieu, Turgot, and Condorcet, to name just a few
social development theorists, claim not to be influenced by their own soci-
eties and to be free from ethnocentric prejudices. Unfortunately, such claims
are unconvincing when they are accompanied by crypto-normative and
unfalsifiable theories. One finds these epistemological presuppositions not
only in the heyday of the Enlightenment but also in German Idealism. For
instance, Hegel says that he only has to look at world history and its course
Societal development 165
makes itself explicit, and Marx writes that the communist revolution is
taking place before his eyes. The overtly descriptive stance of the historian,
who states that he has only to look, conceals an implicit evaluative stance.
As a consequence the normative position from which the course of history is
identified is not accounted for. At most - so the first objection concludes -
it is only stated, in a wholly arbitrary manner.
The second objection against stage developmental theories is that they
are "strong" in the worst sense of that term. A "strong" theory of history is
bulletproof: no fact can scatter or falsify it since it is essentially the
expression and reflection of the true course of human history. Facts which
seem to falsify the theory express, not the true course of history as stated by
that theory, but only certain deep-rooted prejudices on the side of the
theorist. Hence theory and history are supposed to be interconnected, in that
the theory itself defines what is history. An implication of this conception of
strong theory concerns the inconsistent practical implications of traditional
developmental theories. Almost every developmental theory has therapeutic
claims and implications, even as it proposes a fixed sequence of stages
leading to a final stage. The theory is written to improve the historical
situation, although its general theme is that history has a logic of its own
and therefore it is useless to try to influence its course.
This course, especially its final stage, is described by strong theories of
history in very positive terms, whereby readers are spurred to do their best
to bring this stage about. The paradox is, however, that in those theories the
dynamic forces which can bring about the transition to the next stage are
mostly located outside the scope of human activity. There is, then, a ser ious
discrepancy between the appeal it makes to its readers and the content of the
strong theory. For example, in the theory of Marx the enduring problem in
this respect is: must we wait until the conditions for revolution are right, or
should we act now in order to bring them about?
These two objections are very serious indeed, but it remains to be seen
whether or how they force us to give up the idea of developmental stages
altogether. Many historians and sociologists who embrace some kind of
"developmental agnosticism" (Bendix, 1970) believe they do. It is for this
reason that research in the social and historical sciences of the last decades
has neglected developmental stages. Often, detailed research (e.g., the his-
tory of the female labor population in the sewing factories in the western
part of North Carolina from 1890 until 1895) has presented a mass of facts
with no attempt at elaborating, testing, and then confirming or falsifying
stage theories of development.
Other social scientists, like Foucault (1991), unmask the whole concept of
development as an instrument of power (see chapter 17). Theorizing about
the development of cultural stages is criticized as cultural imperialism, on
the grounds that every stage theory devalues some cultural stage with
respect to others and therefore has oppressive consequences. Differentiation
of cultures by means of underlying structures is strongly criticized, with
historical relativism as the consequence.
On the other hand, some anthropologists try to do away with develop-
mental theories by identifying universal structures. Linton (1952) and Levi-
Strauss (1958) do so when they suggest that some moral norms are common
to all cultures. Rules against incest and promiscuity, rules that prescribe
duties between parents and children, rules that forbid lying, killing, and
torturing, are in their view universal. They stress the convergence of cul-
tures, not their divergences. Not relativism but universalism is their answer
to the problems of developmental theories.
However, neither relativism nor universalism provides adequate an-
swers for the questions raised by traditional developmental theories.
Relativism is not a necessary consequence of the untenability of traditional
stage theories, and universalism does not take seriously the problems of a
universal theory of development.
2 The persistent need for theories of stage development
These two critiques of traditional social developmental theories are harsh,

but in our view, they are not ultimately persuasive reasons to abandon
theorizing about development and developmental stages. There are various
reasons which compel us to look for alternatives free of the epistemological
and anthropological problems that, we concede, are found in the traditional
developmental theories of society.
One of these considerations is that we modem individualistic partici-
pants of a worldwide culture are committed to our own past and future, and
so we need a "before-and-after" model of history (Bendix, 1970). We are
deeply interested in our own past because we want to know how we have
become what we are now. We have some idea of history and need to
improve that idea in order to understand better what future we want, if
indeed we have a future at all.
Secondly, we are not puppets of history, nor do we live our life mechani-
cally. We evaluate our historical situation and other historical periods and,
implicitly, human history as such. We are conscious of the fact that some
cultures are more humane, and so more human, than others, and therefore
we are interested in the question of how cultures relate to each other. The
differences between cultures include structural as well as superficial differ-
ences.
The kind of historical self-knowledge which orients itself with the con-
cept of stage or period is essential for the understanding of culture. Not all
cultural events are connected to each other, but some are and it is precisely
because of this interconnectedness that we need a concept of historical pe-
riod or stage. It is not in a sheerly inductive way that we come to see histo-
rical connections; only through bold models, periods, and stages can we
interpret the detailed facts as profoundly interrelated (Finley, 1986). The
idea of a historical period or stage enables us to see which phenomena be-
long together and which do not, what is an emergent characteristic and what
is not. For instance, the culture of hunters and gatherers lacks a central
power organization and a central juridical organization, and so we can say
that the hunters and gatherers have a social culture but not a political state.
At the same time, those societies lack any sort of written tradition or
scripture. Political states and literacy seem to be indissolubly connected with
each other, since literacy presupposes some learned caste and a social func -
tion for the written word (e.g ., as defining jurisdiction), and conversely, a
central power organization needs written general rules . Someone who wants
only literacy without a state is asking for the impossible. So the two socially
constructed institutions of state and literacy are not individual explanatory
options of which we can choose one and not the other. The same holds for
the typically modern concept of individuality. This concept presupposes
many specific social arrangements and interrelationships as well. Nowadays
the idea of individual autonomy is so taken for granted that few people
realize how essentially connected it is with the idea of the individual
transcending local or national conventions and solidarities.
Finally, we realize that, regardless of whether it is desirable to do so, it is
at least possible to conceptualize a certain cultural stage as the predecessor or
precondition of another cultural period. Collectives and societies can pro-
gress in certain dimensions and regress in others, just as individuals can (see
chapter 2). The point here is that qualitative change is recognizable. We all
know that when certain thresholds are crossed and a new cultural landscape
has been reached after a long journey, it is only at high cost and at great risk
that we can return to the former landscape behind us.
So, transformed theories of stage development can sharpen our eyes for
the unique qualities and unique combinations which together form the path
toward the twenty-first century. They differentiate between various types of
cultures and between patterns of cultural change. Well-defined develop-
mental theories can be an antidote against those relativistic, leveling con-
ceptions of societal change which deny the uniqueness of Western culture
(and other cultures).
In contradistinction to the traditional theories of development, the ap-
proach to stage development we describe here by no means claims to con-
struct a universal pattern. Our account focuses on the sociomoral domain or
dimension of societal development, and shows the difficult and unique road
that sociomorallearning processes have taken.
Only in a tentative way is such a developmental pattern of our history
possible. The pattern should be conceived only as a means of interpreting
ourselves and our past. The "before-and-after" model is a narrative scheme
used to elucidate our present conditions and to help understand our relation
with other cultures. This does not mean that developmental patterns are
altogether relative; as a means of orientation they uphold some kind of va-
lidity claim. But there are two senses in which they are not a priori or
universally true : they can be corroborated or falsified by empirical evidence,
and the val idity claim which they make holds only for the developments our
Western society has made.
3 Development and learning processes
In contrast to relativist or universalist theories which level out all differences

among cultures, we argue here for an approach which recognizes the struc-
tural differences of cultures and interprets them as the result of collective
sociomorallearning processes.
We have to see history not as the immanent maturation of a rational
force, nor as the development of the heroic struggle of mankind with nature,
but as the result of various learning processes in different dimensions. In the
course of engaging in these learning processes, individuals and collectives
acquire structures which more or less predetermine their experiences; how-
ever, di sturbing experiences (problems) can motivate them consciously or
unconsciously to change their structures for better or worse. New expe-
riences can disturb existing structures and eventually lead to new structures
of experiences. There is no fixed end-state, and the stages and their sequence
can only be understood retrospectively.
To the concept of learning process belongs the notion that not everything
can be mastered. How far individuals, groups, and societies can solve their
problems is always a matter of whatever specific capacities and opportu-
nities they have at the time. History is not made by man alone, and the next
stage of history is always a mixture of contingent and intentional events.
The concept of a learning process is a normative concept and has strong
connections with the concept of rationalization, understood in the non-pejo-
rative sense of "making intelligible." But we have to be careful here, since
even the non-pejorative sense of the term "rationalization" can have teleo-
logical or holistic associations. It does not mean that intelligibility (the
"ratio", see chapter 4) is the driving force of the social processes or that the
sheer succession of historical events is itself a process of rationalization. So,
although the first (italicized) part of the following quotation from Gellner is
true, the second part is not: " The point is thatwe need a selective, discriminating
concept of rationality, as something which grows and augments with the pro-
gress of human history." (Gellner, 1988, p. 175, italics added). This view of
reason unfolding during history belongs to a concept of history which,
without justification, sees history as a holistic process of emancipation of
mankind from nature. To avoid the pitfalls of holism and crypto-norma-
tivism, we have to differentiate the concept of rationality. Very important in
th is respect are the two distinctions made in previous chapters between
structure and content and between the logic and the dynamic of a dev-
elopmental theory.
With the second distinction we avoid the pitfalls of crypto-normativism
and "stron g" theory. As explained in chapter 2, the logic of a theory specifies
the stages in terms of their defining characteristics, and the relations be-
tween the stages are defined accordingly. The logic includes a (vertical)
reconstruction of the developmental pattern, as well as a (horizontal) recon-
struction of the domain or dimension under investigation, which differen-
tiates it from other domains or dimensions. The dynamic of the theory is
concerned with actual developmental processes and the explanatory or
causal factors which move the subject through the stages. The sequence of
stages is not ontologically fixed in history, but rather is the form of inter-
pretation produced by the participants of the learning processes themselves
and by their observers.
The very concept of a learning process implies that some norms should
be used. Without a norm or standard it is impossible to describe a historical
event as a learning process (or as the failure of a learning process). The

sequence of stages, elaborated upon in the logic of the developmental
theory, determines which process can be conceptualized as a learning
process and which cannot. The stages are part of a learning process in the
sense that stage n can only be reached by stage n-1.
4 Horizontal reconstruction: The sociomoral domain
Most traditional developmental theories stress the pivotal role of the rela-
tion between man and nature, and then go on to treat that relation as though
it were the only domain at the social level. Their view, in effect, is that the
only relevant domain of societal development is the way societies assert
themselves in their relation to nature. Sometimes instruments are taken into
account. Thus the well-known difference between the Stone, Iron, and
Bronze Ages is based on a sequence of types of technological instruments or
(broadly speaking) tools used for the survival of society. In Marxist
philosophy of history it is not the types of tools but rather the forces of
production which determine socio-cultural and cognitive development. As
Marx writes, "Technology reveals the active relation of man to nature, the
direct process of the production of his life, and thereby it also lays bare the
process of the production of the social relations of his life, and of the mental
conceptions that flow from those relations" (Marx, 1976, p. 493). The modem
and postmodem successors of Marxism (e.g., critical theory, or Heideg-
gerian theories of Gestell) identify the most relevant aspect of social develop-
ment with this kind of instrumental rationality. Even Gellner in his very
interesting study of the three main stages of societal development identifies
rationality with instrumental rationality (Gellner, 1988, p. 106).
Very often, this view implies that in the course of human history con-
ceptual development emerges only gradually, as its byproduct so to say.
Hence many argue that in the beginning primitive man was not fully
human, belonging totally to nature ("bestial"), that only in the course of
development did he become more human and less natural, and that con-
sequently his relationship with nature was increasingly mediated by con-
ceptualizations. Marx (1976, p. 93) seems to hint at this interpretation when
he calls a feature of the first stage the "umbilical cord of the natural species'
connection with others" (Nabelschnur des naturlichen Gattungs zusammen-
hanges mit anderen). Even Weber held this opinion. "Primitive" should stand
in direct connection to nature; modem man should have emancipated him-
self from nature and should stand in a self-created conceptual environment.

Here the difference between the emergence of human history (or the pre-
history which came before it) and human history proper has been blurred.
With the start of human history the competence to conceptualize nature, the
world, and men's place in it, has by definition been accomplished.
In ecologically oriented developmental theories, the way humans relate
to non -humans is the starting point for the differentiation between the three
stages of societal development. Goudsblom (1989, p. 10) argues that "we
have to begin with admitting the relevance of the biological-ecological di-
mension of the human condition, and the development of it." In the rela-
tionship between the human and non-human varieties three changes can be
discerned: the domestication of fire, the introduction of farming and
stockbreeding, and, finally, industrialization. It is striking how the first two
stages resemble the stages distinguished by the ancient developmental
theories (see Panofsky, 1962, chapter 2). According to Goudsblom these
three ecological transformations are of such crucial importance for the
development of humankind that they determine the sequence of socio-
cultural development in general.
This exclusive attention to the relationship between man and nature has
overshadowed the fact that there are other domains and dimensions which
are important as well and have a more or less independent sequence of
stages. The relationship between man and nature is not as central as it is
traditionally believed to be. In the first place the experience of non-human
objects is structured by our social background. The social background is not
a momentary invention of the experiencing individual, but the result of a
continuous process of transmission and culturalleaming. The individual is
socialized into this background with the help of the group he or she belongs
to . The relationship with a collective is, in this sense, crucial for individuals
to have concepts of their natural environment.
In the second place, the development of instruments or technologies -
for example, the domestication of fire or the introduction of agriculture - is
not always followed by socio-cultural changes and vice versa. Societies with
sophisticated socio-cultural institutions can have crude technologies (e.g.,
China).
The common presupposition of these one-sided developmental theories,
that instrumental rationality is the only domain of conceptual development,
is not true. There is also the rationality of norms, of trying to come to an
agreement about conflicts of interests and norms (Habermas, 1987b). This
normative rationality plays a pivotal role in the development of sociomoral

institutions for regulating social conflicts. The approach proposed in this
chapter has many similarities with the genetic structuralism of Piaget, Kohl-
berg, and Habermas. But there are important differences. The main differ-
ence is that, unlike our approach, Kohlberg and Habermas conceptualize
collective learning processes essentially from the point of view of individual
learning processes (d. Kohlberg, 1981, 1986; see also section 6 below), and
Piaget discusses them hardly at all.
Against the anthropological and socio-ontological presuppositions of the
traditional theories we want to stress the communicative, intersubjective
dimension of social development. New ecological or technological changes
pose social problems, but there is nothing in the internal structure or content
of these problems that prefigures or indicates their solutions. Instead, they
require learning processes on the socio-cultural level, for the same general
reasons that solutions at the individual level do (see our discussion of Ham-
lyn in chapter 2). For example, the possibility of controlling fire creates new
problems in the dimension of cooperation and coordination of actions. The
domestication of fire increases the need to delay satisfaction of desires, a
need which expresses itself in practices of storing food, building houses, and
so on . Old forms of social cooperation have to be abandoned, new forms
created. New forms of regulating the individuals themselves have to be
created and the individuals need to adapt themselves to them. In societies
without fire these social relations and individual dispositions do not exist.
The same holds for the main problem of agrarian societies, namely, their
military vulnerability. When groups cross the threshold to agriculture, they
settle down. This creates a need for social relationships which can continue
for a longer time than required in the earlier stage. In this context, a central
power institution is the most fruitful invention that can protect the farmers
and their crops against non -agrarians. But this invention and the underlying
conception of lasting social relationships is not simply dictated by a change
in the way a group materially reproduces itself. It requires learning
processes in the dimension of coordinating the actions of the actors, which is
to say in the dimension of intersubjectivity.
As a matter of fact, every new stage in a learning process (individual or
social) has antecedent events that spark it off, which in the present instance
include technological, demographical, and ecological events. But these
events have to be interpreted in terms of the participants' background
system of beliefs and norms. Moreover, the consciousness that there are
technological, ecological, or demographical problems has to be supple-
mented by the additional insight that there is a solution to these problems:

this insight is not itself part of the awareness that the problem exists . Thus
the insight of agrarian societies concerning their military vulnerability does
not imply the solution of this problem, as for example the ecological theory
states. As long as the second stage of sociomoral development (see the next
section) is not reached, these societies will be extremely unstable, and will in
the end be incorporated by societies which have already reached the second
stage.
5 A vertical reconstruction: Stages in the sociomoral dimension
A sequence of sociomoral stages can best be reconstructed "top down" from

the structural analysis of our present situation to the past. However, the
"top down" reconstruction has to be complemented by a "bottom up"
reconstruction. So the present situation is the hermeneutical position from
which the sequence has to be understood. This sequence is a pattern of
development, which defines the stages of a cumulative learning process and
thereby also defines what is progress in the sociomoral dimension (see
Eisenstadt, 1986; Nelson, 1981).
The naturalistic-concrete conventional stage

In the first stage the world of natural things is not differentiated from the
world of social events. Nature, society, and persons belong tightly together
and can transform each other. Validity claims for descriptive, normative,
and other kinds of judgment are not differentiated and are directly con-
nected with empirical concepts such as causality or concepts of health and
illness. A judgment is valid because something caused something else, or
because it does not cause illness, because it was there first, and so on. This
means that there are no explicit norms to which one can appeal in order to
resolve social conflicts. The social order is directly upheld not by respect for
general norms but by rituals, in which individuals are again and again
socialized with concrete rules and concepts (Gellner, 1988, chapter 2).
When social rules are broken, the cosmic order is in danger and can only
be saved by restoring the status quo ante. For societies at this first con-
ventional stage, sacrifices, and rituals in general, play an important role in
this restoration. There is no distinction made between intention and con-
sequence; every "criminal" act is judged from consequences and without
regard to intentions, much as the younger child in Piaget's example judged

the action of cutting a hole in her dress (see chapter 1). The absence of
explicit social norms has consequences for the regulations of conflict of
interest as well. There is no noncontroversial social position which is re-
cognized as a social arbiter. A peaceful solution for a social conflict of inter-
est is only acceptable on the basis of consent (Posposil, 1982).
Most societies in which this stage dominates lack enduring power rela-
tionships; inequalities between individuals are not legitimized simply be-
cause this stage does not know how to do so (Mann, 1986, p . 49; Clastres,
1987; Durkheim, 1995; Sahlins, 1974). The naturalistic-concrete conventional
concept of norms dominates the culture of the societies of hunters and
gatherers, which, as is well known, are egalitarian and nonpolitical (Wesel,
1984).
The religious-metaphysical conventional stage

In the second stage contingent ritualized rules are transformed into abstract
obligatory norms, which claim validity independent of contingent circum-
stances. The recognition of abstract norms replaces the ritual celebration of
the social order and is connected with some kind of transcendent power.
Religions and metaphysics underpin such norms in that their validity de-
rives from their internal connection with another, higher world.
The acquisition of abstract obligatory norms makes possible the estab-
lishment of central power positions as well as the institutionalization of the
judicial function. This stage goes hand in hand with political centralization.
The law becomes an instrument of power for the leading positions. The
hierarchical distinction between profane law and sacral law legitimizes the
juridical and political power positions and the religious power positions.
Normative validity claims are separated from empirical validity claims, just
as nature is differentiated from society in the corresponding worldview. But
both fuse together in the transcendent other world, as can be seen in the
conceptions of norms and the corresponding worldviews which were domi-
nant in the great empires (China, Egypt, Rome) and other agrarian-clerical
societies (Eisenstadt, 1986; Nelson, 1981).
The modern principled stage

The concept of norm found at the third stage not only differentiates concrete
ritual rules from abstract norms (as in the second stage), but also differen -
tiates universal principles from norms. It has formal characteristics: the
validity of norms is not connected with religious or metaphysical world-

views but with a general feature of the present social world: the immense
pluralism of worldviews. The differentiation between norm and principle
entails another, perhaps even more important distinction: that between the
rationality of doing right (justice) and of living well (goodness and virtue),
or more generally, between the moral point of view and the good life
(Williams, 1985). The principle of respect for pluralism is concerned with the
first sort of problems, since respect is a matter of justice.
This stage corresponds to a worldview which is totally open, in the sense
that the individuals themselves are required to do much of the work that the
standards given by the closed worldviews did in former stages. The paradox
of this stage is that on the one hand the individuals feel they are their own
judges and on the other hand they realize that they are not autonomous
individuals but the product of their cultural background.
Modem Western civilizations have reached this stage. It remains to be
seen what will come next.
6 The evaluative justification of development claims
The evaluative development claim contends that with respect to collective

development a later stage is better than the preceding one, so that socio-
moral progress is possible. Moral development on this scale means that the
way collectives conceptualize the moral domain changes structurally and
that stages can be distinguished.
The justification of an evaluative development claim should be distin-
guished in the vertical reconstruction from the description and explanation
of stage development (see chapter 2). In the description and explanation of
stage development we look for relevant factors and circumstances which,
taken together, are responsible for the transformation of one stage into
another. As we have seen in chapter 5, it is not necessary for the sake of
describing and explaining stage development to presuppose that the later
stage is somehow better than the preceding one(s). It is possible to describe
and explain a pattern of stages in a way which is normatively neutral.
Several types of justification for evaluative claims can be discerned,
depending on the way the stages and the sociomoral dimension are defined.
In the first place, the justification very often consists in showing that one
sociomoral stage is better than another because it guarantees the survival of
a collective in its struggle with nature or other collectives. In his Plough,
Sword, and Book (1988), Gellner tries to justify a progressive pattern of three
stages (hunting/gathering, agrarian, industrial), and he thereby refers to the
survival argument as well as the nonmoral argument. It will be useful to
review these arguments, not only because Gellner's developmental theory
provides a very interesting illustration of the metatheoretical considerations
presented above (chapters 2-6), but also because they fit well with the
"specimen" reconstruction of societal development which we sketched in
the preceding section (itself much influenced by Gellner's theory). This brief
reconstruction (horizontal and vertical) of societal development is comple-
mented by the evaluative claim that the modem age is somehow more ade-
quate than its predecessors. However, as Gellner shows, the only way to
justify this evaluative claim is by an inelegant conflation of two incommen-
surate considerations: the internal plausibility of our own model of how,
fundamentally, cognition works, and the external consideration that it leads
to great control or power, and hence, pragmatically, that it prevails (1988,
p.202).
First, invoking the survival argument, Gellner claims that the third type
of culture he distinguishes is superior because it works: that is, it is "the key
to a technology which confers unparalleled economic and military power,
incomparably greater than that ever granted to other civilizations, to other
visions" (p. 200). But he goes on to confess that this kind of empirical superi-
ority cannot be vindicated by the modern vision itself. Reference to the
empirical success of one vision is not a good reason justifying the preference
for this stage, because it begs the question of what should be counted as
empirical success.
Therefore, Gellner introduces another, "internal" consideration. He
begins by remarking that in itself every vision about society is pervasive in
the sense that it is impossible to ask from the outside which is the best,
because there is no position outside a given vision. The identity of the
evaluating person is part of the vision he or she evaluates and therefore an
independent vindication is impossible (p. 194). Justifications are circular.
There is only one exception, and that is cognitive justification. Modem
cognition has an external judge, since it states that it must in the end be
judged by something outside itself and outside social control (p. 202).
Experience decides about theoretical and moral questions (p. 199). Egali-
tarian epistemology, which refuses to regard any concept as too sacred to be
questioned, has the immediate moral consequence of egalitarianism and
individual freedom (see also p. 106). The moral stage of egalitarianism and
individual freedom is more adequate than its predecessors, because it
conforms to the more adequate stage of theoretical cognition. Therefore, the

modern stage is one of democracy, individual freedom, and egalitarianism,
and this is a consequence of its theory of knowledge (pp. 123, 200). In the
end Gellner justifies the adequacy of the modern sociomoral stage and
progress (p. 175) with reference to the development of stages of knowledge
about nature.
The serious flaw in Gellner's argument is his reference to nonmoral
considerations for the adequacy of a sociomoral stage . From the beginning,
Gellner has tacitly identified instrumental rationality with rationality per se
(p. 106) and in the course of his argument he tacitly deduces moral
principles from the more general principle of rationality. However, with
respect to stages of sociomoral development, this argumentation is im-
plausible; in fact, it seems to be an outright fallacy . The judgment that we
should prefer a certain way of knowing nature is not identical with the
judgment that in coordinating our actions we ought to prefer a certain form
of moral reasoning and acting. Egalitarianism with regard to concepts about
natural reality does not imply egalitarianism with regard to social norms
and duties.
A second problem is Gellner's radical refutation of every external
justification. He argues, rightly, that there is no external, development-in-
dependent position from which the later stage (i.e., later according to the
vertical pattern established in his logic of development) can be justified as in
some way better than the preceding one. Moreover, each stage of morality
can internally justify itself in terms of itself. But it is not true that only
internal validation is possible and that in each stage there is only circular
self-validation or that each type of morality homes in on itself. In the first
place, the justifier, who raises a development claim, does not remain herme-
neutically stuck in his or her starting position. The cultural background is
the result of a learning process as well as the conceptual background of the
justifier and these two processes are not parallel. Both have been through
earlier stages of development, which are comparable. Moreover, societal
systems of belief are not as all-embracing as Gellner argues. For the justifier
it is possible to disagree with the dominant societal system of belief.
Secondly, the fact that the claim to justify the system is inherent in every
sociomoral system of belief does not rule out the possibility that a valid
justification can be found which can be acceptable for external validation.
A second type of justification consists in referring to some individual
pattern of development as a model and then using the justification of that
pattern to justify a pattern of collective sociomoral development as well . For
instance, Kohlberg describes the parallel between individual and collective

moral development as follows . Just as the differences between individual
moral orientations of children are to be explained by structurally different
stages, so differences between cultures can be explained by appealing to
underlying structures. He agrees with Hobhouse/s theory of sociomoral
development and then goes on to declare that, empirically, "the theory that
explains cultural and individual differences in values is also the same
general theory as to why children become capable of moral judgment and
action at all" (Kohlberg, 1981/p. 126).
The justification depends, then, on ontogenetic measures because of the
homology between individual and social development. According to Kohl-
berg, the general criteria (of psychological adequacy) are the formal criteria
that developmental theory holds as defining all mature structures, namely,
the criteria of increased differentiation and integration (p, 135). Now these
formal criteria of (individual) development map onto the two formal criteria
that philosophers of the formalist school have held to characterize genuine
or adequate moral judgments: prescriptivity and universality. Judgments
which are increasingly prescriptive in the philosophical sense are more
differentiated or increasingly independent of the factual properties in the
psychological sense; and judgments which are increasingly universal in the
philosophical sense are more integrated in the psychological sense (p. 147).
These criteria entail a better equilibrium of the structure, fewer problems,
and fewer self-contradictions (p. 170). (See chapter 6 for comments on this
type of justifications.)
We can point to the same problem (regarding what Gellner calls external
justification) in Habermas (1987b,pp. 174/378; d . Apel, 1988/ pp. 26/40). He
argues that the principles for differentiating three stages of morality and law
are taken from ontogenesis (Habermas 1987b, p. 173). This means that the
justification of social development is identified with the justification of
individual development. The change of meaning in the concepts of struc-
ture/ logic and dynamic, and justification is neglected when they are trans-
ferred to the collective level. With respect to the justification problem, it
means that no account is taken of the fact that individuals can try to justify
claims to societal development concerning societies totally different from
their own collective when in the presence of an external audience (an
audience which does not belong to the collective involved).
A third type of justification may be given in sociomoral terms per se,
without recourse to individual or nonmoral terms. Besides the justification
already mentioned, Habermas (as well as Apel) often uses a different type of
justification, the universal pragmatic or transcendental pragmatic argument

(see also chapter 6). Habermas has only used this type of argument for the
justification of individual development claims, however, though he connects
it with other arguments. Here we will propose a new version of it, which
might be used to justify societal development claims.
In discussing societal development claims (even in asking for a justifi-
cation) one presupposes a certain set of norms which one already has
endorsed as regulating collective communication (discourse). As a matter of
fact, the factual organization of discourse seldom if ever perfectly reflects
this ideal discourse. Nevertheless, with the first serious attempt to
participate in discourse about justification claims, the speaker moves out of
closed, non -reflective forms of communication and embraces norms such as
the norm that other real or potential justifying agents ought to be respected.
It seems crucial that internal justification (with or without accompanying
external justification) can take place in the case of societal development. It
means that the presupposed norms allow, even encourage, the reconstruc-
tion of other stage patterns and their justification. Dissent and opposition
with respect to stage patterns and their justification are essential aspects of
ideal discourse. This type of transcendental argumentation differs from the
one given by Apel (1988) and sometimes by Habermas, in that disagreement
is explicitly taken into account.
Together the presupposed norms constitute something like a discursive
public sphere, which functions as a meta -institution for other sociomoral
institutions. This set of norms is also presupposed by those who eventually
choose another type of sociomoral system of beliefs as better; hence they are
making a performative contradiction when they try to choose argumenta-
tively for a closed sociomoral system of belief, which does not permit an
external justification.
Seen from the perspective of justification of societal developmental
claims, it is therefore necessary to distinguish between at least these two
stages and to order them hierarchically. The stage in which stage patterns
and justifications are self-referring and open to discourse with an external
audience is more adequate than the stage in which the pattern and the
justification are internally closed and do not enable one to recognize other
sociomoral systems or other possible audiences. And so we have at least two
sets of collective organizations and their corresponding sets of norms: the
reflective ideal collective and the closed, non-reflective collective organiza-
tion.
7 Dynamics of development
For the traditional stage theories, agents of change do not exist. Transfor-
mation from one stage to another is considered natural, change seems
immanent and necessary. For them it is normal that transformation occurs,
and only arrest or deviation needs to be explained. Our objection to these
theories is that they neglect dynamic transformations and collective learning
processes. The problem of the transformation of one stage into another is
one of the core problems of this kind of theory. Usually some outside force is
postulated to have brought about the transition. So in the premodern and
renaissance theories of stage development it is said that figures such as the
titan Prometheus initiated the transformation of one stage into another
(Panofsky, 1962).
In other words, traditional theories do not discuss the question of which
capacities of individuals or societies enable them to transform their present
stage into the next. Sudden insights or godlike interventions are often
mentioned as the determining factors for the transformation to a next stage.
In the premodern developmental theories "Time" is often considered the
driving force behind all changes (Panofsky, 1962), and in the thirteenth
century another abstract entity, "Mankind," is introduced as a determining
factor in human history (Pines, 1978).
In fact, Marx has reconceptualized the problem of the dynamic of stage
transition with his concept of class struggle. But this concept does not have a
firm place in his philosophy of history, because it is only the midwife of the
new stage already present and growing inside the old society.
In making the distinction between the logic and dynamic of a theory of
development (see chapters 2-5), we also made room for the conceptual-
ization of agents of change. In societal development we can distinguish
several such agents. In the first place are well-known, ideologically inspired
social movements and equally well-known class conflicts, civil wars, and
wars between tribes, states, or nations. But there are also unnoticed and
unintended consequences of human actions often which often produce new
social developments. Furthermore, structural factors like demographic
trends, and natural catastrophes like earthquakes and floods, are among the
factors that cause social disturbances. They can give rise to mass move-
ments, immigration, and the migration of entire peoples, and as a con-
sequence can reanimate old cultures or construct new worldviews (McNeill,
1980).
8 Conclusion
In this chapter we have argued for an approach to societal development

which does not presuppose a fixed final stage and which recognizes the
communicative dimension of development wherein learning processes can
take place at the societal as well as individual level. Theories of this kind do
not have the same epistemological status as the traditional theories of dev-
elopment, because they deny that the instrumental, rational path necessarily
leads to moral progress and because they reject the idea of fixed bricks
which build up our world. Finally, we have made some comments on the
possibility of the justification of a sequence of sociomoral stages. We see that
societies develop just as truly as individuals do, and that theories of societal
development should be just as careful as those of individual development in
distinguishing between the structure and dynamic of development, con-
struction and reconstruction, description and evaluation.
13 Artistic development
los de Mul
In chapter 10 we noticed that claims with regard to the aesthetic domain are
not restricted to individual aesthetic development, but often concern collective
developments, involving many individuals or generations. In this chapter
we will deal w ith collective developments in the domain of art. In order to
differentiate them from the developmental processes of individuals, we will
call them artistic developments. Here, as in case of aesthetic developments,
we distinguish between production (comprising artistic creation as well as
the resulting work of art) and reception (comprising artistic interpretation,
judgment, and criticism). These developments are themselves studied in
various disciplines, such as the history of art, literature, or music; philos-
ophical aesthetics; and the psychology and sociology of art. Because of the
broad variety of art forms and their reception, development claims in this
domain vary widely in object and scope. In this chapter we will focus
mainly on collective developments in the production of the visual arts .
In our treatment of individual aesthetic development in chapter 10, we
presented a horizontal reconstruction of the aesthetic domain and its dimen-
sions. In this chapter we will not repeat this reconstruction, but restrict
ourselves to some additional considerations concerning the collective dimen-
sion of the production of art. We will compare artistic developments with
developments in science and evaluate arguments raised against the use of
the word "development" with regard to the arts (section 1). Next we will
discuss three vertical reconstructions of developments in the production of
visual arts (Hegel, Gombrich, and Clignet) and some of their problems
(section 2). Finally we will evaluate Gablik's theory of the development of
pictorial space in the visual arts. Gablik 's theory is based on Piaget's genetic
structuralism and purports to overcome the problems of the competing
theories (section 3).
183
© 1997Kluwer Academ ic Publishers.
1 Development in the arts
In our horizontal reconstruction of the domain of art in chapter 10, we cited

Hospers's definition of works of art as those man-made objects whose
function in human experience is primarily and sometimes entirely aesthetic
(Hospers, 1979, p . 36). The advantage of this rather broad and formal
definition is that it does not rule out the possibility that certain categories of
man-made objects can be works of art. However, the disadvantage of
Hospers's definition is that it does not say much about the nature of those
objects. For that reason, in chapter 10 we supplemented our definition with
the notions of mimesis, expression, and form. When we experience a man-
made object aesthetically (i.e., when we regard it as a work of art) , we do not
judge it according to its truth, its usefulness, or its moral content, but rather
direct our attention primarily to its mimetic, expressive, and formal
properties. This qualification of Hospers's definition is also helpful in the
study of artistic development. Accordingly, when we want to take collective
developments in the production of the visual arts into consideration, we
have to focus on the mimetic, expressive, and/or formal properties of the
resulting works of art.
When we study the history of art, it soon becomes clear that art is not
merely an individual undertaking, but that it always has a collective dimen-
sion. Like science, art is a socially constructed, institutionally bound way of
understanding and expressing outer and inner reality. Ever since the first
cave paintings of the late paleolithic period, artists have been educated in
specific artistic traditions, which they carry on in their tum. Even in modem
art, where much if not all of the emphasis is on originality, traditions play an
important role, notwithstanding the fact that, as Octavio Paz once wittily
remarked, modem art shows an unmistakable tradition of breaking with
traditions. In postmodern culture the essential role of traditions seems to
become more prominent again .
Because art production is a collective learning process, we might expect
collective developments in this domain as well. However, in the domain of
art, unlike that of science, there are several reasons for hesitating to use the
notion of development. One is that in ordinary language "development" is
often identified with "progress," and many people are intuitively reluctant
to apply this concept to art (see chapter 10). They hold that, although it may
be possible to distinguish between different levels of quality within one
style or movement (e.g., when we compare the operas of Mozart and Sa-
lieri), the history of art as a whole does not show progress. Indeed it is hard
Artisticdevelopment 185
to imagine on what general grounds one could claim, for example, that the
paintings of Picasso are better than those of Rembrandt or that the com-
positions of Schonberg are better than those of Mozart. Picasso, Rem brandt,
Mozart, and Schonberg seem to possess unique styles that cannot be caught
in a logic of progress.
However, as we have argued in chapter 2 and throughout the ensuing
chapters, development does not automatically mean progress. It may be
possible to claim that there are evident patterns of development in the
history of art - for example, in the way perspective representation has been
developed from late medieval painting to cubism or in the history of the
sonata form in classical music since the baroque - without being forced to
claim that the later stages in these developments are aesthetically more
valuable.
In this respect developments in the art seem at first sight to be radically
different from developments in the sciences . With regard to the history of
science few people will deny that there has been progress in many of its
branches, whereas in the field of the arts few are willing to defend a notion
of progress. This points to what are probably the major differences between
art and science, namely, the difference between the expressions we find in
these two domains and in particular the difference between their respective
reasons and foundations (for the distinction between these three levels of
meaning, see chapter 4). Whereas scientific expressions are objective pro-
positions about (outer or inner) reality, which can be verified or falsified and
hence are true or false independent of the scientist's personality, art consists
of subjective expressions of unique experiences, which cannot be subject to
refutation. For that reason many incompatible traditions and styles coexist
peacefully in the arts, whereas in science the theories, research traditions,
and paradigms are (in principle, if not always in practice) competing with
each other even as they strive toward one unifying theory, as is seen in
present-day physics. Another way to express the difference between art and
science is to say that succeeding scientific theories are substitutions. More
adequate theories replace their refuted predecessors, which then become
obsolete. Newtonian physics, for example, completely replaced Aristotelian
physics. For that reason a student today does not need to study Aristotelian
physics in order to become a competent physicist. In contrast to scientific
theories, the great art works art of the past, characterized by their
authenticity and uniqueness, can never replace each other. It would be non -
sensical to claim that Picasso's cubism made Rembrandt's paintings obso-
lete, no matter how much one might prefer Picasso. In contrast to science the
history of art seems to show a cumulation of unique - and therefore literally

incomparable - worlds of experience. Unlike the physics student, the
student in the arts has much to gain from studying the masters of the past.
However, this view of the relation between art and science is too simple.
As presented it is not entirely wrong, but the opposition of art and science
needs to be refined . In the first place, the idea that art only has to do with
subjective feelings and emotions is doubtful, as we argued in chapter 10,
section 1. Moreover, the notions of substitution and cumulation are not
exclusively restricted to science and art, respectively. Often science also
shows cumulation. Einstein 's theory of relativity, for example, did not so
much replace Newtonian physics as reinterpret it as a special case of
Einsteinian physics. On the other hand many artists assume some notion of
progress and do conceive their work as replacing the works of the preceding
tradition. Especially the avant gardes in modern art like Dada and Surre-
alism assumed some notion of artistic progress, in the name of which they
tried (often quite aggressively) to replace their predecessors completely.
Therefore the notion of progress is not altogether absent from the artistic
domain.
2 Three approaches to artistic development and their problems
It is important to keep in mind that theories of artistic development are

relatively recent in the history of philosophy and the humanities. Of course
this does not mean that in earlier times artists failed to notice certain
changes and improvements when they compared their works with those of
their predecessors: the importance of comparison is already implicit in
Roman poetics, where artistic creation is conceived of as an interplay of
imitatio (imitation) and aemulatio (renewal). However, it was only with the
querelle des ancients et des modernes in the seventeenth and eighteenth century,
at the start of an era characterized by a profound historicization of the
worldview, that explicit theories about artistic developments were
formulated. In a way, it was in these theories that modern art history
emerged. Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (1764) has often
been regarded as the starting point of art history.
One of the most ambitious of modern histories of art is that elaborated by
Hegel in his Lectures in Aesthetics, published posthumously in 1835. In his
idealist philosophy, the whole of reality is comprehended as a manifestation
of Spirit. Spirit realizes itself throughout the course of the world history, but
Artistic development 187
only becomes self-conscious in the human mind. Hegel claimed that the last
stages in Spirit's process of becoming conscious are the stages of art,
religion, and philosophy. In the Greek period, Spirit found its most adequate
expression in art, which is defined by Hegel as the sensuous semblance (das
sinnIiche Scheinen) of Spirit (Hegel, 1920, Vol. I, p. 154). In the Middle Ages
the further development of Spirit's self-consciousness is most adequately
expressed in the religious representations of the Divine. In the modern era
Spirit expresses itself foremost in philosophical and scientific concepts.
This of course does not mean that the manifestations of art, religion, and
science are restricted to the periods in which they first come to the fore. With
regard to the history of art, Hegel distinguishes three global periods in
which the development of art takes place. In the era of Symbolic art -
exemplified for Hegel in the Egyptian pyramids - the sensuous still
massively predominates the spiritual. In the era of Classical art - exem-
plified in Greek sculpture - the sensuous and spiritual are in perfect har-
mony. Here art reaches its summit. Because of the further development of
Spirit in the era of Romantic art - Hegel here sees the art of the novel as
exemplary - the spiritual content begins to be dominant over the sensuous
form.
Within this context Hegel concludes that the summit of art belongs to the
past. To modem man sensuous art no longer reflects its level of conscious-
ne ss. However, Hegel does not claim that art will cease to exist in modem
culture. In fact, he predicts imp ortan t new developments in art. When no
longer bound to the sensory, modem art gains in freedom and becomes a
medium of spiritual reflection. Although spiritualized art - Hegel has in
mind the spiritualized arts of painting and music as well as literature -
shows a regress with regard to the beauty (understood as "sensuous
semblance" of Spirit) of the art of the ancients, it is at the same time superior
to ancient art with regard to its spiritual contents.
Hegel's view of the development of art is worth mention here, because
its underlying idea of the development of Spirit foreshadows many later
developmental theories, including Piaget's genetic epistemology (see Dame-
row, 1979). Hegel elucidates the cognitive dimension of art and the qualita-
tive changes in the history of art and thereby opens this domain up for a
developmental approach. Moreover his theory clarifies how it is possible for
art to progress in one dimension and at the same time regress in another
dimension. So one could argue that Schonberg's serial compositions,
compared to the tonal compositions of Mozart, show a progress in organiza-
tional complexity (and therefore might offer more intellectual enjoyment to

the experienced listener), but at the same time show a loss of the immediate
sensuous attractiveness that characterizes much of eighteenth and nine-
teenth century art.
The fact that Hegel's aesthetics offers a fruitful starting point for a theory
of artistic development does not, of course, remove the objections that have
been raised against Hegel 's a priori approach to history. Not only is Hegel's
presentation of world history as a necessary and therefore inevitable dev-
elopment quite problematic (Popper, 1957; see chapter 12, section 1), but his
global account of the world history of art shrinks and compartmentalizes the
enormous range and variety of art forms and works of art. During the
nineteenth century many so-called Hegelian histories of art were written
under the influence of historicism, which emphasizes the necessity of
concrete empirical investigations and the love for historical detail (see Allen,
1962; de Mul, 1986). However, owing to the general decline of the idea of
progress after the First World War and the heavy criticism of Hegelianism in
the second half of our century, such "grand narratives" have lost much of
their persuasiveness and popularity.
In general, developmental theories of art worked out during the last few
decades have been more empirical and modest. A famous example of this
type, inspired by Popper's philosophy of science, is E. H. Gombrich's Art
and Illusion, first published in 1960. Gombrich not only follows Popper in his
critique of Hegelian "historicism " (Gombrich, 1969a, pp. 19-21; see Gom-
brich, 1969b, p. 27), but he also subscribes to Popper's notion of cognitive
development as a "piecemeal" process of conjecture and refutation (in Gom-
brich's words: schema and correction). As the subtitle of Gombrich's work
("A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation"; Gombrich 1969a)
indicates, its goal is rather modest compared to Hegel's world history of art.
He restricts his developmental theory to pictorial representation, that is, to
one dimension of one specific art form.
Inspired by Popper, Gombrich assumes that because of the overwhelm-
ing complexity of reality, empirical observation and pictorial representation
always require selection on the basis of some expectation. Observation and
representation are always theory-laden, and therefore never produce a
simple copy of reality. The artist does not begin with his or her visual im-
pression but with an idea or concept (p. 73). "All art originates in the human
mind, in our reactions to the world rather than in the visible world itself,
and it is precisely because all art is 'conceptual' that all representations are
recognizable by their style" (p. 87). Painting is an activity, and artists will
therefore tend to see what they paint rather than to paint what they see. The
ideas or concepts used by the artist are socially constructed schemata that are
gradually corrected in a process of "making and matching." Thanks to these
corrections the artist approaches "reality," but will never succeed in repre-
senting reality itself. "There is no rigid distinction, therefore," Gombrich
concludes, "between perception and illusion" (p. 29; see also p. 272).
However, although Gombrich questions the rigid distinction between
perception and illusion, he does not deny that progress in the representa-
tional activity is possible. In the process of making and matching, the
representations increasingly approximate the represented reality without
ever completely coinciding with it. In his book he gives convincing ex-
amples of progress in pictorial representation, comparing its historical
development with individual development. Intrigued by the fact that a
child's copy of Constable's Wivenhoe Park resembles the methods of the
fifteenth-century painter Sasseta rather than those of Constable, Gombrich
proceeds to argue that in the history of painting, matching wins out over
making: "The medieval artist, like the child, relies on the minimum schema
needed to 'make' a house, a tree, a boat that can function in the narrative.
When we see these schemata look somewhat like toy trees or toy boats, we
are presumably closer to an explanation of the essentials of 'primitive' art."
However, Gombrich goes on to explain, Constable relied on more adequate
- because less subjective - schemata. In Constable's picture, "the artist
made allowance for the transformations which shapes and colors undergo
through the accident of the position from which he viewed the scene. Taking
their real shapes for granted, he modified them even at the risk of sacrificing
functional clarity in order to match the here and now of their appearance at
a given moment" (p. 295). The development of pictorial representation, as
described by Gombrich, resembles the process of decen tration in the history
of science. First the subjective schemata are identified with reality, and then
there is a growing attempt to do justice to the represented reality itself. In
this respect the history of pictorial representation is characterized by a
decrease of egocentrism.
Notwithstanding its merits, Gombrich's theory has some problematic
aspects. In the first place, although Gombrich , like Popper, rejects naive
realism (which claims that we observe reality without interpretation), he
sticks to a realism on an ontological level, because he assumes that there is
some given reality to which the schemata we use to represent thi s reality can
be compared. As Gablik points out, the key notion of "schema and
correction" is based on the assumption that an artist's gaze roams over the
world "as something that is external to this gaze" (Gablik, 1976/ p . 169). For
Gombrich the structuring activity of the mind is troublesome; it needs to be
checked and, as far as possible, overcome. Our own view is that neither
object nor subject are stable identities. Both are the results of a never-ending
process of construction. As Piaget puts it, "Knowledge is constantly linked
with actions or operations, that is, with transformations. Hence the limit
between subject and objects is in no way determined beforehand, and, what
is more important, it is not stable" (Piaget, 1983/ p . 104; see also chapter 8;
we discuss Piagets constructivism in more detail in section 3 of chapter 16).
Because Gombrich neglects the constructive nature of the human mind, he is
not able to explain how new schemata of representation come into existence.
In our view, an adequate theory of artistic development has to take into
account this constructive moment.
In the second place, Gombrich's idea of "schema and correction" is
applicable only to figurative works of art. The reason for this is that his
conception of art seems to be restricted to mimetic art (see Gombrich 1969a,
chapter 10/ sections 2-3). For that reason Gombrich - rather unconvincingly
- interprets even post-figurative modem art from a mimetic point of view.
In a short discussion of cubism he declares that "any three-dimensional
shape on the canvas would be illegible or, which is the same, infinitely
ambiguous without some assumptions of probabilities that we must bring to
it and test against it" (p. 286). In the last analysis non figurative works of art
only have an instrumental function, in "that it helps us to 'humanize' the
intricate and ugly shapes with which industrial civilization surrounds us"
(p . 287). The problem is that Gombrich's mimetic comprehension of art
prevents him from grasping the qualitative change that occurred in the
transition from figurative to modem art.
Remi Cligner 's The Structure of Artistic Revolutions (1985)/ which - as its
title indicates - was inspired by Kuhn, is more successful in grasping the
qualitative changes in the history of art . Clignet interprets the history of art
as a succession of artistic paradigms, which he defines as the "shared
definitions of aesthetic research" of a group of artists and their public
(Clignet, 1985/ p. 37). On the one hand the concept of an artistic paradigm
refers to the structure and the organization of artistic ideas and values as
well to their integration into a coherent system. However, it also refers to the
mechanism of social control that binds together the practitioners of the same
discipline in their professional activities. Clignet is aware that there are
important differences between scientific and artistic paradigms, which
he spells out in some detail in the first few pages of his book, but his
emphasis is on their basic similarities (1985, pp . 3-5,46). As in the case of

science, paradigms in the domain of art are characterized by a set of sym-
bolic generalizations, models, and exemplars, as follows . Symbolic general -
izations consist in a set of rules of correspondence between form and content,
which define "on the one hand the ordering of the relations between the size
and form of the canvas used, the dominant shapes and colors found on the
same canvas, the relative concentration of lights and shadows, and on the
other hand the feelings or meanings to be conveyed" (p. 42). Heuristic models
regulate the internal grammar of the symbols used by each discipline to deal
with illusion: "In the visual arts, these models define the basic elements of
composition or of perspective and the color theories to be mastered."
Artistic exemplars consist of already established modes of representation
such that, for instance, "collages became legitimate tools of aesthetic
research only after Picasso used them" (p, 44).
Following a Kuhnian distinction, Clignet further distinguishes "normal
art" from "revolutionary art," which enables him to deal with the radical
qualitative changes that occur in the history of art. "Within each paradig-
matic framework, 'normal art' enables artists within a community to share
the same set of symbolic generalizations, models, and exemplars....Like
their scientific counterparts, artistic paradigms are binding insofar as they
define both the puzzles to be solved and the means of solving them" (p. 69).
Seen from this perspective it becomes clear that in Art and Illusion Gombrich
restricts himself to an analysis of "normal art," for the process of refinement
of pictorial representation he analyzes takes entirely place within the
paradigm of mimetic art (see Gablik, 1976,p. 159).
However, as Clignet demonstrates convincingly, when the possibilities
of an existing artistic paradigm are exhausted, it becomes necessary for
artists to change the paradigm itself (Clignet, 1985, pp. 71£.). In this case art
enters a period of "artistic revolution." Such revolutions represent changes
(sometimes abrupt) in the content and expression of the work of art.
According to Clignet, the transition from impressionism - the last phase in
the development of pictorial representation Gombrich was able to deal with
successfully - to cubism offers a good example of an artistic revolution:
"The early stages of pointillism enabled the painters to remain within the
confines of the same paradigm, when they could change the color, size, and
shape of the points in order to describe the effects of light. But after a time,
they progressively exhausted the solutions initially sketched by Seurat.
Thus, the cubist or fauvist revolutions could not take place before
impressionism and pointillism had run their full courses" (p. 72). However,
it is not only internal reasons that necessitate artistic revolutions in art.

External causes may require them as well: for example, when new symbolic
or material tools are introduced. The invention of photography turned out to
be a powerful rival of figurative painting, and so without doubt played a
major role in the development of nonfigurative art, one no less important
than the role played by the exhaustion of pictorial representation. Similarly,
the impressionists' habit of painting outdoors surely had as one of the
conditions of its possibility the invention of the paint tube.
Although Clignet is more successful than Gombrich in describing and
explaining the qualitative changes in the history of art, his theory also
contains some serious problems. Although Clignet convincingly explains
why artistic revolutions take place, he is unable to explain the direction these
revolutions take. Now it should be added immediately that Clignet does not
pretend to offer this explanation, because he denies that there is a develop-
mental pattern in the history of art. According to Clignet the succession of
artistic paradigms is characterized by contingencies. Moreover, unlike the
case of individual development, the wisdom acquired by successive cohorts
of artists is often not accessible by later generations and therefore not
cumulative (p. 84). Clignet claims that the notion of progress is only
applicable within a paradigm. With regard to the succession of paradigms
he, like Kuhn, defends a relativist position: "Like its counterparts, regression
or decadence, the notion of progress in the arts presupposes unduly that
beauty, like truth, is a transcendental and fixed entity.. ..Revolutions may be
constructs that vary as much with the evolving characteristics of paradigms
as with the evolving positions of observers. Instead of passing definitive
judgments on the progress or decadence of the arts, it seems therefore more
appropriate to merely identify temporal discontinuities in the succession of
paradigms that follow one another over time" (p. 86).
Though we agree with Clignet that, de facto, contingencies play an
important role in collective (and individual) developments, and also agree
with his critique of the idea that beauty is a transcendental and fixed entity,
we do not believe that it is impossible to talk about developmental patterns
or even progress in art at all. We can talk about them, provided that we
distinguish properly between the chronologically ordered phenomena of
concrete, contingent historical changes on the one hand, and our theoretical
reconstructions on the other, and provided that we never forget that our
reconstructions of these developmental patterns, as well as our evaluations
of these patterns, themselves always take place within a particular stage of
development and therefore are always open to future revisions. Moreover,
we must talk about these patterns if we want to create and understand

works of art. Because works of art always emerge within specific traditions
and developments, we cannot fully understand, appreciate, and evaluate
them when we do not take into account the (reconstructed) developmental
patterns that give them their meaning. Of course this does not mean that we
deny the individuality of concrete works of art or that we deny the
importance of studies of variances of cultural phenomena. We believe,
however, that the relativist position as defended by Clignet does not do
justice to the way people actually understand, appreciate, and evaluate
works of art.
3 Gablik's genetic structuralist approach to artistic development
In the foregoing section we criticized the approaches of Gombrich and

Clignet from the point of view of genetic structuralism. In this section we
will discuss Suzy Gablik's alternative, as elaborated in her book Progress in
Art (1976). This study explicitly applies Piaget's theory (Gablik, 1976, pp. 11,
173), and - in certain respects - synthesizes the approaches of Gombrich
and Clignet. With Clignet, Gablik shares a notion of qualitative changes in
the h istory of art, whereas with Gombrich, Gablik defends a notion of
progress in the arts. Her thesis is that "art has evolved through a sequence of
cognitive stages and may be viewed as a series of transformations in modes
of thinking," and she supports her thesis by arguing that "the dynamics of
stylistic change can be explained, at least in part, by patterns of cognitive
growth" (1976, p. 10).
According to Gablik, the significance of Piaget's genetic structuralism for
understanding historical development in art lies in the way it helps us grasp
the processes by which experience is organized and differentiated into an
outside world and the self. We can discern in artistic developments the same
basic process of decentration that is found in other cognitive domains, by
which "objectivity is gradually built up" (1976, p. 41; also see below, chapter
16, section 3). The history of art can be understood as an ongoing process of
assimilating reality to existing cognitive schemata and accommodating these
schemata to the actual situation, a transformation of an already existing
structure in response to the environment.
Gablik elaborates this approach with regard to the transformations in
modes of representing space in the visual arts. Starting from Pia get's
distinction between pre-operational, concrete-operational and formal-opera-
tional stages (see section 2 of chapter 8), she distinguishes in a typical logical
reconstruction three megaperiods in the history of art, characterized respec-
tively by enactive, iconic, and symbolic modes of representing space.
The period that is characterized by the enactive mode of representing
space comprises the entirety of Western painting until the Renaissance (that
is, from Egyptian and Greek art up to and including the Middle Ages).
Despite substantial differences in subject matter, expressiveness, and style,
every painting in this long period was without exception characterized by
spatial two-dimensionality. It is perhaps true that the artists of this period
increasingly managed to represent objects and persons in a highly detailed
manner, but they were still not able to portray effectively the underlying
spatial relationships of these objects and persons. In these paintings, the
place and size of these separate objects and persons were not determined by
their spatial relationships, but - in a literally egocentric manner - by their
emotional value to the painter and his public.
According to Gablik, the period that is characterized by an iconic mode of
representation begins with the Renaissance. During the Renaissance, thanks
to the development of central perspective, the flat surface was "broken
open" in favor of an illusionistic, three-dimensional working in depth. That
this new experience of space was not handed to the artists on a plate but
only gained through a difficult process is made clear to us by typical tran-
sition works such as Simone Martini's Way of the Cross, painted around 1340.
Although the city in the background is represented with a certain per-
spective, and the different figures overlap each other, the figures in the
foreground nonetheless remain completely unrelated to the city walls. One
hundred and fifty years later, as Raphael 's The Virgin's Wedding shows us,
Renaissance artists had completely mastered perspectival representation.
The importance of surmounting illusionistic, three-dimensional space in
Renaissance paintings should not be seen as an isolated artistic phenom-
enon; it is characteristic of the new experiencing of reality which enters the
scene along with the Renaissance.
In the central perspective the human figure is no longer immediately
absorbed in the world-space, but instead is placed over against the world.
Following Piaget we can say that this perspective is an expression of an
increasing differentiation between the human figure and the world. In his
book Philosophy of the Landscape, Ton Lemaire expressed this idea as follows:
"The perspectival representation of the world as a landscape is an act of
liberation and emancipation by the individual, or, more cogently expressed:
it is via one and the same movement that the individual places himself as an
autonomous subject and the world appears as an environmental space"

(Lemaire, 1970, pp. 24-25 [transl. de Mull). With respect to Rogier van der
Weyden's portrait of Mary Magdalene, Lemaire adds: "That which was the
achievement and insp ira tion of the Renaissance is here reduced to an
elementary image: the awakening of the self-conscious person against the
background of the world, the self-differentiation of the subject who sepa-
rates himself from the world in order to be able to see it in overview and to
control it" (Lemaire, 1970, p. 25 [transl. de Mull). This attainment is primar-
ily an intellectual achievement: the experience of reality is the result of an
intellectual construction. Science and art are closely connected in this
surmounting of space. It is no coincidence - as Gombrich has pointed out
- that many of the major artists of the Renaissance, such as Leonardo da
Vinci, were also active scientists.
The perspectival representation of space, which was developed in the
Renaissance and which maintained a central role in painting until the twen-
tieth century (see de Mul, 1994), corresponds to Piaget's concrete-opera-
tional stage. Although it constitutes progress in comparison with preceding
stages, this way of representing space remains tied to concrete objects. Just
as the child in the concrete-operational stage needs objects such as marbles
in order to be able to count, so the Renaissance artist requires concrete ob-
jects in order to realize h is intellectual constructions. Accordingly, Renais-
sance art is still necessarily figurative art. Further, this new art, despite its
rational character, remains closely connected to the world of emotions.
Although the new painting loses the collectively pre-operational magic of
painting typical of the Middle Ages, it forms not only a window on the
newly constructed external world, but, in addition, it simultaneously and
increasingly becomes a mirror of the artist's soul. This latter characteristic of
the new art finds special expression in the "genius art" of the Romantics.
According to Gablik the characteristics of concrete-operational thinking
are surmounted for the first time in the symbolic mode of representation in
modem, nonfigurative art, which is characterized by purely formal oper-
ations in the area of aesthetics. It is probably no coincidence that a com-
parable transformation in the direction of abstraction takes place in science.
It is also instructive to note how this transition was achieved in painting.
Cezanne is considered by many art historians to be the father of modem art :
although, in his landscapes, such as Mountains in Provence, he stuck to the
figurative, mimetic tradition, it appears that his attention shifted to the
arrangement of forms and color on flat surfaces. As Picasso's portrait of
Ambroise Vollard demonstrates, the cubists too stick to the representation
of visible reality, but in doing so they replaced the closed, singular, and
fixated perspective, which had its origin in Renaissance art, with a multi-
plicity of perspectives. In this way, a multi-dimensional space is created
wherein for the most part it is the relationship between the elements that
occupies the central position (see Berger , 1976, p. 37). For this reason, cubism
provides a good illustration of the decentering of the subject.
The breakthrough to pure abstraction occurs with artists such as
Kandinsky, Malewitch, and Mondriaan. In their abstract art it is no longer
physical but logical space which is expressed: this art thereby becomes a
symbol of the modem experience of reality. Finally, the mimetic dimension
of painting is abandoned in favor of an approach to aesthetics that is based
upon form . In Kandinsky this approach is strongly connected to expressive
intentions. In Malewitch this is much less the case, and in the strict, almost
mathematical work of Mondriaan this last feature of traditional art appears
to have completely disappeared. In contrast to tradition, modem art appears
not to be concerned with portraying reality or expressing the artist's
emotional state, but rather is aimed at the formal relations between the
colors , lines, and areas which constitute the architecture of the painting.
According to Gablik, in contrast to the central perspective, which is
bound to concrete objects, modem abstract art has unlimited possibilities.
Art has become a kind of research, whose object is the possible relations
between a restricted number of elements in an infinite logical space. For this
reason, many modem artists construct their works in series so that, as in
scientific research, experiments can be carried out with the variables. Artists
can also make use of valuable technological resources, from computers to
lasers: the Russian constructivist adage that the artist must become an
engineer has become literally true in many cases. The artist conceptualizes
the work of art and its concrete achievement is frequently given over to
technical firms and factories . The spiritualization of art appears to have
reached a temporary zenith in so-called conceptual art, where the work of
art coincides with its conceptualization, with no material realization at all.
Gablik's theory successfully overcomes some of the problems of the
theories of Gombrich and Clignet . Whereas on the one hand it makes clear
that the history of art shows qualitative changes, on the other hand it
elucidates the respects in which these qualitative changes may be regarded
as development and progress. Moreover, it explains the dynamic of the
constant restructuring of world and human mind in the history of the arts.
In a way, Gablik's theory seems to be a reincarnation of Hegelian theorizing.
Like Hegel, she emphasizes the cognitive element of artistic development
and, furthermore, shares his view that progress in one dimension does not
necessarily mean there is progress in all respects (Gablik, 1976, p. 151).
However, Gablik does not follow Hegel completely. She distinguishes,
more carefully than Hegel did, descriptive claims about development from
evaluative ones. In the first chapter of Progress in Art, she adds the following
remark: "I must immediately state that in my claim for 'progress,' I do not
mean to imply that the historical course of art shows a move toward
something better or more beautiful: the question of quality is not at stake
here. Differences in form arenot to beconfused with estimates of worth, especially
since, in the final analysis, aesthetic judgments must remain highly sub-
jective" (Gablik, 1976, p. 9). Moreover, she agrees with the critiques Popper
and Gombrich made of Hegelian teleology, in which history is conceived of
as a plot that unfolds by itself. However, Gablik concludes that Popper and
Gombrich throw the baby out with the bath water: "Even when we cannot
discover any teleology in the evolution of art, we can nevertheless discern a
direction - toward an increase of (internal) means for coordinating knowl-
edge" (Gablik, 1976, p. 151).
However, Gablik does not avoid all of the negative aspects of the Hegel-
ian approach. Compared to Hegel, she is relatively modest in her scope by
restricting herself to the visual arts, but her division of the entire world
history of visual art into three holistic megaperiods also fails to do justice to
the great diversity of art. In reaction, Clignet remarks that Gablik's approach
"lead s me to emphasize the significance of the studies of variances rather
than of central tendencies in the analysis of cultural and social phenomena"
(Clignet, 1985, p . 251). However, our own view is somewhat different. We
believe one should try to combine a reconstruction of central tendencies in
the history of art with a piecemeal rendering of the fullness of individual
historical details. In defense of Gablik we would add , moreover, that she is
constantly aware of the fact that she is reconstructing just one artistic
dimension and doing this from a certain historical point of view. Recon-
structions of a past development always are made from within some concep -
tual framework - that is, from a certain stage of the reconstructed develop-
ment.
This also becomes clear when we reconsider Gablik's 1976 reconstruction
from our perspective two decades later. Gablik's reconstruction of the
history of art exhibits a typical modernist point of view, emphasizing above
all the tendency toward an increasing abstraction in the arts. Seen from the
mid-nineties, the artistic domain has changed dramatically in many ways.
For example, figurative painting has regained an important place . In this
respect the modernist reconstruction of the history of art has lost its former
consensus in the art world. Even Gablik herself, in Has Modernism Failed?
(1984), seems to have later abandoned at least some aspects of the modernist
point of view. Today new reconstructions seem eminently possible. From
our own developmental point of view this is not surprising: a new stage in
conceptualization may require a new reconstruction of the total develop-
mental pattern gone through so far.
Even though the present situation may require a reconstruction of the
past in which the balance of progress and regress is reconsidered, this does
not mean that earlier reconstructions were simply wrong. It does mean,
though, that the truth of reconstructions is always relative in the sense that
they themselves are made at, and inextricably bound up with, a certain stage
of development. Although we may regret not being able to formulate eternal
truths, we should accept that this inability is the price we pay for our ability
to develop ourselves continuously. Perhaps we can comfort ourselves with
Hegel's observation that truth is not to be found in the isolated parts, but
only in the process as a whole.
4 Conclusion
In this chapter we discussed artistic development, especially collective dev-

elopments in the production of visual art, as a part of philosophy of
development. We briefly compared artistic and scientific development, and
discussed some objections against the use of notions like "development"
and "progress" with regard to the artistic domain. Several artistic develop-
mental theories (Hegel, Gombrich, and Clignet) were described in some
detail and evaluated. Finally, we discussed Gablik 's Piagetian theory of the
development of pictorial representation in the visual arts. Our conclusion is
that a developmental approach in the history of arts can be fruitful, .
provided we do not forget that even theoretical reconstructions of
developmental patterns are carried out from within a stage of development,
and that the developmental approach does not cover all aspects of the
domain of art.
14 Conceptual development and education
Ger Snik
In the preceding chapters we ha ve applied our framework for analyzing

theories of conceptual or foundational development to some genetic stru c-
turalist theories. Now we w ill go in to the relation between conceptual
development and education. We begin by considering the relation between
philosophy of development and philosophy of education, and the relation
between foundational development and education in general.
Next we will discuss the views of Piaget and the early and later Kohlberg
on this relation. We will focus on Kohlberg's early developmental and
ed uc a tion al theories, because they enclose an explicit and interesting
conceptualization of the relation between foundational development and
education. Most of Kohlberg's empirical research concerned that part of
education usually identified as moral education, and its relationship to
moral de velopment (see chapter 9 above). Accordingly, we will use his
account (both the earlier and later versions) of moral education as a template
for theorizing about other kinds of education, especially those which, like
Kohlberg's approach in moral education, are closely involved w ith cognitive
developmental theory.
1 Stage theories and education
It is often suggested that implications for education can be directly deduced

from developmental theories. The idea is that practical prescriptions can be
found simply by reasoning as follows : (1) a developmental pattern consists
of stages S(n-2), S(n-1), S(n), ...; (2) A and B are factors furthering the
development whereas C and 0 are impeding factors; therefore (3) educators
should implement A and B and try to block C and D. However, in our
opinion this is bad theory and bad practice. Education sh ou ld not be viewed
as a form of applied psychology.
In order to make th is clear, we begin with some remarks about the
relation between philosophy of education and the philosophy of develop-
199
W. van Haaften et 01. (eds.), Philosophy of Development. 199-210 .
ment presented in the previous chapters. Next we will consider the question
of whether "development" can be an educational concept. After that we will
return to the relation between stage theories of development and education.
We may distinguish three levels in educational thought. The first is the
level of educational practice. Adults try to influence the behavior and devel-
opment of the child through various educational practices, which aim at
changing the real situation of children and, reflexively, that of the educators
themselves. Educational theories and convictions playa role at this level,
even though not many educators perceive themselves as acting in accor-
dance with formal theoretical systems. At the very least, educators act on the
basis of (1) certain empirical ideas about children, about what they think or
are able or unable to do, and about possibilities of influencing them, and (2)
what they regard desirable in these respects. The second level is educational
science, the aim of which is to know reality in order to steer educational
practice (Langford, 1973). It is a matter of controversy whether educational
science as such should try to provide normative insights, for instance about
what kinds of development are to be considered desirable, in addition to
discovering empirical facts about development. The third level is philosophy
of education. At this level the foundations of educational practice and
educational science are analyzed. In practice as well as in scientific theory,
thinking, judging, and acting are constituted and guided by foundations that
are expressed in core concepts such as "education," "learning," and
" develop men t" which define the activity and the (ultimate) aims of
education. They create a conceptual framework for educational science and
delimit what is to count as educational reality.
Foundational analysis at this third level can help us to become aware of
the presuppositions in the levels of educational practice and science;
however, foundations do not completely determine judgments or acts (see
chapter 4). Therefore foundations cannot be directly translated into empir-
ical descriptions of facts or into instructions for educational practice. This
means that foundational analysis is helpful but only in an indirect way
(Straughan & Wilson, 1983).
One question in the philosophy of education concerns the relation be-
tween education and development. This is, of course, also a central issue in
philosophy of development. Thus philosophy of development and philos-
ophy of education are related without coinciding with each other. The over-
lap between them occurs in those contexts where the relations between
education, learning, and individual development are at issue. In philosophy
of education, research into the foundations of genetic structuralist theories
Conceptual development and education 201
about individual development is highly relevant, not only because these

theories are in fact used in educational practice and science, but even more
importantly, because they deal with the development of the foundations of
thinking, judging, and acting of children. This is why genetic structuralist
ideas can be helpful in conceptualizing the relations between education and
development in a more differentiated wa y.
So far, we have been taking for granted that "development" is a basic
educational term. This assumption requires some explanation, however.
Originally, the term is from biology, where development is seen as an
unfolding. This means that situational factors cannot be constitutive for the
pattern of development or for the outcome of the process. The environment
may at most influence pace and quality, since in biology pattern and
phenotype are innate (Nagel, 1967). As several authors have remarked, such
a concept of development cannot be fruitful in education (Hamlyn, 1983; see
chapter 2 above), since it does not allow for an adequate understanding of
what is characteristic of human mental development (Peters, 1972; Hirst &
Peters, 1979). Becoming a person is not a natural process. It is dependent on
learning processes and therefore on education, including self-education. The
human person has empirical and moral convictions and uses concepts and
criteria enabling him or her to judge and act in a responsible way. Such cri-
teria and concepts are not innate but learned (Langford , 1985), which is to
say they have been passed on by adults to the child. In other words, human
development is not a natural process but depends on intentions and
practices of other people (Shotter, 1984). For that reason,leaming rather than
the biological conception of development is the core idea in the complex
notion of educating.
If development is reduced to something inevitable, developmental theo-
ries cease to be educationally fruitful. Because of this, many educational
theorists have rejected developmental theories altogether. They feel that
these theories see no need for educational intervention, since the subjects are
already internally programmed to develop in a certain way. The role of
education would thereby be reduced to that of facilitating a natural, preor-
dained unfolding of human potential. Processes of socialization and learning
could not be conceptualized as necessary conditions of becoming a person.
This critique of the idea of "developmental inevitability" is correct, we
think, and the concept of development itself should not be deleted from
educational grammar (Wright, 1986). First, the concept cannot be avoided in
educational thought: even people who do not like the term must use it.
Second, alternative notions like growth also have biological connotations.

Third, there are differing concepts of development, based on different an-
thropological perspectives (see chapter 3). Theories of development certainly
do not rely exclusively on biologistic notions any more. Therefore, the
question is not whether we should use the notion of development but only
what specific conception of development is most appropriate in educational
contexts .
The foregoing makes it clear that the relation between developmental
theories and educational processes must be reconsidered. The idea that
educational prescriptions are merely consequential on developmental theory
is based on a "psychologist's fallacy," as we can see for the following rea-
sons. First, in such a picture development is seen as an independent variable
and education as the dependent variable. Human development, however,
presupposes education. By the same token, a theory of human development
presupposes educational notions. Second, educational prescriptions cannot
be deduced from developmental theory without the additional normative
premise that a certain kind of development is desirable. As we have seen in
previous chapters, not all developments are desirable and not all develop -
mental potentialities should be actualized. Some may be evaluated positi-
vely, others not (Hirst & Peters, 1979; Scheffler, 1985). Third, even if we
think that some patterns of development should be furthered, this does not
imply that the developmental process in question should be accelerated (see
section 3).
In contrast, the charge that genetic structuralist theories commit the psy-
chologist's fallacy is generally unfounded (see Power, Higgins & Kohlberg,
1989a). To see why this is so, let us consider now the ideas of Piaget and
Kohlberg about the relation between development and education.
2 Piaget on education and development
Piaget, the founding father of genetic structuralism, was not especially inter-
ested in the educational implications of his stage theories, since his aims
were primarily epistemological (see chapter 8). But there have been several
educational applications of his theory. Particularly in the United States,
many theorists have tried to use Piaget's stage theories in education, starting
from a more or less biologistic interpretation of Piaget's notion of develop-
ment. Development is then understood mainly as a result of maturation.
Ontogenesis is taken to be a continuation of embryogenesis. From this point
Conceptual development andeducation 203
of view, learning is dependent on development rather than the other way

around (Piaget, 1972a; d . Furth & Wachs, 1974).
Piaget himself might have agreed with some of the educational theorists'
critical remarks on his interpretation of human development as discussed in
the previous section. He was not very pleased with the way his theories
were used, and was rather pessimistic about possibilities of stimulating
development (Piaget, 1974-1975; Gruber & Voneche, 1977, p. 694). We
should not be too hasty, however, in concluding that a theory in which dev-
elopment is mainly conceived as a maturational process cannot be fruitful
from an educational perspective. Even if the development of the founda-
tions of thought is seen as a natural process, education need not be com-
pletely barren. The development of the structures of experience and judg-
ment would not itself be accomplished by education in that case, but it may
result in certain conditions favorable to specific forms of content learning
and what in German is called "material education" (materiale Erziehung, see
Brezinka, 1992), namely, education that aims at the furthering of content
learning. Because the stage determines the wayan individual experiences
reality, a stage is, in effect, an enabling condition of content learning, though
in many cases not a necessary condition. A stage determines how children
can learn and to that extent what they can learn. In other words, if the dev-
elopment of the conditions of learning is taken to be dependent on matura-
tion, education cannot be seen as a condition of development but rather the
other way round. Development enables the child to learn about reality in a
certain way. In this case development enables the child to learn in a certain
stage-bound way. Development makes the transmission of knowledge pos -
sible.
In this way, a developmental theory framed in a biologistic perspective
may reconstruct the preconditions of the possibility of education and learn -
ing. This theory informs educational theorists about ways in which the child
can learn and can be taught. Development itself remains unaffected by
education in this view, however, since education and learning are limited to
the transfer and adaptation of specific contents. There is much to be
appreciated in this approach. It must be admitted that educational activities
and learning processes depend on preconditions that cannot at the same
time be conceived as results of learning and education. But there is no
reason to generalize this insight. After a period of maturation the develop-
ment of the presuppositions of learning becomes dependent on the educa-
tional processes themselves. Kohlberg appreciated this point, and used it to
conceptualize education as a process of furthering structural learning

activities.
3 The early Kohlberg on moral development and education
Kohlberg's early theory of education, which focused on specifically moral

education has often been called the n+1 or one-stage-above approach. He
defined education as stimulating the development of structures of moral
judgment and argument. He suggested that this perspective on moral edu-
cation might offer a solution to the dilemma between indoctrination and
indifference. On the one hand, moral educators should not pass on moral
contents, because these will always be related to specific cultures or periods.
On the other hand, this does not exempt them from the task of moral
education, since they can, and should, stimulate the development of the
structure of moral judgment (Kohlberg, 1981). According to Kohlberg, this
development with its three well-known levels (preconventional, conven-
tional, and postconventional) is universal. All people go through it, albeit at
different paces and although not everyone will reach the last (or even the
middle) level (see chapter 9).
According to Kohlberg , the development of a new cognitive structure (of
moral judgment or any other sort of judgment) can be seen as a result of a
learning process. However, here as in the nonmoral domains we must
distinguish between content learning and structure learning (Colby & Kohl-
berg, 1987; Devries & Kohlberg, 1987; d. Habermas, 1990b; Miller, 1986;
Baumgartner, 1994). Content learning is the acquisition of specific beliefs, for
instance, the moral belief that people ought to defend their country, and is
made possible by an already established stage-specific conceptual structure.
Structure learning, on the other hand, only takes place if the structure of
thinking and judgment - and thereby also content - changes qualitatively.
In chapters 4 and 5 of this book we distinguished between three levels of
meaning, namely, expressions, reasons, and foundations, and between the
specific contents and structures found at each of these three levels. Structure
learning in Kohlberg 's sense then refers to the different types of reasoning
acquired at each developmental stage, these types being characteristic of
different foundations of morality. In that sense, structure learning results in
the development of new foundations of judgment, including moral
judgment.
Conceptual development andeducation 205
On Kohlberg's view such structure learning is not a process of natural

growth. Rather it occurs when individuals find themselves unable to apply
their cognitive structures to new experiences and then search for new
structures that may solve the resulting cognitive conflict (d. Habermas,
1984, 1990b). The motor of development is inconsistency reduction. Both
internal conflicts between elements of an existing conceptual structure and
external cognitive conflicts between a conceptual structure and the environ-
ment may contribute to the subject's seeking for a more powerful con-
ceptual foundation of reasoning.
Kohlberg suggested that structure learning cannot be the result of
teaching, but Peters (1981) has pointed out that Kohlberg here conceives
teaching as transmission of information. In this case he will be caught in the
"cannot yet/need not any more" paradox. If the child reasons according to a
specific structure (n), it is not possible to teach him or her the new structure
S(n+1) by information transmission, because the child cannot understand
the explanations. On the other hand, as soon as the child is able to under-
stand the explanations, they become superfluous because a structure is
being presented which the child knows already.
The foregoing means, according to Peters, that structure learning can
only be the result of innovative reflection on behalf of the learning indi-
vidual. Structure learning takes place in an "Aha! experience" or, as Peters
puts it, when the penny drops. In a lucid moment the child suddenly
realizes the inadequacy of the existing structure, and a new structure is
adopted which can handle the problems the child felt himself or herself
confronted with.
Educators cannot organize this moment. All they can do is to prepare for
it. First, they can arrange cognitive conflicts, that is, situations in which the
child may experience a conflict between the actual cognitive structure and
experience, invoking the need for new and less inconsistent structures.
Secondly, educators can facilitate development by confronting the child with
structures that are typical of the next stage ("one stage above") in which the
cognitive conflict can be solved. These two forms of educational intervention
refer to conditions that may prepare for structure learning.
How are we to evaluate these insights of the early Kohlberg? Kohlberg
conceived of education as cognitive stimulation. Education is not the
transmission of contents but the facilitating of development of structures of
judgment. In this, Kohlberg seems to start from an educationally acceptable
interactionist concept of development. Peters has rightly remarked that
there are important differences between Ernest Nagel's biologistic concep-
tion of development and Kohlberg's interactionist concept (Peters, 1972;

Hirst & Peters, 1979). Conceptual development is not seen as the unfolding
of a purely innate pattern (see chapter 2), but rather as the result of learning
processes that occur in the interaction between individuals and their social
environments. In this sense, the environment (partly) shapes the develop-
ment. In Kohlberg's perspective, education is not completely subordinated
to development. Rather, conceptual development presupposes educational
interventions. Moreover, Kohlberg recognizes that development is not some-
thing a person simply undergoes, but is instead something a subject actively
engages in. Educational interventions are not sufficient for structure learn-
ing processes to happen. Development also requires innovate reflection of
the part of the developing individual.
There are, however, serious shortcomings in Kohlberg's early philos-
ophy of (moral) education, such that what we have said so far cannot be the
whole story. In the remaining part of this section, we will briefly review
several criticisms of Kohlberg's early theory in order to show in a general
way why developmental theory is only part of educational theory and vice
versa.
The first criticism concerns the rationalistic character of Kohlberg's no-
tion of structure learning (d. Kesselring, 1981, p . 240). As may be seen from
the foregoing, Kohlberg conce ives structure learning processes as rather
explicit and reflective activities. The learning individual is seen as a "child
philosopher" who is able and willing to reflect on the foundations of his or
her thinking - in other words, as someone who can make the pre-
suppositions of his or her thought explicit and can weigh them against alter-
natives. But this is too optimistic a picture. Because reflection on the funda -
mental assumptions and patterns of thought requires the development of
complex metacognitive skills, structure learning cannot be equated with
explicit and reflective learning.
We must assume that children usually do not learn new structures in an
explicit, reflective way. We can distinguish between different modes of
structure learning and modes of qualitative education aimed at facilitating
structure learning. Young children are born with certain crude and very
general structures already available to them. In the beginning of ontoge-
nesis, these structures must ripen. Later on, other structures will be learned
in the interaction between the individual and his or her environment, in a
pre-reflective, implicit manner. Only in adolescence will explicit structure
learning processes such as Kohlberg envisions become possible.
The second objection concerns the fact that at first Kohlberg and some of
his colleagues seemed to equate stimulation of development with accel-
eration. The educator was thought to be pushing children through the
stages, by introducing cognitive conflicts and confronting children with as
many next-higher structures as possible. However, as Kohlberg and his
colleagues soon observed, acceleration cannot be the aim of education. In
order to make development possible, children should be given the oppor-
tunity fully to explore each stage. Development through the stages requires
exploration and consolidation within each separate stage (Lickona, 1983).
Children should have the opportunity to experience, to think, and to judge
in accordance with the fundamental assumptions of the stage they are
exploring. Because this consolidation is a condition of development, the
furthering of development consists not in acceleration but in the prevention
of retardation (Power, Higgins & Kohlberg, 1989a, p. 18).
A third and related criticism concerns the relation between the conven-
tional and postconventional levels of reasoning as distinguished by
Kohlberg. In his analysis of Kohlberg's ideas about moral education, Peters
has made clear that it is impossible to stimulate development toward the
third level (the "principled" level of stages 5 and 6) without thoroughly
initiating the child into some moral tradition. The transmission of tradition
is not only unavoidable, it is also desirable for several reasons (see chapter
15). Moreover, it is a necessary condition for development (Peters, 1974,
1981).
The first reason has to do with specifically moral rules, though it has
nonmoral implications as well. Because a postconventional moral judgment
requires an understanding of moral tradition and moral rules, the devel-
opment of postconventional judgment presupposes an initiation of the child
into some specific moral tradition. A child will never learn the meaning of
moral concepts by following a course in metaethics, but only by being
involved in moral practices. What is meant by a moral rule, or morality, or
what constitutes a moral tradition can only be learned by participating in
moral traditions and practices. Learning moral rules is a necessary condition
for grasping the concept of "moral rule" (R. M. Hare, 1964, 1973).
The second reason, which applies to nonmoral domains as well as to
morality, is that the conclusion that habituation and other forms of content
learning and material education are conditions for the development of
postconventional structures of judgment can be deduced from the genetic-
structuralist reconstruction of this development. The preconventional and
conventional levels must precede the postconventional form of reasoning,
not only chronologically but also logically. Processes of content learning

based on the preconventional and (later on) conventional conceptualizations
of reality are necessary stages in an education aimed at stimulating develop -
ment toward the postconventional level. Therefore, the development re-
quires modes of material education corresponding to forms of content
learning defined by the differing stages or levels.
Initiation into some tradition (of morality, science, religion, art, etc.) is
not a hindrance but rather a necessary condition for development to the
postconventionallevel. However, initiation into a tradition is not a sufficient
condition for this development, since even preconventional subjects (includ-
ing children) can be part of a tradition (see chapter 15). For reasons given
above, it is impossible to pass on new structures as forms of content learn-
ing. Both initiation into a conceptual tradition and structural learning pro-
cesses are required for foundational development to corne about.
A final objection concerns the almost exclusively cognitive approach to
(moral) education taken by Kohlberg in his early work. Genetic structuralist
stage theories have concentrated on the cognitive conditions of reasoning. In
Kohlberg's cognitive theory of moral development the prescriptive aspect or
function of morality was emphasized at the expense of aspects that are
important for the translation of moral judgments into actions (Peters, 1974;
see chapter 9 above).
A theory about education based exclusively on a cognitive theory of
development, in which judging and reasoning are central, is doomed be one-
sided, but the conative and affective aspects of development and functioning
must not be neglected in education. This point is especially important in
moral education, where Kohlberg seemed to assume that to truly know the
good is to act accordingly. However, although moral judgment surely is a
necessary condition of moral acting, it is not sufficient (Straughan, 1986,
1989; Locke, 1987). Therefore, Kohlberg's dismissal of the so-called "bag of
virtues" approach is unjustified. In addition to the development of the
conceptual conditions of judging and reasoning, the education of the
emotions and of the virtues, including nonmoral emotions and virtues,
should be fostered, as we will see in chapter 15.
4 The just community approach
In the 1970s and 1980s Kohlberg acknowledged that education cannot be

reduced to the advancement of structure learning processes, and that forms
of material education and content learning are required as well . He also

admitted the necessity of an education of the emotions and the virtues. In
the "just community approach," which was Kohlberg 's final concept of
moral education, he tried to do justice to those aspects of education that had
been overlooked in the overly cognitivist "one stage above approach"
(Kohlberg, 1986; Power, Higgins & Kohlberg, 1989a, 1989b). Moreover, his
"just community approach" was an effort to avoid the "psychologist's
fallacy ." It is now recognized that education is a necessary condition of
conceptual development, and that for the same reason educational pre-
scriptions cannot be simply deduced from developmental psychology.
The just community approach has been put into practice in a number of
experimental schools, and has had analogues in other educational ap-
proaches, such as Paolo Freire's famous "dialogal model" of pedagogy.
Kohlberg's aim was to organize schools as democratic communities, and its
starting point was the Durkheimian thesis that pupils learn at school those
basic values that constitute the way of life in society . The school is a small-
scale society, mirroring society at large. Democracy is conceived of as a
fundamental value for both society and the school. By handling problems at
school in a democratic manner, the values of democracy are learned. Demo-
cratic citizenship promoted by practicing democratic citizenship, as are
group learning strategies, critical thinking, and other educational values.
In daily life, in school, and in the classroom one is confronted with a
wide range of practical problems, among which are problems having to do
with the behavior of pupils and teachers. An example is the question of
whether students should be allowed to use drugs at school. Not purely
hypothetical, abstract problems like the "Heinz dilemma" (see chapter 9),
but "real life problems" should be the subject matter of moral education.
Teachers and students alike have to find democratic solutions to problems
faced by the school community. All involved have to make choices about the
rules and practices regulating daily life. In taking decisions, all have an
equal vote.
The idea that moral education should be directed toward the develop-
ment of postconventional autonomy has not been abandoned in this ap-
proach. Rather it is thought that participating in the practice of democracy is
a way to further this development. Dewey's idea of "learning by doing" has
been inspiring in this regard. Pupils become autonomous persons by being
treated as such.
5 Conclusion
In this chapter some prominent views on the relation between education

and the development of structures of rationality and education have been
sketched and commented on . We indicated some aspects of the relation
between education and development that have been conceptualized in the
distinct views and noted some of their shortcomings.
We distinguished between structural learning and content learning, and
between qualitative education and material education. Further, it was
suggested that differing forms of structure learning and content learning can
be correlated with distinct modes of qualitative and material education
respectively. Although education and human development are evidently
taking place in a context of physical and biological conditions and limi-
tations, we assumed that human development and education are not
predetermined by inborn structures even though such structures may exist
inchoately and with great generality. Conceptual development and educa-
tion presuppose one another and in that sense they are mutually consti-
tutive. On the one hand, development results in conceptual structures
(limiting systems of concepts and criteria) that enable forms of learning and
education to take place . Without development, education is impossible. On
the other hand, development depends on education. Moreover, develop -
ment through the stages requires a broad development of each separate
structure, which in tum requires content learning processes and educational
activities. Education facilitates development but cannot be reduced to this
function; conceptual development is dependent on educational situations
and relations, and vice versa.
Stage theories not only enable educators to understand how children
understand - which is an important condition for education to be adequate
- but also enable us to conceptualize the relation between education and
human development in a more differentiated manner. This will be elabo-
rated in the next chapter.
15 Education and the development of personal au-
tonomy
Ger Snik
In chapter 14, we analyzed and evaluated some educational applications of

genetic structuralist theories (e.g., Kohlberg's "one-stage-above-approach")
and some of the educational concepts used (e.g., "content learning" and
"structure learning"). In this chapter we will indicate how a suitably quali-
fied genetic structuralist approach may offer a fruitful perspective on how
education contributes to the development of personal autonomy.
First we shall argue that the genetic structuralist view on education has
its roots in the philosophy of the Enlightenment (section 1). Next we con -
sider the cornrnunitarian critique of the (implicit) individualistic background
of this educational view (section 2). Then we sketch a viable notion of
"personal autonomy" (section 3). Finally, we show how initiation into
tradition and the development of personal autonomy may go together
(section 4).
1 Liberal education and personal autonomy
In modern educational theories, personal autonomy is regarded as one of

education's most important aims. This idea is especially prominent in
genetic structuralist educational theory, where education is perceived as
providing the opportunity for, and stimulation of, the development of the
conceptual conditions enabling the person to think, speak, and act in a re-
sponsible manner. This liberal educational view is rooted in Enlightenment
philosophy, as Kimball (1986) and others have made clear, such that there is
an essential difference between education in premodern society and in
modern society (d. Peters, 1973; O'Hear, 1988). What the relation of the
latter is to postmodern society remains to be seen (but see chapter 17 below).
In a premodern society a specific tradition determines the thought, speech,
and action of all its members. Uniformity, closedness, and continuity of
tradition are characteristic of this type of society; tradition and customs are
211
W. van Haaften et al. (eds.), Philosophy of Development. 211-222.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers .
considered natural and self-evident. Because it is not yet grasped that a

hypothetical and critical attitude can be taken toward customs and beliefs,
authority and tradition heteronomously determine the beliefs of the
community. In this situation education is restricted to socializing the child
into the prevailing traditions.
A modern society, by contrast, is characterized by pluralism, openness,
and discontinuity. It is recognized that traditions and customs are human
makings and in large part the products of their age and culture. They can be
accepted but need not be . Individuals are capable of mastering traditions
and can determine their own thoughts, judgments, and acts by using
principles that constitute the "universal" rationality of human beings. This
perspective inspires a new ideal of human development. It is recognized
that mere socialization into prevailing beliefs and values will not do:
personal autonomy is a major educational aim.
In this liberal perspective education is seen primarily as emancipation,
not socialization. By means of education the child is liberated from the
determination of thought and judgment by contingent local and historical
traditions, and liberated for personal autonomy, that is, having the capability
and the courage "to make use of his understanding without direction
(L from another" (Kant , 1786/1976, p. 85 (A481, 482». Children must
acquire tradition-independent ("universal") concepts with which they can
d istance themselves from tradition in order to think, judge, and act on their
own. An example of this perspective on education is found in Rousseau's
Emile when he discusses religious education. Religion is "a question of
geography" and the strength of arguments "depend on the region where
they are propounded"; educators who "pretend to shake off the yoke of
belief" and "want to grant nothing to authority" should never join a child to
any sect, but "put him in a position to choose the one to which the best use
of his reason ought to lead him" (Rousseau, 1762/1979, p. 260 (Book IV».
Educational theories based on genetic structuralism link up with this
Enlightenment perspective. The best known example of such theories is
Kohlberg's theory of moral education. He saw his theory as providing a
solution to the dilemma that many educators face: the choice between
indoctrination and indifference (Kohlberg, 1981). The idea that education
consists only in the transmission of specific customs, values, beliefs, and
virtues (the "bag of virtues approach") must, according to Kohlberg, lead to
indoctrination. Customs, values, and virtues are related to particular cultures
or contexts. However, the idea that educators should therefore restrict
themselves to giving neutral and objective information about culture-bound
Education and the development of personal autonomy 213
beliefs and values ("value clarification") is not very attractive either. This
practice will lead to indifference toward children ("Don't ask me, go out and
find your own way"). According to Kohlberg, education conceived as
stimulating the capacity to autonomous judgment provides the way out of
this deadlock. The development of the conceptual conditions of moral
judgment capability enables the individual to accept or reject existing
customs and values by means of argumentation. As explained in chapter 9,
Kohlberg's theory is that this development passes through six stages, or
three levels of moral judgment (preconventional, conventional, and postcon-
ventional). The educator can further this development by organizing situa-
tions that conflict with the child's prevailing structure of judgment and by
confronting it with reasons reflecting the next higher structure.
Genetic structuralist stage theories, in which the development toward
personal autonomy in a certain dimension is reconstructed, can revise the
transcendental starting points embraced by Enlightenment thinkers in an
educationally fruitful way. In transcendental philosophy the criteria and
concepts constituting personal autonomy are conceived of as universal and
therefore seem to belong to a generalized transcendental subject's nature
which is shared by all empirical subjects. This transcendental subject is taken
to stand outside time and space. However, as the German educator and
philosopher J. F. Herbart already noted, the idea of " tran scendental free-
dom" is an infertile starting-point for education (Herbart, 1835; d . Horn-
stein, 1959). In this way, the characteristics of the transcendental subject
cannot be seen as the result of learning processes and education. Genetic
structuralism is a correction of transcendental philosophy in this respect,
enabling us to do justice to the fact that the individual grows in knowledge
and abilities not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively in the sense of
developing concepts and criteria that organize thought, speech, and action
(see chapter 4). The conditions that open up the possibility of personal
autonomy are not innate but rather result from learning and education.
2 Individualism and community
Genetic structuralist theories of education are critical of traditional educa-

tional theories in which education is completely equated with the trans-
mission of a given tradition. According to Watt (1989), liberal philosophies
of education and genetic structuralist educational theories originate from
the individualistic tradition. In this tradition the virtues of individual auton-

omy in thought and action are recommended as the ultimate aims of edu-
cation. A concept of personhood is assumed according to which the indi-
vidual forms (and revises) his or her personal opinions and beliefs in an
independent way, detached from tradition and community. In consequence,
human development is conceptualized as a process in which the individual
himself or herself constructs the structures constituting postconventional
thinking, judging, and acting. Education is understood as a practice that
facilitates this individual development.
As the recent liberal-communitarian debate has made clear, these indi-
vidualistic perspectives on education and the person are no longer self-evi-
dent. Social constructivists and communitarians have vigorously criticized
the picture of the individual as someone who independently forms his or
her personal concepts of the good life. The central target of their criticism is
the liberal idea of the person as an "unencumbered self," a non-situated
entity that can distance itself from social commitments and characteristics. It
is claimed instead that the social embeddedness and the social constitution
of the person are neglected in this "pre-social" concept of the person
(Sandel, 1982; d . Thiessen, 1993; Callan, 1994; Aviram, 1995). Communi-
tarians argue that individuals cannot be defined as prior to the community
in which they are born and as apart from social rules and beliefs which they
share with others .
We think that this criticism is substantially correct. In individualistic
theories of education and concepts of the person there is a tendency to deny
or downplay the importance of community and tradition in the develop-
ment of the person. Criticism is justified in cases in which morality is taken
as "doing one's own thing" and the individual is seen as someone who
shapes his or her own morality in a narcissistic way (d. Taylor, 1991).
However, we do not think that it is necessary or desirable to reintroduce
a pre-modem concept of the person that denies the possibility of distancing
oneself from the communities and traditions in which one is raised (d.
Kymlicka, 1989). Such a concept would bring with it the all-too-familiar
concept of education as the process of adjustment of the child to some
predominant way of life. In contrast, we take the liberal educational aim of
personal autonomy as an irreversible achievement of modern, liberal-
democratic, pluralistic society (see Snik & van Haaften, 1992; and chapter 6
above).
In other words, education needs a "theory of compound selfhood or
compound individuality" (Crittenden, 1992, p. 37) that incorporates two
Education and thedevelopment of personal autonomy 215
seemingly opposed insights. The first is that community and tradition are
constitutive of personal autonomy, and the second is that a distance toward
communities and traditions is nonetheless logically and psychologically
possible. In such a theory of selfhood, personal autonomy is conceptualized
as reflective commitment - that is, as the ability and willingness to accept,
reject or revise (elements of) traditions on the basis of postconventional
principles (d. Tamir, 1993).
To say this is not to foreclose debate between liberals and communi-
tarians concerning education. Many corrections and qualifications still need
to be made for each position. However, what we have said in the foregoing
chapter, as well as what we will propose in the remaining sections of this
chapter, leads us to think that genetic structuralism offers such a viable
concept of personal autonomy (see Crittenden, 1992/pp. 38-69).
3 Personal autonomy
Personal autonomy is a rather vague, and hence often confusing, notion. In

this section we will briefly explain our understanding of personal autonomy
in hopes of dispelling some frequent but unnecessary complications of the
issue.
To begin with, we think of personal autonomy as the ability and willing-
ness to take a critical, hypothetical attitude toward current customs, beliefs,
and values (d. Siegel, 1988a; Paul, 1992). An autonomous person is a critical
thinker, someone who can think critically and wants to exercise this ability.
Such a person's thoughts, judgments, and acts are not completely deter-
mined heteronomously by tradition and authorities, but to a large degree
are shaped by the person himself or herself.
This does not mean that autonomous persons are outside all traditions
whatsoever. Although heteronomy is a prior stage in his or her develop-
ment/ the autonomous person will not push aside all traditions and
customs. We say this for three reasons. First, autonomous judgment and
action cannot be context-independent. Every individual, including the
autonomous person, acts against a background of undisputed and
unreflected beliefs, and so it would be misleading to think that views are
created in a cultural vacuum. Autonomous persons take a significant part of
their beliefs from the tradition in which they grew up or which they have
learned to accept. Second, it would be impossible critically to doubt and
assess all of one's beliefs at once . Criticism and doubt always take place on
the basis of some accepted beliefs. Whenever certain customs and traditions
are the object of dispute, there will be other implicitly accepted beliefs that
make possible the discussion and reflection concerning the traditions and
customs disputed. Thus, the autonomous person can only accept, reject or
correct specific elements of a tradition. Third, this discussion and reflection
can result in a renewed acceptance of traditions and customs.
The point at issue here is that, though people are never totally inde-
pendent of their cultural contexts, they can have different attitudes toward
traditions . Thinking and judging not only depend on accepted customs and
traditional beliefs, but also on a perspective taken on their value and on
what they are . This perspective, which lays down what counts as a good
reason, determines the attitude of the individual toward traditions and
customs.
We can analytically distinguish between conventional perspectives that
take a tradition as natural and self-evident and therefore immune to crit-
icism, and postconventional perspectives in which the conventional per-
spective is surpassed and a criterion is accepted with which traditions can be
criticized, corrected, accepted, or rejected (Crittenden, 1992, pp. 44-55). Of
course there is room for criticism and doubt in the application of a con-
ventional structure of judgment as well (e.g., regarding the beliefs of those
belonging to other traditions). But there is an essential difference between
conventional and postconventional forms of criticism and doubt. At the
conventional level, they remain within the boundaries of the tradition in
which the individual is initiated. The tradition itself cannot yet be the focal
object of evaluation, since it is the undisputed background of doubt and
criticism.
In genetic structuralist reconstructions of the development of the struc-
ture of judgment this distinction is accepted and these perspectives are
ordered hierarchically. For instance, when one has come to see that an argu-
ment from authority involves an invalid chain of reasoning, in the retro-
spective reconstruction of the development leading to that realization it is
claimed that the postconventionallevel is better than the conventional one.
Again, this is not to say that no traditions or customs are accepted at the
postconventionallevel. They are accepted at both levels, though in different
ways.
A second point is that personal autonomy is not a general characteristic
to be attributed to a person, as we shall see. Personal autonomy is not re-
stricted to the cognitive or intellectual domain. Because we can distinguish
different foundational domains or forms of rationality, there are also differ-
ent forms of personal autonomy, such as moral autonomy, intellectual au-

tonomy, religious autonomy, etc. Of course there are criteria, such as the
principle of noncontradiction, and attitudes, such as open-mindedness (W.
Hare, 1979; 1985), which transcend specific domains and are presupposed in
all forms of personal autonomy. But beyond these, each domain has its own
concepts and criteria for justification and argumentation, and therefore for
criticism and autonomous judgment (d. van Haaften & Snik, 1996; chapter 6
above). It is conceivable that a person is able and willing to argue autono-
mously in one domain and not in others.
Thirdly, it should be emphasized that personal autonomy does not
simply mean "doing one's own thing" or "me-ism." An autonomous per-
sonal choice is the result of the application of a system of concepts and
criteria enabling an individual to test certain views and to deliberate about
alternatives. In such a deliberation the opinions and judgments of others are
considered. For instance, autonomous judgment in empirical science means
testing certain opinions on the basis of accepted procedures regarding scien-
tific rationality. Egoism is a rather primitive stage, to be overcome in the
development toward personal autonomy.
Fourthly, attaining personal autonomy is not like passing a borderline. It
develops gradually, while the individual more and more often shows
behavior for which he or she can be held responsible. Small children are
seldom held responsible for their acts . But as they grow in abilities and
accountability, they will be praised or blamed more often for their acts .
Autonomy also develops in a qualitative way. Children at different ages and
levels of development are held responsible for their behavior in different
ways. There are distinct levels of personal autonomy. On the conventional
level there is minimal autonomy or, as Benn (1988) calls it, autarchy (d.
White, 1990, p . 97). Within certain limits, heteronomously thinking individ-
uals can be held responsible for their thoughts and acts . Like autonomous
persons, heteronomous persons have the ability to live and think in accor-
dance with rules. Their thoughts, judgments, and acts are structured by
beliefs and concepts of a specific tradition. They can: follow or violate the
rules of that tradition; so when they follow or violate a rule, they could have
done otherwise. Moreover, traditions do not determine exactly what to do;
often they leave considerable room for deliberation and choice (Gray, 1983).
However, unlike the autonomous person, heteronomous persons borrow
their beliefs uncritically from authorities.
Finally, personal autonomy does not exclude the possibility of recogniz-
ing authority, or knowledge derived from authority. The Enlightenment
view, that personal autonomy and recognition of authority are incompatible,

is too simple. It is impossible to test all beliefs, and so even an autonomous
individual will in many cases have to rely on the authority of experts. For
instance, even the most autonomous people believe on the basis of the
authority of medical experts that smoking damages health. When we follow
the judgment of an expert, this does not mean that we are thinking
heteronomously (d. Siegel, 1988b). There is a difference between following
an authority on a conventional basis and following an expert's judgment on
the basis of a postconventional view. In the former case the judgment is
guided by the presupposition that authorities cannot be wrong, whereas in
the latter the autonomous individual accepts that experts may have the best
reasons for their judgments. It can be acknowledged that experts are able to
test the relevant hypotheses critically because they have sufficient time,
expertise, methods, and instruments, these things being unavailable to the
ordinary individual.
Working from the perspective on personal autonomy described above,
we will now explain in more detail our earlier point that initiation into a
tradition is not an obstacle but a necessary condition for the development of
personal autonomy.
4 The relation between initiation into tradition and the development of

personal autonomy
Education seems a rather paradoxical if not internally contradictory enter-

prise. How can heteronomous interventions produce an autonomous per-
son? How is a child's being determined by others compatible with the
development of an ability and willingness to determine oneself? However,
this paradox becomes an internal contradiction only when we proclaim that
the development of personal autonomy is the aim of education and, at the
same time, take for granted that education consists in habituation and the
transmission of traditional values and beliefs (Peters, 1974). Neither of these
two processes is incompatible with a developmental approach: indeed, we
have just seen that an initiation into tradition is a necessary condition for the
development of personal autonomy. In order to clarify this idea let us tum
once again to the example of moral education, and consider it in the light of
Peters's critical analysis and evaluation of Kohlberg's early view that within
education one should refr ain from habituation and social transmission
(Peters, 1974,1981; see chapter 14).
Many, including the early Kohlberg, have been of the opinion that habit-
uation and transmission are incompatible with the development of personal
autonomy. Peters has shown that initiation into moral traditions (content) by
means of habituation is not only desirable but is itself a condition for the
development of any autonomous form of moral judgment. (As we noticed in
chapter 14, Kohlberg recognized that this criticism is correct and adjusted
his educational views in his later works.) Peters's arguments are as follows.
In the first place, the transmission of tradition is inevitable. Whether we
like it or not, it will happen even in families or schools that try to avoid it.
Whenever human beings communicate they appeal to certain moral norms
and values. The question therefore is not whether we are going to transmit
any values, but rather which norms and values we wish to transmit, and how
to do so.
Moreover, the transmission of values is morally desirable on simple
utilitarian grounds. In order to prevent children from doing damage to
themselves or others, their behavior has to be regulated. The transmitting of
values is also desirable because many people will never reach the stage of
autonomous moral judgment but remain at the conventional level. Even if
only for this reason, it is morally desirable to transmit personally and so-
cially functional conventions in moral education.
In addition, initiation into a moral tradition is necessary if we want to
stimulate the development of moral autonomy. The movement from con-
ventional to postconventional reasoning is a temporal as well as logical
sequence. At birth the child is an amoral being. The newborn does not yet
have the concepts and criteria structuring moral thought and action. Moral
concepts (e.g ., the concept of a moral rule) are not learned by explana-
tion but in the course of initiation into a moral tradition. The child learns
the meaning of moral rules and of morality by being incorporated into a
moral community. Thus heteronomy is a necessary condition for autonomy.
Grasping the concept that moral rules can themselves be acceptable or
unacceptable is only possible after the child has learnt to follow moral rules.
Only then can he or she rationally criticize traditional moral rules. We can
only "enter the palace of Reason through the courtyard of Habit and Tra-
dition" (Peters, 1974, p. 272).
Finally, if the preconventional and conventional levels are developmen-
tal-logical conditions for postconventional thinking to emerge, then forms of
content learning connected to and defined by these levels are also necessary.
How a child learns and what a child can learn (the learning level) depend on
the development of the child's capacity to understand (the structure of judg-
ment). Effective educators address children at different levels in different

ways. This means that also the structure of the educational relation, as de-
fined by the way the child learns and the related form of education provided
by the educator, undergoes a qualitative development. As small children we
were initiated by habituation and social transmission into the moral
tradition of our parents or caretakers and "those like us ." Later on, we
became aware of the plurality of moral traditions in our modem society, by
"value clarification" and other processes of self-reflection. Eventually, if
the postconventionallevel is reached, communicative argumentation about
moral validity claims becomes possible.
The two latter considerations are the most important in our argument.
They show that habituation and transmission are conditions for the devel-
opment of moral autonomy instead of obstacles to it. Being incorporated in a
tradition does not constitute an inferior stage in moral development, nor is it
a form of education Inconsistent with the development of personal auton-
omy. The learning of local and historical customs and tradition precedes the
acquisition of the concepts and criteria whereby they can be transcended.
Furthermore, Peters has shown that education toward moral autonomy
not only has tcdo with the development of moral judgment but also
requires a fostering of moral virtues. In moral education the acquisition of
virtues is inevitable. Even in views on moral education such as the earlier
Kohlbergian rejection of the "bag of virtues" approach, the educational
practices which they recommend do in fact foster certain virtues. Besides the
development of the ｣ｯｧｮｩｴｶ･ｾ｡ｳｰ of morality, moral education oriented
toward true autonomous thought and action requires and promotes the
conative and affective aspects of the moral domain, including the aspect of
virtue.
In this respect, we can distinguish two types of virtues. First there are
moral content virtues i recommended in a given moral tradition and trans-
mitted when the child is socialized in that tradition. Charity, compassion,
repentance, and will power are examples of such virtues. But besides this,
education toward moral autonomy requires the acquisition of "formal" or
intellectual virtues. When passing from the conventional to the postcon-
ventional level of thinking, 'the development of moral autonomy involves
setting aside and even negatively appraising certain virtues typical of the
conventional level (such as obedience, acceptance of argument from author-
ity, exclusivist group solidarity). As these virtues decline, the intellectual
virtues and ｲ｡ｾｯｮ｡ｬ passions emerge which are crucially important in true
autonomous and critical judgment, such as respect for evidence, tolerance of
Education and thedevelopment of personal autonomy 221
uncertainty, and dissatisfaction with arguments from authority (Peters, 1974;

Popper, 1981-82; Siegel, 1988a; Scheffler, 1991).
Thus the initiation into tradition is a necessary though not sufficient
condition for those processes of structure learning in which concepts and
criteria are developed that make possible a hypothetical and even critical
attitude toward one's own traditions. Besides initiation into tradition, the
development toward personal autonomy presupposes such a process of
structure leaming, which is the result of interaction between an active,
developing subject and the environment. After transmission has taken place,
opportunity opens up for structure learning in which postconventional ways
of judging can be mastered. This occurs when it is understood that the
conventional way of judging is unsound, what postconventional thinking
amounts to/ and why this way of thinking is preferable to the conventional
way (Kohlberg, 1981).
This means that an initiation into critical traditions cannot be a sufficient
condition for the development of personal autonomy either (d. Peters, 1973;
Siegel, 1988a). Of course children can be introduced into liberal traditions in
which postconventional principles are predominant. And surely it is pos-
sible that initiated people first come to know these principles through
content learning processes. But content learning by itself is not sufficient for
successful structure learning, for the same reasons that it is possible to know
and name concepts, criteria, and procedures of philosophy of science with-
out understanding their point. Initiation into critical traditions may playa
stimulating role in the structure learning process, as Vygotsky (1978) has
shown in his discussion of the "zone of proximal development." Often the
developing individual will first obtain some knowledge about the principles
and concepts of a next higher stage in content learning, and only later go
through the structure learning process, as a result of which he or she can see
their point. Individuals need not themselves invent the postconventional
wheel. But they cannot simply be told how to find it.
5 Conclusion
In this chapter we first outlined a notion of personal autonomy as an aim of

education in general and of moral education in particular. Next, we argued
that, from a developmental perspective, there need be no contradiction
between introducing children into a (moral) tradition and furthering the
development of personal autonomy. On the contrary, immersion in a tradi-

tion is a necessary condition for realizing the educational aim of autonomy.
16 Structuralist and hermeneutic approaches to dev-
elopment
Jos deMul
The philosophy of development presented in this book has its roots in

various philosophical traditions. In this chapter we will direct our attention
to two of these traditions, structuralism and hermeneutics, in order to
situate our metatheory of development in the contemporary philosophical
landscape and to show that it is itself the result of a specific course of
conceptual development. (In the next chapter we will defend our position
against some postmodern critiques directed at earlier structuralist and
hermeneutic conceptions of development.)
We will start our reconstruction of this philosophic development with a
brief discussion of Kant's transcendental critique of reason (section I), be -
cause in many respects it prefigures structuralist and hermeneutic theories.
In section 2 we discuss Dilthey's critique of historical reason, in which
transcendental questions were explicitly linked with the problem of (con-
ceptual) development. In the next two sections we sketch the way in which
questions raised by Dilthey are further developed by structuralists like
Piaget and Foucault (section 3) and hermeneutic philosophers like Heideg-
ger and Gadamer (section 4). Then we will discuss the attempts by Haber-
mas and Kohlberg to integrate structuralist and hermeneutic perspectives
into their theories of communicative action and of moral development
respectively (section 5). In the last section, we will point out, against the
background of the philosophy of development presented in the preceding
chapters, some of the connections and the differences between our own
position and the earlier "stages" of philosophy of development as recon-
structed below.
1 Kant's transcendental critique of reason
The transcendental critique of Immanuel Kant is generally regarded as one

of the turning points in the history of philosophy. It has often been said that
223
e 1997 All Rights Reserved.
modem and contemporary philosophy cannot be understood unless we take

the "Copernican revolution" of Kant's critique of reason into account. This
certainly is true for the philosophy of development presented and defended
in this book. Like the other structuralist and hermeneutic theories to be
discussed in this chapter, its roots can be found in Kant 's transcendental
critique.
This becomes clear when we consider Kant's starting point, namely that
all our knowledge begins with experience, but does not all arise out of
experience (1781/1973, p. 41 (Bl)) . According to Kant, our knowledge must
begin with experience, because for the cognitive faculty to be brought into
exercise, our senses must be affected by external beings. At the same time,
however, knowledge is not possible unless the two constituents of our
cognitive faculty, namely sensibility and understanding, supply a priori
elements from within themselves in order to bring order to the chaos of
sense impressions. In sensibility the sense impressions are structured by the
a priori intuitions of space and time and thus become appearances or phe-
nomena. The understanding further interrelates these phenomena by means
of its own a priori concepts or categories (e.g., the concept of causality). It is
important to realize that according to Kant the phenomenological world that
is the result of experience is not a subjective "image" of the real world, since
it is precisely the real, empirical world that is constituted in experience.
Though ideal from a transcendental point of view, the phenomenological
world is real from an empirical perspective (Kant, 1781/1973, pp. 72, 78, 88
(A28, A35-36, B69)). It is shared by all beings who experience the world in
accordance with the same a priori structures, that is (in Kant's view), by all
human beings. Surely we can distinguish the things in themselves from the
objects of (human) experience, but these things are only thinkable, and can
never become objects of experience. As Kant formulates this important
ontological implication, "The a priori conditions of a possible experience in
general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of objects of
experience" (Kant, 1781/1973, pp. 138-139 (A 111) (italics in original)).
Kant's transcendental critique may be regarded as a brilliant solution to
the problems of both rationalist and empiricist accounts of human knowl-
edge. Earlier rationalism (as defended by Descartes and Leibniz), which has
its starting point in the presupposition that all knowledge is derived from
(innate) concepts that are shared by all, can explain why this knowledge is
logically necessary and generally valid, but it cannot explain how these
concepts correspond to the outer world. Empiricism (as defended by Locke
Structuralistand hermeneutic approaches todevelopment 225
and Hume), which has its starting point in the conviction that all knowledge
is derived from sensory experience, offers a more satisfactory answer to the
last question, but it is not able to explain the possibility of logical necessity
and general validity. It inevitably runs into some form of epistemological
relativism, as in the case of Hume . Kant's solution to this relativism is very
elegant because he rescues the logical necessity and general validity of
scientific knowledge by - paradoxically - emphasizing the very finiteness
of human reason. He does so by arguing that the logical necessity and
general validity of scientific knowledge is not derived from the nature of the
things in themselves, but are instead intrinsic, absolutely indispensable
features of our experience of the world. They are - and this is what Kant
meant by "tran scen dental" - necessary conditions for the possibility of any
experience whatsoever.
However, elegant as it may be, Kant's solution is as unsatisfactory as the
rationalism before him with regard to the problem of the development of
knowledge. If all knowledge is derived from timeless a priori concepts, how
is growth of knowledge possible? Neither traditional rationalism nor Kant
can give a satisfactory answer to this question. Empiricism on the other
hand can give an account of the growth of knowledge as a result of new
sense perceptions. However, from an empiricist point of view this growth
can only be understood as quantitative. In conclusion: neither rationalism
nor empiricism can explain the qualitative growth of knowledge. Hence
Hamlyn describes the opposition of rationalism and empiricism as an oppo-
sition between structurewithoutgenesis and genesis without structure (Hamlyn,
1978, pp. 13f.; d. Piaget, 1980, p . 160). In order to explain the phenomenon of
qualitative change and learning, structure and genesis have to
be related to each other by means of the concept of development. However,
as we will see , this inevitably leads beyond Kant 's rather static transcen-
dental critique into some form of ontological and epistemological relativism.
2 Dilthey's critique of historical reason
Wilhelm Dilthey, who wrote a century after Kant, is an important prede-

cessor of contemporary developmental theory and the philosophy of
development presented in this book. He is important, not only because he
introduced the aspect of development into transcendental philosophy, but
also because he broadened Kant's rather narrow conception of rationality to
include feelings and the will (see chapter 4). Although Dilthey never fin-
ished the six volumes of his monumental Critique of Historical Reason, in its
completed parts he formulated the key concepts of twentieth-century struc-
turalism and hermeneutics.
As its title suggests, in this work Dilthey initially set out to complement
Kant's transcendental critique of theoretical reason in the natural sciences
with an equally transcendental critique of historical reason, investigating the
conditions of the possibility of historical knowledge in the human sciences.
Gradually, however, Dilthey's project became a fundamental transformation
of Kant's entire critical philosophy, in particular of two ontological presup-
positions of Kant 's transcendental investigation. First, Dilthey takes the
categories to be categories of life rather than formal categories: his trans-
cendental self-reflection aims at an explication of the fundamental structures
of the primordial nexus of life in which man is always already situated and
which precedes the theoretical distinction between subject and object. In this
context, Dilthey also criticizes the intellectualism of Kant's critique: the life-
world is not an object of purely intellectual representation, but rather a
reality which is immediately given in the interplay of thinking, willing, and
feeling. Second , Dilthey rejects the Kantian presupposition that the a priori
structures of experience are universal and timeless, claiming instead that
they are characterized by historical development. It will be clear that this
transformation of the Kantian critique also leads to a reinterpretation of the
notion of the "transcendental": the subject of Dilthey's transcendental-
historical self-reflection is not only the historicity of human life, but also the
way quite different transcendental structures of experience develop in the
course of history. In Dilthey's view, therefore, transcendental analysis and
empirical investigations in the human sciences are interdependent.
According to Dilthey, we find developing transcendental structures in
individuals as well as in collectives. He rejects the idea that individual
development recapitulates collective development, but he claims that they
are interdependent (see chapter 7). Dilthey treats individual development in
his descriptive psychology; collective developments are investigated in his
philosophy ofhistory. Although Dilthey's early descriptive psychology is often
called structuralist, and his later philosophy of history hermeneutic, in fact
each of those two disciplines is based on a combination of structuralist and
hermeneutic presuppositions.
Dilthey 's descriptive psychology is a phenomenological description of
the structure and development of the psychic nexus of the individual. In call-
ing the psychic nexus a structure, Dilthey means that (1) it is not an ag-
Structuralistand hermeneuticapproaches todevelopment 227
gregate of isolated elements but a connected whole of representation, feel-

ing, and willing; (2) it is in a constant interaction with its physical and social-
cultural environment; and (3) it is characterized by an internal teleology
(Dilthey, 1894/1957, pp. 211-213). The psychic nexus may be called trans-
cendental because it is constitutive for our thinking, acting and feeling . Al-
though it is possible to distinguish different substructures such as knowing,
ethical reasoning, and aesthetic feeling (each of which can be further
analyzed; e.g., knowing is a complex nexus of interrelated acts like percep-
tion, imagining, believing, judging), these subsystems should not be con-
ceived of as separate faculties . In every single act of knowing, feeling, or
willing, the psychic nexus works as a whole, which assures an increasing
coherence in our attitudes toward the world (Makkreel, 1992, p. 100). For
that reason we may regard the psychic nexus as a horizon of experience; it
embodies a particular worldview (Dilthey, 1960; see chapter 7).
Dilthey's definition of structure further indicates that it is not static but
instead develops in constant interaction with the environment and in a certain
direction. Although this development requires a certain biological maturity
and the influence of the physical and social environment, it has to be
constructed by the developing person himself or herself (1894/1957, p . 214).
For that reason Dilthey calls the psychic nexus an acquired psychic nexus
(erworbene seelische Zusammenhang), in which several developmental stages
can be distinguished. The development as whole is characterized by the
differentiation of subsystems and ongoing integration of these subsystems into
a whole. In the beginning of its development, the psychic nexus is rather
open, but the acquired psychic nexus gradually becomes less open to further
changes: it shields us from having to react to every act of our environment.
Unlike many later developmental theorists (e.g., Piaget; see section 3 below),
Dilthey recognizes that the acquired psychic nexus has an individual
character. Although he does not in any way deny that there are more
general developmental patterns, unlike his successors he emphasizes the
irreducibly individual aspects of human development. Because Dilthey
stresses the creative aspect of the human construction of transcendental
structures and of the experience based on them, and also because he often
takes the development of meaning in a novel or in a piece of music as a
metaphor of human development, his account of human development is a
prime instance of what in chapter 3 we called the narrative model.
According to Dilthey historical developments resemble individual devel-
opment in many respects. Like individual development, human history is
conceived of as a development of the transcendental structure of experience:
"The different eras in history have a different structure. In the Middle Ages
we find a nexus of related ideas that reign in the different domains" (1958,
pp. 287-288). Dilthey calls this structure a dynamic system (Wirkungszu-
sammenhang) which is embodied in its continuing products and which is
characterized by an internal teleology. Unlike Hegel, but in accordance with
his mentor Ranke, Dilthey states that it is impossible to give an a priori
description of the stages of historical development. And like individual
development, in historical development many unique patterns can be
distinguished in different domains and different cultures.
In evaluating Dilthey's transformation of transcendental philosophy, we
may notice that it inevitably leads to some form of ontological and episte-
mological relativism (see de Mul, 1987). Following Kant, Dilthey states that
the empirical world is (at least partly) constituted by the conceptual frame-
work of the human mind, but, unlike Kant, he also states that these forms
develop in time and, moreover, are culturally variant; from this he is forced
to conclude that people possessing different conceptual frameworks live in
literally incommensurable worlds. For that reason their judgments about
"their" worlds may differ essentially with no one being able to judge which
is correct.
However, Dilthey's relativism is not absolute. In the first place there are
fundamental human experiences (like birth, development, love, hate, death)
that are shared by all people in all times and in all cultures, and that may not
be open to development. We can understand the mourning of a mother who
lost her child, even when she lives in a different culture or age or is in a
different stage of development. In the second place, within a certain culture
persons in the same stage of development live in a shared world and share
the same presuppositions with regard to the domain concerned. In other
words, among persons in the same stage relativism does not occur (see
Melland , 1980, p . 122). In the third place, the fact that different conceptual
frameworks are incommensurable does not mean that they are incom-
parable (de Mul, 1987, pp. 32-33) . According to Dilthey, in those cases where
the transcendental structures of experience differ essentially, we may call
upon a "higher" hermeneutic understanding, by reconstructing the other's
horizon of experience. Given a minimally shared life-world, we are to a
great extent able to re-experience the lived experience of someone else as it
is objectified in utterances, actions, and social and cultural products.
If all individuals are in development, so also is the human scientist inves-
tigating human development. Developmental psychologists and other theo-
rists go through a specific development, resulting in a conceptual frame-
Structuralist and hermeneutic approaches todevelopment 229
work that will influence their reconstructions of the developmental patterns

of others. They all are in the hermeneutic situation that is inherent in human
life.
3 The structuralist approach of development
Dilthey did not elaborate all implications of his fruitful approach to con-
ceptual development, but, as remarked above, his Critique of Historical
Reason in many respects foreshadows both the structuralist and hermeneutic
approaches to development that have been developed in the twentieth
century. In this section we will discuss the way the structuralists Michel
Foucault and Jean Piaget carryon the structuralist line of argument
introduced by Dilthey .
Foucault further developed the notion of a "historical a priori" in his so-
called archaeological writings in the 1960s. In these studies of the history of
the conception of madness, medical thinking, and the human sciences
(Foucault, 1965, 1973, 1980c), Foucault seems to synthesize traditional his-
tory of mentalities with transcendental analysis. In his archaeological
writings Foucault is interested not so much in the "superficial" level of the
development of thoughts, opinions, and theories (sauoir), as in the "under-
lying" conditions of the possibility of the knowledge, conceived of as a kind
of grammar, which is to say as formative rules of discourse. It is this
archaeological level that Foucault calls a historical a priori (a priori historique;
see Foucault, 1980c, pp. xxiii, xxiv, 318; Foucault, 1972, pp. 128f.). Like
Dilthey, Foucault might be called a "dynamic Kantian" in that he believes
human knowledge presupposes an a priori structure that, though a priori, is
nonetheless subject to change in time.
However, unlike Dilthey, Foucault in his archaeological writings holds
that the successive a priori structures are discontinuous: they are radically
different in each period. According to Foucault, in the conceptualization of
notions like madness and health, radical ruptures can be found around 1600
and 1800, and these ruptures mark the transition from the Renaissance to
the classical period and from the classical period to the modern era.
(Foucault further suggests that a new transition is taking place in our time,
leading to what may be called a postmodern historical a priori). Whereas
Dilthey's argumentation is primarily at the level of what we have called the
dynamic of developmental theory, Foucault seems to be interested primarily
in the logic of the distinct stages (see chapter 4). For that reason Foucault in
his archaeological writings does not give an explanation of why any

historical a priori or episteme (to use Foucault's special terminology) changes
in the course of time (in the next chapter we will discuss the explanation
Foucault gives in his so-called genealogical writings of the seventies). This is
why Sartre accused Foucault of replacing the movie with the magic lantern.
In his book Structuralism, Piaget raises a similar objection: "His epistemes
follow upon, but not from, one another, whether formally or dialectically.
One episteme is not affiliated with another, either genetically or historically.
The message of this "archaeology" of reason is, in short, that reason's self-
transformations have no reason .... All the negative aspects of static struc-
turalism are retained - the devaluation of history and genesis, the con tempt
for functional considerations; and, since man is about to disappear, Fou-
cault's ouster of the subject is more radical than any hitherto. Indeed, his
structures are in the end mere diagrams, not transformational systems. In
this irrationalism only one thing is fixed, language itself, conceived as
dominating man beyond individuals" (Piaget, 1971, pp. 134-135). Although
we may notice that Foucault's emphasis on the description of the logic of the
succeeding "stages" of historical development does not by itself exclude a
complementary dynamic approach (see chapter 4), his archaeological con-
cept of development seems to exclude the development of such a dynamic
part of the theory. Foucault's concept of structures turns out to be closed, that
is, according to Foucault structures do not seem to allow influences from
outside, whereas according to Piaget structures are characterized by a
fundamental openness to change. Before discussing Piaget's alternative in
more detail, we first want to mention one further problem in Foucault's ar-
chaeology.
Foucault seems to neglect the hermeneutic dimension of his undertaking.
In The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972) he states that archaeology is "nothing
more than a rewriting: that is, in the preserved form of exteriority, a
regulated transformation of what has already been written .. .it is the
systematic description of a discourse-object" (Foucault, 1972, p. 140). Else-
where Foucault describes his method as a "happy positivism." Archaeology
simply is an ahistorical discipline with an ahistorical technical language,
which is able to survey and order history precisely because it is not in his-
tory (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982, p. 97). Dreyfus and Rabinow see Foucault's
archaeology as a radicalization of Husserlian phenomenology. Foucault's
naive form of positivism of the "detached spectator" neglects the fact that
this spectator is always part of the history he is describing and thus always
offering a certain historically determined interpretation. In this sense Pou-
cault regresses to a position that was already effectively criticized by Dilt-

hey. It is only in his genealogical writings (to be discussed in the next chap-
ter) that Foucault acknowledges this hermeneutic dimension, although he
then defends a Nietzschean hermeneutics. The Diltheyan approach was
taken up not by Foucault but, as we will see in the next section, by Hei-
degger and Gadamer.
First we will return to Piaget's genetic structuralism, to see if it over-
comes the problems we noticed in Foucault's archaeology. Like Foucault (as
well as Dilthey), Pia get regards himself as a "dynamic Kantian" (Piaget,
1974-1975, p. 212). Unlike Foucault, however, Piaget does not concentrate on
logical questions but on dynamic ones (though he does not properly
distinguish these two types of questions, see chapter 8). Although Piaget is
generally regarded a developmental psychologist, he considered himself a
genetic epistemologist in the first place, differentiating between genetic
epistemology, genetic psychology, and child psychology: genetic episte-
mology, he writes, "has as its object the examination of the formation of
knowledge itself, that is to say of the cognitive relations between the subject
and object: thus it bridges the gap between genetic psychology and episte-
mology in general, which it helps to enrich by considering development"
(Piaget, 1973, p. v).
Piaget emphasizes the importance of Kant's starting points, especially
that of the "important idea of synthetic a priori judgments and the deriva-
tive idea that, even in the case of a posteriori synthetic judgments, intelli-
gence is not limited to receiving impressions like a tabula rasa, but structures
reality by means of a priori forms of sensibility and understanding" (Piaget,
1972b, p. 57). However, Piaget like Dilthey criticizes Kant for treating a
priori forms of sensibility and understanding as timeless. He thinks that
Kant here remains caught in the traditional rationalist view that these forms
are innate, and does not take the consequences of his own constructivism se-
riously enough (Piaget, 1972b, p. 57). When we apply the Kantian idea that
knowledge is an activity of the knowing subject instead of a passive oc-
currence to the a priori forms of experience, we should acknowledge that
these forms themselves are the result of a long process of construction. We
may "attribute to the epistemological subject a much richer constructivity,
although ending with the same characteristics of rational necessity and the
structuring of experience, as those which Kant called for to guarantee his
concept of the a priori" (Piaget, 1972b, pp . 57-58).
This constructivism constitutes the cornerstone of Piaget's genetic episte-
mology. For that reason we could call his epistemology a transcendental
constructivism. The constructive activity is the condition of the possibility of

the knowing subject and the object known. Knowledge for Piaget is not
making a mental "copy" of things already given in reality, nor is it a mere
unfolding of an innate conceptual framework. It results from a process of
continuous interaction between subject and object, in which both the mental
structure and the relations within objects are constructed: "Knowledge, then,
at its origin, neither arises from objects nor from the subject, but from
interactions - at first inextricable - between the subject and those objects"
(Piaget, 1983, p. 104). For that reason, knowledge for Piaget is above all a
kind of praxis, since to know objects, the subject must transform them by
displacing, connecting, combining, by taking things apart and putting them
back together. "Hence the limit between subject and objects is in no way
determined beforehand, and, what is more important, it is not stable"
(Piaget, 1983, p. 104).
Starting from a nondualistic situation, knowledge is a process of constant
interaction between subject and object, in which both are constructed and
differentiated. It is in this sense that Piaget talks about a construction of
reality by the child (using book titles such as La construction du reel chez
l'enfant). Are we to call Piaget an idealist for that reason? His constant
critique of realism and his appreciation of idealists like Hegel seem to sug-
gest this conclusion (see Kitchener, 1986, p. 101). However, such an
interpretation of Piaget undermines his fundamental Kantian conviction
regarding the existence of things in themselves. The construction of reality
does not refer to the noumenal world of the things in themselves - as is the
case in idealism - but to the phenomenal world of appearances, that is, to
the world as it is constructed in our experience. If we want to call Piaget an
idealist, we are only justified to do so in the Kantian sense of transcendental
idealism. On the level of the empirical world Piaget, like Kant, is a realist. The
empirical world has a real character. It is not a subjective illusion.
So far Piaget's genetic radicalization of Kant's constructivism seems to
agree with Dilthey's approach. Piaget's description of the successive stages
of cognitive development follows Dilthey's general conception of develop-
ment as an ongoing process of differentiation and integration (see chapter 8).
Whereas Dilthey formulated the points of departure for genetic struc-
turalism, Piaget has worked them out fruitfully in his countless psycholog-
ical experiments. However, on several issues their opinions differ essentially
and, as we will now argue, Piaget 's elaboration of developmental theory is
not always an improvement over Dilthey.
First, his conception of the a priori structures of the human mind seems
to be a retreat from Dilthey's categories of life to the one-sided intellectual
and formal categories of the Kantian subject. In addition, Piaget does not
sufficiently keep in mind the influence of the (social) life-world in the
cognitive development of the child. As a result he seems to regress to the
theoretical fiction of a subject isolated from society and history. Second,
Piaget at several places seems to conceive conceptual development as purely
functional adaptation instead of a rational achievement of the developing
person. Third, like Foucault, he does not take into account radically enough
the hermeneutic situatedness of the scientist himself or herself. Piaget does
not sufficiently appreciate the fact that the interpretation of a developmental
pattern by a scientist is itself based on a specific stage of conceptualization.
This is related to Piaget's presupposition that all individuals follow the same
universal pattern of development and that the scientists reconstructing the
pattern are themselves at the highest stage. For that reason the issue of
relativism cannot even appear as a theoretical problem in Piaget's philos-
ophy (see de Mul, 1987).
We therefore have to conclude that both Piaget and Foucault (at least in
his archaeological writings) do not adequately appreciate the hermeneutic
dimension of their theories of human development. For that reason it seems
fruitful to consider the further development of Dilthey's critique of histor-
ical reason in the hermeneutic tradition.
4 The hermeneutic approach to development
Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer are two of the most important
continuators of the hermeneutic aspect of Dilthey's philosophy of life. For
that reason we will present them here, focusing exclusively on those aspects
of their thought that are relevant to our philosophy of development. We will
show that Heidegger and Gadamer elaborate a number of Dilthey's insights
in a more consistent way than Dilthey himself did, but that on the other
hand with regard to many insights of Dilthey they seem to go back to a
position that Dilthey quite rightly criticized and abandoned. (Heidegger's
own views also changed over the years, but we will postpone evaluation of
his later thinking until the discussion of postmodernism in chapter 17.)
The leading question in Heidegger's philosophy is the question of being.
According to Heidegger this question has not been addressed rightly in
Western metaphysics, because in this tradition the difference between the
ontic and the ontological has been neglected. Of course Heidegger does not
deny that many ontologies have been developed (regarding nature, history,
man, etc.), but in his view the more fundamental question concerning what
we mean when we talk about the being of nature, history, or man is not even
properly raised. Although Dilthey has justly pointed to the temporal and
historical dimension of human life and reasoning (and in this sense
overcomes the static character of the transcendental philosophy of Kant and
Husserl), Heidegger believed that, in the last analysis, Dilthey's philosophy
is "ontologically undifferentiated" (Heidegger, 1962a, p. 253) and therefore
fails to grasp radically enough the temporal character of being.
In order to properly raise the question of being we must, according to
Heidegger, analyze the being that is characterized by a certain (implicit)
understanding of the being of beings: man. Because Heidegger, unlike
Dilthey, is not so much interested in developing an anthropology as in
studying man insofar as he has an understanding of being, Heidegger
prefers to speak of (human) there-being or Dasein. The analytic of Dasein,
that is the phenomenological description of the essential structure of Dasein
(to which human understanding belongs), is the subject of the first part of
Beingand Time (1962a). (Heidegger planned a second part to deal with the
question of being itself, but for reasons we will discuss below, he never
wrote that part.)
In the published part of Being and Time, Heidegger not only explicitly
connects his analytic of Dasein with Husserl's phenomenology (Heidegger,
1962a, pp. 49-63), but also, albeit more implicitly, with Kant's transcenden tal
philosophy, when he views his goal as attaining a veritas transcendentalis (p.
61). In his book Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, he elucidates this
transcendental character as follows : "Thus, transcendental knowledge does
not investigate the essent itself but the possibility of the precursory
comprehension of the Being of the essent. It concerns reason's passing be-
yond (transcendence) to the essent so that experience can be rendered
adequate to the latter as its possible object." (Heidegger, 1962b, p. 20).
However, Heidegger's analytic of Dasein is especially inspired by
Dilthey's hermeneutics. We find both of Dilthey's transformations of Kant
elaborated here. Heidegger rejects Kant's conception of a transcendental
subject that is outside the world and outside history (1962b, p . 199).
According to Heidegger Dasein essentially is being-in-the-world. The way
Dasein understands the world is determined by the fact that Dasein is
always already situated in the world. Understanding always takes place
from within a specific horizon. Understanding therefore is not so much a
Structuralist and hermeneutic approaches to development 235
specific method (e.g., that employed in the human sciences) but the very
mode of existence of Dasein. In understanding, Dasein projects a meaningful
whole. Further, this being in the world has a profoundly temporal character.
The facticity of Dasein means that its past determines what it is, and at the
same time Dasein's understanding is directed toward future possibilities.
Dilthey, although he emphasizes the historicity of man, does not accord-
ing to Heidegger distinguish properly between the antic character of mere
entities (Vorhandenes) and the ontological character of human existence (see
Heidegger, 1962a, pp. 70-71). In Heidegger's view Dasein should not be
conceived as an entity with certain qualities that "is" in time; rather its very
existence is temporal and for that reason cannot be conceived of in ontic
terminology. Because Dilthey did not distinguish sharply enough between
the ontic and the ontological, he fails to acknowledge the fundamental
difference between empirical and transcendental questions.
It is certainly to Heidegger's credit, especially for philosophy of develop-
ment (see chapter 4), that he elucidated this important difference between
ontic and ontological questions, which is at most only implicit in Dilthey's
writings. However, in Being and Time Heidegger did not yet understand
historicization as radically as Dilthey did (notwithstanding the latter's onto-
logical indifference), and for that reason Heidegger remained victim of the
timeless conception of transcendental philosophy as put forward by Kant
and Husserl , In Being and Time the being-there of Dasein, even if charac-
terized by temporality, is conceived as a timeless structure. After finishing
the first volume of Being and Time Heidegger realized that in that work he
had not approached his question radically enough. After his well-known
"reversal" (Kehre), he abandoned the transcendental foundation and took as
his goal a rethinking of the history of (the understanding of) being. This
starting point brings Heidegger somewhat closer to Dilthey's developmen-
tal hermeneutics. However, as we will see, Heidegger's reversal also has
implications that are not fruitful at all for philosophy of development.
According to the later Heidegger the history of Western thinking shows
a succession of different modes of understanding of being. Following Dilt-
hey's philosophy of history, Heidegger distinguishes in the history of
Western culture relatively global stages, such as those of the Greeks, the
Middle Ages, and the Modem Era . The understanding of being in the Mod-
em Era ("technicity") is strongly criticized by Heidegger, because according
to him it rests on the reduction of beings to sheer objects of human interests
and needs. More generally, the history of Western metaphysics shows an
increasing "forgetfulness of being" (Heidegger, 1976, p . 339). After his rever-

sal, when his main goal is to rethink being as such, he no longer finds the
scientist a fruitful interlocutor, since science is now seen as the very expres-
sion of technical thinking. After the reversal Heidegger turns to artists, and
to poets in particular.
Whatever else might be said about the often quite provoking thoughts in
Heidegger's later writings, they contain some serious problems as far as the
philosophy of development is concerned. The main problem is that, when
his later work is taken as the lens through which to understand his previous
writings, Heidegger's earlier critique of the subject-centeredness of Western
metaphysics radically shrinks, in fact virtually eliminates, the role human
subjects play in their own development. In Heidegger's monolithic concep-
tion, the history of being seems to be an autonomous process in which the
human subject has an exclusively passive role. Whereas in Being and Time
the there-being of Dasein constantly projects being, after the reversal the
thrownness of man is stressed throughout. Though the later Heidegger often
remarks that being cannot appear without man, he also emphasizes the role
of what he calls Gelassenheit: the fact that man is "released unto being"
(gelassen) . Although Heidegger is right in criticizing the way many classical
and (especially) modem writers overestimate the (autonomous) subject's
role in history, he himself seems to underestimate its role (also in this respect
he inspired Foucault's archaeological analysis of the anonymous historical a
priori).
Furthermore, after the reversal there is a strong tendency in Heidegger's
writings completely to separate being from beings (see de Mul, 1996, forth-
coming). As a consequence, Heidegger entirely separates his (increasingly
esoteric) thinking of being from the (empirical) sciences, which "only re -
search beings and nothing but beings" (Heidegger, 1976, p. 105). Although
Heidegger is right in arguing that ontological questions are fundamentally
different from empirical ones, our own view is that the two types of ques-
tions cannot be completely separated. In this regard Dilthey's emphasis on
the mutual dependence of ontological and empirical questions is more to the
point (see section 2 above). In addition, the monolithic character of Hei-
degger's history of being leads him to overlook the "immeasurable number
of different developmental patterns" (Dilthey, 1982, p . 316 [transl. de Mull)
that characterize the human world.
The problems just mentioned limit the fruitfulness of Heidegger's later
thinking, at least for our philosophy of development. This is a pity, because
Heidegger's later thinking emphasizes precisely the historical character of
understanding and the historicity of being, and in that context raises many
problems that are relevant to a philosophy of development. Fortunately,
Gadamer has made an attempt in his philosophical hermeneutics to "urban-
ize Heidegger's province" (Habermas, 1983, pp. 189-190). Although Gada-
mer follows Heidegger in his reversal toward a radical historicization of
being, he does not tum his back on the human sciences, as Heidegger did.
Further, Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics does not display the prob-
lems we noticed above in Heidegger's later thinking. In Gadamer's philo-
sophical hermeneutics the role of the human person in the course of history
is acknowledged. And in his practical orientation, that is, in his recognition
that thinking always is interlocked with human praxis, Gadamer to a certain
extent resembles Piaget.
As is the case with Dilthey's and Heidegger's work, in Gadamer's philo-
sophical hermeneutics understanding takes a central position. In Truth and
Method (1960 in German, rev. transl. 1989), Gadamer analyzes the process of
understanding. He criticizes Dilthey because the latter's notion of under-
standing, influenced by the methods of the natural sciences, remains mono-
logical. According to Gadamer understanding is essentially a dialogical
prcess. In a dialogue we do not primarily aim at reconstructing what the
interlocutor means, but at a joint understanding of the subject matter. Real
dialogue issues in new forms of meaning that transcend the understanding
of both interlocutors. Moreover, for Gadamer understanding primarily aims
at (practical) application . We understand primarily in order to give direction
to our actions.
Two concepts are important in this context: the notion of historyof effect
(Wirkungsgeschichte) and the notion of fusion of horizons (Horizontver-
schmelzung). The notion of history of effect resembles Dilthey's notion of
dynamic system (Wirkungszusammenhang), since it refers to the historical
movement which carries both the interpreted objects and the interpreting
subjects to a new level of understanding (see chapter 3) and (ideally) new
action upon the world. Therefore the meaning of an utterance, text, or action
is not static, but unfolds in the course of interpretation. The result of a
fruitful interpretation is a fusion of horizons: "That is why understanding is
not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as well" (Gada -
mer, 1989, p. 296). We can compare this process to an alloy of different
metals, which has qualities (e.g ., hardness) not found in the individual
metals even though other qualities in those metals (e.g., brightness) are lost.
When we read a novel, our own horizon of experience is integrated with
the one presented in the novel. Similarly, a developmental psychologist who
interprets an utterance of a child does not simply reconstruct the horizon of

the child's experience, but integrates it with the horizon of his or her own
experience (containing, among other things, the psychologist's own
developmental theory). This has important implications for the philosophy
of development as well. Every reconstruction of the development of a foun-
dational pattern presupposes a specific foundation on the part of the
philosopher; this foundation is not so much an obstacle for the reconstruc-
tion as the very condition of its possibility. Furthermore, without certain
differences between the reconstructed horizon(s) and the one on which the
reconstruction is based, the reconstruction itself would be impossible.
Although in his analysis of the process of understanding Gadamer
avoids the problematic objectivism of Foucault and Piaget, his philosophical
hermeneutics still contains a problem we noticed in Piaget as well as another
problem of its own. The first problem is this. Like Piaget, who often ex-
presses his admiration for Hegelian dialectics, Gadamer sometimes seems to
follow Hegel in his conception of h istory as an ongoing process of all -
embracing or "totalizing" integration. According to Gadamer, the process of
understanding leads to "the rising to a higher universality that overcomes
not only our own particularity but also that of the other" (see Gadamer 1989,
p. 305). On the one hand Gadamer seems to follow Heidegger in his view
that every fusion of horizons, apart from a "production" of new meanings
and therefore understanding, also results in a partial loss of meaning and
understanding Oust as the alloy gains new features and loses others). On the
other hand, though, Gadamer, like Piaget, often seems to follow Hegel in his
absolutist conception of development as an ongoing totalization.
The second problem is that Gadamer does not give a convincing account
of the problem of conflicting interpretations of (human) reality. The only
criterion Gadamer seems to offer is that interpretations are justified if they
stand their ground in the course of the history of effect (see Seebohm, 1986,
p . 282). If effective success is the only criterion, radical relativism seems to
be unavoidable. Although we agree that some form of developmental relati-
vism is indeed inevitable (see chapter 6), we believe that at least in cases
where conflicting interpretations are based on a shared (developmental)
foundation, a rational comparison of conflicting interpretations of reality is
possible. In these cases we can compare conflicting interpretations with
reality as it is reconstructed on the basis of a shared ontological founda-
tion. Especially in the (human) sciences, such a reconstruction plays a more
Structuralist and hermeneutic approaches todevelopment 239
prominent role than Gadamer admits (but see Gadamer, 1989, p. 307, where
he gives reconstruction more credit than he usually does) .
With regard to the problem of how to make an adequate reconstruction
of (human) reality, it will be useful to combine structuralist analysis with
hermeneutic understanding. In the next section we will see that this is ex-
actly what Habermas tries to do. With such an integration of the herme-
neutic and structuralist approaches to development, Habermas returns to
Dilthey, enriched by the achievements of both of these traditions.
5 Toward an integration of structuralism and hermeneutics
Like the structuralist and hermeneutic philosophers discussed in this chap-

ter, Habermas regards his philosophy as a continuation of Kant's transcen-
dental philosophy. In his discussion of Dilthey in Knowledge and Human
Interests Habermas describes a kind of analysis of rationality that is neither
purely transcendental nor entirely empirical. He discusses a theory that
offers a "non-empirical genesis of rationality that is not completely detached
from experience" (Habermas, 1973, p. 201). This theory aims at elucidating
the genesis of conceptual frameworks, in order to formulate the foundations
of communication directed at mutual understanding. Because of the contri-
bution of empirical knowledge in transcendental philosophy, Habermas
prefers to speak of his project as a quasi-transcendental philosophy.
Another title given to this project by Habermas is rational reconstruction of
the historical genesis of transcendental frameworks. In this concept of
rational reconstruction, Habermas explicitly links the hermeneutics of
Gadamer and the genetic structuralism of Piaget . In On the logic of the social
sciences (1988) Habermas already made it clear that he shares Gadamer's
dialogical conception of hermeneutics. Like Gadamer he describes under-
standing as a fusion of horizons. This means that Habermas subscribes to
the view that there is no absolute truth and objectivity. Habermas for that
reason also criticizes the objectivist view on human science (see Habermas,
1990b, p. 26). However, Habermas does not follow Gadamer in all respects.
According to Habermas hermeneutics does not have the universal import
that Heidegger and Gadamer attribute to it. In Habermas's view, human
communication often is influenced by relations of labor and power, and
these relations often cannot themselves be understood by hermeneutic
understanding. In cases where communication is distorted, this situation
cannot be understood but needs to be explained by a functional model of
understanding (see chapter 3). In this case it is necessary to abandon the

internal hermeneutic perspective and to take a perspective from without.
Such a functional reconstruction of the causes of distorted communication
also enables us to criticize this type of communication.
In their so-called debate about hermeneutics and the critique of ideology,
Gadamer forcefully argues that a functional reconstruction remains herme-
neutic in the sense that it is based on a certain pre-scientific disclosure of
reality, especially social reality. He adds that in the case of non-understand-
ing there is not necessarily any distortion of communication, since most of
these cases have to do with conflicts of interests that exclude agreement. In a
way, Gadamer's arguments against Habermas can be supported by argu-
ments of Habermas himself (d. Widdershoven, 1987, pp. 118-119). In his
discussion of rational reconstruction in Was heisst Universalpragmatik? [What
is the meaning of universal pragmatics?], Habermas rightly states that in a
rational reconstruction we cannot separate object-language and meta-lan-
guage, because in the explication of the conceptual framework the speakers
themselves are interlocutors in the reconstruction. However, in the same
article Habermas seems to think conceptual frameworks have some objective
existence (Habermas, 1976b, P: 193), such that they could be reconstructed
apart from a horizon of interpretation. We have to conclude that Habermas
is not always consistent with regard to the status of conceptual frameworks.
However, we might argue that, even when a rational reconstruction is
not an objectivist kind of observation but instead an interpretation based on
the conceptual framework of the philosopher or psychologist, this does not
reduce the value of the rational reconstruction. It enables us to interpret
specific patterns of development that are themselves open to dispute, just
like the foundations on which they are based. When a certain developmen-
tal pattern is accepted as a justified interpretation (which among other
things is dependent on the stage of development of the interlocutors dis-
cussing the reconstructed pattern), then it can help them find agreement. If
there is no common foundation of reasoning or if there are serious conflicts
of interest, we have to accept with Gadamer that rational reconstruction can
offer no solution to the disagreement.
In this book we have called this type of rational reconstruction depth
hermeneutics . In Reconstruction and Interpretation in the Social Sciences (1983,
transl, 1990) where Habermas elaborates this notion with the help of Kohl-
berg 's genetic-structuralist theory, he comes closer to Gadamer's view
(Habermas 1990b, pp. 21-42). Although he again criticizes the relativism
inherent in Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, he admits that it is im-

possible to return to some naive form of objective hermeneutics. He calls
Kohlberg's theory of moral development an example of the kind of rational
reconstruction he wants to defend.
After reading Habermas, Kohlberg agreed to this description of his
approach. Explicitly referring to Habermas, he writes: "Interpretation, the
hermeneutic art, rests on trying to come to agreement with another member
of a speech community, who is expressing his or her beliefabout something in
the world." (Kohlberg, Levine & Hewer, 1983, p. 11). A bit later, Kohlberg
concludes that the word "cognitive" here means "not only (a) phenomeno-
logical or imaginative role-taking activity, and (b) the search for logical or
inferential relations and transformations, but also (c) the definition of the
subject's structure in terms of the meanings heorshefinds in theworld" (p. 12).
However, like Habermas, Kohlberg is not always very consistent in his
interpretive tum. Kohlberg also often speaks about conceptual frameworks
as being objective. For instance, in his discussion of Habermas he wrongly
identifies his position as "hermeneutic objectivism" (p. 14). Moreover, Kohl-
berg's belief that his own theory of moral development is identical with a
philosophical justification of the highest level of moral reasoning is
problematic and ends in a naturalistic fallacy, as we saw above in chapter 6
(see also Habermas, 1990b).
Although Habermas's theoretical analysis of the possibilities and prob-
lems of developmental theories is in many respects more philosophically
coherent than Kohlberg's, even in his case some obscurities and problems
remain. In the first place it is remarkable that Habermas sticks to a notion of
a universal tel os of development and therefore excludes a priori the
possibility of "forks" in the developmental pattern. In the second place
Habermas holds on to a rather restricted ontology. He seems to distinguish
only three domains, corresponding to the three faculties of the mind
distinguished by Kant (see chapter 7). Moreover, he identifies what we have
distinguished as domains and dimensions. A problem in the dynamic of
Habermas 's developmental theory is his excessively rationalistic view of
stage transitions. Habermas seems to suppose that people make their
developmental transitions on purely rational grounds. He seems to forget
that the reasons distinguished in a reconstruction and evaluation of a
developmental pattern are always made explicit afterwards, when we look
back at the development we (or subjects whom we are investigating) have
gone through. In the actual transition, rational arguments often do not play
such a prominent role, as we were at pains to point out in chapter 5.
6 Philosophy of development: A new stage?
If we compare the philosophy of development presented in this book with

the philosophical development reconstructed in this chapter, it becomes
clear that our philosophy of development itself may be regarded as a spe-
cific stage in the development of philosophical reflection on the develop-
ment of foundations . Our reconstruction shows that in foundational analysis
after Kant, the notion of development has become an increasingly important
issue. Whereas Dilthey's philosophy approached the development of foun-
dations from both structural and hermeneutic perspectives, in the structu-
ralist and hermeneutic movements after Dilthey these perspectives took
their own course. However, in the work of Habermas and Kohlberg these
philosophical traditions are reintegrated. As we have seen, the development
of foundational analysis, like many other developments, has not been a
process of simple progress, but a complex learning process in which gains
on one side were accompanied by losses on the other.
In many respects our philosophy of development resembles Dilthey's. In
the first place we stick to his combination of structuralist and hermeneutic
lines of argument. In the second place we hold on to Dilthey's view con-
cerning the interdependence of ontological and empirical investigations. In
the third place, against later structuralists like Piaget and hermeneuticists
like Heidegger, we accept Dilthey's idea that developmental patterns need
not be linear, but may instead show many forms of branching. Of course our
philosophy of development is not identical with Dilthey's since our
approach offers a number of refinements enabling theorists to elucidate
various aspects of development that were not yet envisaged by Dilthey, at
least not explicitly. As the reader will have noticed, the philosophy of
development presented in this book draws heavily from the elaborations of
Dilthey's insights made by the stucturalists and hermeneuticists. However,
we have tried to reintegrate these two lines of argument.
In many respects our philosophy of development agrees with Haber-
mas's concept of rational reconstruction. Many of the terminological refine-
ments proposed by him, such as the distinctions between horizontal and
vertical reconstruction, and between logic and dynamic, serve as points of
departure in our approach. On the other hand, we have tried to avoid the
residual objectivism that can be found in Habermas, by retaining Gadamer's
emphasis on the hermeneutic dimension of the rational reconstruction. We
accept the developmental relativism that results from this decision, and
hence distinguish, more carefully and emphatically than Habermas did,
between the actual developments of individuals and groups and the rational
reconstruction made afterwards.
7 Conclusion
In this chapter we have situated our philosophy of development in the land-

scape of modem and contemporary philosophy, and argued that it is itself
the result of a specific conceptual development. Starting from a sketch of
Kant's rather static transcendental critique, we discussed the historicization
of the Kantian a priori in Dilthey's philosophy. Next we discussed and
evaluated the further development of Dilthey's "genetic structuralism" in
the structuralism of Foucault and Piaget and in the hermeneutics of Hei -
degger and Gadamer . Subsequently we reviewed the attempts of Habermas
and Kohlberg to integrate structuralist and hermeneutic approaches. Finally
we have assessed these integrations in terms of the philosophy of develop-
ment formulated in the first part of this book.
17 Developmental philosophy and postmodernism
los de Mul and Michiel Korthals
In the preceding chapter we have situated our philosophy of development

in the landscape of modem and contemporary philosophy. In this chapter
we will take a position against the criticisms of the notion of development
raised by so-called postmodem philosophers such as Lyotard , Foucault, and
Derrida. Although postmodemism is difficult to define and - because of
the dissemination of meaning to be discussed below (section 4) - many of
the philosophers associated with it even deny that such a definition is
possible, the critique of the typical modem notion of "development" is
without doubt one of the most striking characteristics of this heterogeneous
group of thinkers. Surely, postmodemism is right in pointing at some
problematic and sometimes dangerous aspects of traditional theories of
development. For that reason we believe this criticism is highly relevant for
any philosophy that wants to avoid these problems and dangers. However,
in this chapter we will argue that these criticisms do not hold for the
philosophy of development elaborated in this book . Moreover, we will try to
show that when it is so understood, philosophy of development is in many
respects more able than postmodemist theories to give a fruitful inter-
pretation of changes in the conceptual frameworks of individuals and
collectives.
First, we will briefly sketch some of the background of postmodem
philosophy. We will focus on two philosophers often considered as the
grandfather and father of postmodemism: Nietzsche and Heidegger. Next,
we will discuss in some detail the arguments raised against the notion of
development by Foucault, Lyotard, and Derrida. We will consider their
empirical, normative, and conceptual arguments, and evaluate them from
the point of view of our conception of the philosophy of development.
245
W. van Haaften et 01. ieds .), Philosophy ofDevelopment, 245-260.
1 Two ancestors of postmodemism: Nietzsche and Heidegger
Criticisms of developmental theories are not new. In fact these criticisms

have shadowed developmental theories from their first flourishing in the
Enlightenment. In many respects postmodern criticisms of developmental
theories echo arguments raised against the optimistic, anthropocentric, and
ethnocentric developmental theories of the Enlightenment by eighteenth and
nineteenth-century skeptics (at least with regard to the notion of develop-
ment), such as Hume, Herder, Ranke, and Schopenhauer . However, post-
modem critics have been most inspired by Nietzsche and Heidegger. As in
the case of Dilthey their philosophy is grounded in the profound histo-
ricization of the worldview in the nineteenth century. But whereas Dilthey
in many respects remained faithful to the ideals of the Enlightenment,
Nietzsche and Heidegger were extremely critical of Enlightenment opti-
mism. It is probably this extremism that has attracted many postmodern
thinkers.
If we want to situate Nietzsche in the landscape of modem philosophy
sketched in the preceding chapter, we might say that Nietzsche belongs to
the hermeneutic tradition. However - as in the case of Marx and Freud,
though more radically - Nietzsche's hermeneutics is a hermeneutics of
suspicion . Nietzsche identifies life as will to power. One of the main activities
of this will to power is interpretation. In the last analysis interpretation turns
out to be a means to overpower something (Nietzsche 1968, nr. 643, p . 342).
Seen from this perspective, reason is nothing more than an instrument of the
will to power. Human history is a constant struggle of conflicting inter-
pretations, which are inspired by certain interests and thus have an
inherently violent character. As such, interpretations constantly alter the
interpreted reality.
Nietzsche's view radically contradicts Enlightenment rationalism and
optimism. Whereas the philosophers of the Enlightenment interpreted
history as a progression to an increasingly reasonable mankind and society,
Nietzsche not only interpreted the history of Western culture as a history of
decay, but also claimed that reason itself is the main cause of this decay. In
Western culture, reason - originally only an instrument of the will to power
- has come to control the will to power, producing the nihilism that
characterizes modem culture. As we will see in the next section, it is espe-
cially Nietzsche's suspicion of reason, and his conviction that reason is an
instrument of power, that has inspired Foucault in his own genealogical"
II
writings.
Developmental philosophy and postmodernism 247
Although the later Heidegger no less than Nietzsche can be regarded as

having inspired postmodernism, in at least one respect he stands opposite to
Nietzsche . True, Heidegger agrees with Nietzsche that the history of
Western culture, that is, the succeeding stages of the understanding of being,
exhibit a decay - according to Heidegger because of an increasing
forgottenness of being (see section 4 of chapter 16). However, he regards
Nietzsche's metaphysics of the will to power not as an overcoming, but
instead as the very climax of this decay. According to He idegger modem
philosophy since Descartes (and modem culture in general) is governed by
an anthropocentric and technical understanding of being. In the "plane-
tarian imperialism" (Heidegger, 1977, p. 152) of modem, anthropocentric
culture all beings are reduced to manipulatable objects of human interests
and needs. Not only lifeless nature, but also the living world has become an
object for manipulation and consumption. However, although it seems from
this that man controls the world, in Heidegger's final analysis the techno-
logical world has become an autonomous, self-propelling system that
manipulates and controls man (d. Vermeersch, 1991; de Mul, 1991). This
becomes clear from the fact that mankind itself increasingly becomes raw
material for technological manipulation (as in the cases of genetic
engineering and electronic implantations).
Although Heidegger's "solution" for the decay of Western culture is no
less radical than Nietzsche's, it moves in the almost completely opposite
direction. Nietzsche states that only an overcoming of present-day man by
an Ubermensch, characterized by a strong will, can put an end to decadence
and nihilism - even though Nietzsche was not optimistic that this would
come about, owing to the weakness of the modem individual. In contrast,
Heidegger pleads for an attitude of resignation (Gelassenheit), in which man
lets beings be .
One of the main points of Heidegger 's critique concerns the "founda-
tionalist" character of modem philosophy. Foundationalist pretensions to
offer an ultimate (permanent, ahistorical) grounding of knowledge, truth,
reality, goodness, and beauty are as old as the history of Western meta-
physics - consider, for instance, the foundationalist role of the Idea in
Plato 's philosophy and of God in medieval philosophy, and our own dis-
avowal of foundationalism in chapter 2. However, according to Heidegger
modem metaphysics (starting with Descartes' Meditations and culminating
in Kant and Husserl) distinguishes itself by the "archimedean" role it
assigns to the human subject (d. Bernstein, 1983). In a sense Heidegger's
analysis of Dasein in Being and Time (see chapter 16) also still belongs to this
foundationalist tradition. However, after his reversal (Kehre), Heidegger

dismissed foundational thinking as such. In his later view, Being is an
"abyssal" (abgriindige) dimension that precedes every ontological foundation
and as such neither allows nor needs a foundational analysis (Heidegger,
1969, pp. 128/129). By this refusal of modernist foundational thinking he
goes beyond the opposition between foundationalism and relativism, and
thereby anticipates the later postmodemist philosophers.
2 Postmodem criticism of the empirical claims of developmental theories
In spite of their indebtedness to Nietzsche and Heidegger, not all post-

modernists are as radical in their criticism of reason and morality as their
predecessors. Foucault, Lyotard, and Derrida are not frivolous propagators
of an "anything goes" mentality, as is sometimes thought. Not only do these
philosophers usually give rational and often quite strong arguments for
their views (in this respect they do not follow Nietzsche in his radical
rejection of rationality as such), but their criticism is motivated by the deeply
disturbing problems the world faces at the end of the twentieth century.
Although their responses to the inherited quandaries of the Enlightenment
sometimes suggest that they want to get rid of the Enlightenment ideals
altogether, most of them seem to be making a radical self-criticism of the
Enlightenment rather than the total revaluation of all values (Umwertung
aller Werte) that Nietzsche called for. For that reason one might call post-
modernism the "bad consciousness of modernism" (d. Widdershoven, 1990,
p. 83). The later works of Lyotard, Foucault, and Derrida show an increasing
ethical concern, which has led them to reevaluate some of the harsher
criticisms of the Enlightenment heritage.
However, for the sake of the argument, here, we will exclusively con-
centrate on the critical part of the writings of these three authors. Their
criticisms have various themes, which can be ordered in increasing radi-
cality. In this and the following two sections we will represent three clusters
of criticisms. The first aims at a refutation of the empirical claims of classical
developmental theories. The second cluster consists of a number of criti-
cisms of the normative claims of those theories. Finally, the third cluster
purports to lay bare the conceptual weakness or even untenability of devel-
opmental theories. Though the criticisms in the first two clusters dismiss
classical developmental theories on various grounds, they do not necessarily
deny the possibility of developmental theory as such. However, some of the
conceptual criticisms do, and for that reason are challenging for a contem-
porary philosophy of development in a more fundamental way. Though the
postmodem criticisms to be discussed mainly consider theories of societal
development, their perspective is very broad and also covers theories of
individual development.
In this section we will discuss the postmodemists' criticism of the em-
pirical claims of modem developmental theories. Postmodemists claim
these theories to be (at least partially) empirically invalid. According to the
postmodemists, developmental theories present an optimistic and uncritical
image of historical development, as if it were a process of linear progression
toward an increasingly reasonable and moral society. According to Lyotard,
Kant rightly interpreted the enthusiasm of the European masses for the
French Revolution as a sign of moral progress. But a number of unprece-
dented terrors ever since - Auschwitz, the Gulag Archipelago, Cambodia,
Ruanda - have made Kant's optimism obsolete.
The tone of many postmodem writings is pessimistic, not to say apo-
calyptic. With respect to societal development, Lyotard and Foucault some-
times seem to proclaim - no less radically than Heidegger - that the
annihilation of the human species, or even of the total earth, is at hand. At
any rate, to speak about modem culture in terms of progress is at least
naive: regress is much more evident. Also with regard to individual devel-
opment postmodemist philosophers often observe decay rather than pro-
gress. In The Inhuman , for example, Lyotard argues that children preemi-
nently represent the human (using this term with its normative conno-
tation), precisely because of their indefiniteness. Adults on the other hand,
as educators represent the inhuman: "All education is inhuman, because it
never functions without pressure and terror" (Lyotard, 1991, pp. 12-13) .
The criticisms regarding the empirical invalidity of classical developmen tal
theories need no extensive discussion here. We fully agree with postmodem
thinkers that history as well as the life of individuals does not show a
univocal progress and that in many cases decay is more evident. To the
extent that classical theories identify development a priori with inevitable
progress (we must not forget that we do not find this identification in every
classical theory of development), we reject these theories no less vigorously
than the postmodemists do . As we argued in sections 4-5 of chapter 2, and
in many places thereafter, development is not to be equated with progress.
However, one should also reject the apocalyptic equation of development
and decay. We believe that from a logical point of view at least progress is not
impossible. Philosophy of de velopment intends to offer criteria that enable us
to determine developmental patterns and, moreover, to determine which of

these developments are neutral and which we may regard as decay or
progress. In this context we think the concept of development presented in
this book is sufficiently qualified to serve as a tool for interpreting changes
in the life of the individual and collectives. This concept does not imply that
every aspect of human life is subject to development. Nor does it exclude a
priori the possibility that history for the greater part is governed by chance
and contingency. Philosophy of development only refers to a part of human
life. However, we also do not want to exclude conceptual and foundational
development a priori. In this book we have argued that such development is
logically possible and even that it can be found defacto in some dimensions of
various domains of human life and experience.
3 Postmodern criticism of the normative claims of developmental

theories
When, as in the case of Lyotard, modem culture is criticized because of its

inhuman character and terror, the criticism of the empirical invalidity of
developmental theories moves toward a criticism of their normative claims.
After all, these criticisms presuppose that there are normative criteria for the
evaluation of historical change. However, as such this does not yet imply the
necessity of a reconstruction of a developmental pattern. In the preceding
chapter we noticed that Foucault in his archaeological writings of the sixties
distinguished succeeding epistemes (historical a prioris) in the history of
Western culture. Moreover in these writings Foucault, like Lyotard, im-
plicitly criticizes the modem episteme. However, in doing so they do not
refer to a developmental pattern.
In fact, Lyotard and Foucault explicitly refuse to use the notion of dev-
elopment, because according to them no developmental patterns can be
distinguished in history. Like Nietzsche, Foucault seems to conceive history
as a battle of contingent and conflicting interpretations: "Humanity does not
gradually progress from combat to combat until it arrives at universal
reciprocity, where the rule of law finally replaces warfare; humanity installs
each of its violence's in a system of rules and thus proceeds from dom-
ination to domination" (Foucault, 1984, p . 85). In The Inhuman Lyotard ex-
plicitly refuses the notion of development because of its metaphysical
character. His argument strongly resembles Nietzsche's interpretation of
metaphysics as an "ideology" masking a decadent type of the will to power

(though Lyotard does not follow Nietzsche in his idolization of it).
This Nietzsche-inspired type of criticism of the normative claims of dev-
elopmental theories is especially elaborated in Foucault's "genealogical"
writings of the 1970s (Foucault, 1986, see chapter 16; 1991). Whereas in his
archaeological writings Foucault mainly restricts himself to a (positivistic)
description of the successive epistemes, in his genealogical writings he does
pretend to explain the transformation from the classical episteme to the
modem episteme (which, in Foucault's view, starts with Kant's Copernican
revolution). Foucault supposes that power and knowledge are closely con -
nected. Knowledge is always connected not only with certain interests, but
also with social practices. Knowledge enables practices that transform
reality, and these practices in their tum produce knowledge. Knowledge is
not a sheer representation or reproduction of reality; instead the power-
knowledge complex produces reality. According to the nominalist Foucault,
power cannot be conceived of as one (metaphysical) unity, but has to be
studied in the various local power-knowledge complexes (or dispositives).
Like Nietzsche, Foucault wants to interpret the struggle of interpretations
that underlie social practices and knowledge. Contrary to his "positivist"
archaeological descriptions of the succeeding epistemic structures, Foucault
regards his genealogical investigations as biased interpretations that serve
the interests of those who were enslaved by the dominant disciplinary dis-
positives. Thus, contrary to Nietzsche, Foucault in his genealogical writings
does not associate himself with the strong, but instead with those who are
marginalized by these dispositives, such as homosexuals, the mentally ill, and
delinquents.
In his writings of the 1970s Foucault in a way seems to complement
Heidegger's analysis of the "planetarian imperialism" of modem culture.
Whereas Heidegger focuses on the way modem natural science "dis-
ciplines" nature (including man), Foucault in his later books (1986, 1991)
directs our attention to the role played by the human sciences, such as psy-
chiatry, psychology, and pedagogy, in disciplining modem man. According
to Foucault the human sciences have played a crucial role in the formation
of the modem subject. In power-knowledge complexes such as education,
health service, and criminal law the formation of the modem individual
took place. In Changing the Subject: Psychology, Social Regulation and
Subjectivity, Henriques and his co-authors have applied Foucault's genea-
logical method to Piaget's developmental psychology (Henriques, Hollway,
Urwin, Venn & Walkerdine, 1984). They argue that this theory is not a
description of the development of the individual, but an instrument used in

education to discipline individuals. With the help of this theory children are
"being developed" (in a transitive sense) according to the theory, that is:
forced - with the help of a subtle complex of prohibitions and rewards -
to go through a number of stages, whereas the educational practices in their
tum provide a constant stream of knowledge about deviations that urges the
development of corrective practices (Henriques, Hollway, Urwin, Venn &
Walkerdine, 1984,pp. 11-25).
At this point the criticism of the Enlightenment ideal of progress takes on
a more radical character. Foucault argues that there is an inherent
connection between progress, the new idea of segmenting in stages, and the
disciplining of the body. The development of the modem individual and
disciplinary techniques are two sides of the same coin . In the end, Foucault's
criticism of developmental theories no longer points at their empirical
invalidity but - conversely - at the fact that they create a certain empirical
validity by means of debasing disciplinary and normalizing practices.
Whereas in traditional Platonic metaphysics the body was conceived of as
the prison of the soul or mind, in Foucault's Nietzschean inversion of
Platonism the mind - that is, the conceptual schemata reconstructed by
developmental theories - becomes the prison of the body.
With regard to the postmodem criticisms of the normative claims of
developmental theories, we would first emphasize that these criticisms
inevitably presuppose some kind of moral standard. For example, in the
case of Lyotard's book on the postmodem condition, we find an explicit
appeal to the principle of justice: "Consensus has become an outmoded and
suspect value. But justice as a value is neither outmoded nor suspect" (Lyo-
tard, 1984, P: 66). Lyotard concludes his book on the same high moral note:
"This sketches the outline of a politics that would respect both the desire for
justice and the desire for the unknown" (Lyotard, 1984, p. 67). It is especially
important to mention this appeal to justice because some of the more
sophisticated conceptual criticisms to be discussed below do not seem in line
with it. Moreover, from a developmental perspective Lyotard's appeal to the
principle of justice sounds problematic, because it is by no means clear that
there is only one concept or principle of justice. In our view the concept of
justice is itself subject to development and for that reason has to be
differentiated according to the learning processes of the individuals. Some
form of "vertical" (stage) relativism (see chapter 6) therefore is implied in
the philosophy of development presented in this book. Moreover, philos-
ophy of development does not exclude the possibility of different devel-
opmental patterns within a single domain, and as a consequence it leaves

room for "horizontal" relativism as well. Insofar as postmodernism means
pluralism, the philosophy of development presented in this book seems
more postmodern than Lyotard's own critique.
However, the problem just mentioned does not dissolve the normative
criticisms. As we have seen, Foucault and Lyotard 's first criticism is that
with developmental theories a new type of theory emerges which has
intrinsic disciplining effects . In reply to this criticism we first want to clearly
recognize that developmental theories do influence social practices. The case
of Piaget is a very clear example of this influence, because in the field of the
human sciences there are few theories, from university research programs to
mass media educational magazines, that have so deeply penetrated social
practices. However, although developmental theories may have had more
influence than many other theories, we do not believe that their practical
dimension is unique in this regard. On the contrary, we fully agree with
Foucault that knowledge never has the form of pure heavenly theory, but is
always connected with social practices. In this basic respect there is no
difference between developmental theories and Foucault's own genealogical
writings, which (deliberately) have also promoted and justified such prac-
tices as the protest movement on behalf of delinquents, mentally ill, etc.
For that reason, the discussion has to be focused on the question of
whether developmental theories indeed have disciplinary effects and - if
they do - whether these effects are inherently harmful. In our view it
cannot be denied that developmental theories do have disciplinary effects,
though we do not believe that all effects of these theories are disciplinary or,
more generally, that all disciplinary effects are harmful. Insofar as some
developmental theories have had unfortunate effects, this has been mainly
the case because their authors, including Piaget and many of his pupils, (1)
presupposed that developmental patterns are something that can be found
in reality instead of being interpretations, (2) believed that there is only one
developmental pattern for all humans, and (3) failed to distinguish properly
between empirical claims and normative claims concerning developmental
patterns. It is because of these presuppositions that a developmental theory
can be made into a straitjacket, turning people involuntarily in a certain
direction. However, as we have repeatedly argued in the foregoing chapters,
our point of departure is that (1) reconstructions of a certain development
are always interpretations, (2) the developmental pattern can be a fork
instead of a linear and uniform sequence, and finally, (3) no normative
conclusions can be derived solely from empirical claims to development (see
section 4 of chapter 2, and section 3 of chapter 16). Reinterpreted in this way,

developmental theories are not instruments for discipline but rather a means
of liberation, in that these theories help educators to enable persons to
develop themselves according to their own individual potentials. In this
way developmental theories contribute to the project to which Foucault
devoted his last writings: the development of a notion of subjectivity beyond
the disciplinary realm.
4 Postmodern criticism of the conceptual claims of developmental

theories
In addition to the postmodem arguments against the alleged empirical and

normative claims of developmental theories, we also find a number of
conceptual objections made against these theories. In this section we reflect
and discuss the four most important ones.
The first objection, formulated by Lyotard and Foucault, is aimed at the
alleged universal claims of developmental theories. In fact this objection
refers to several different aspects of developmental theories. In the first
place - the criticism here is connected with the normative criticism dis-
cussed above - it is argued that the universalism of developmental theories
points at the fact that the notion of development functions as a meta-
narrative: that is, an all-comprehensive narrative that functions as an onto-
logical and normative justification for societal practices. According to
Lyotard the time of these meta-narratives - centered around notions like
emancipation, humanity, and development - is over. Nowadays, there is
no single meta-narrative which can count on general agreement. In the
second place, the criticism of universalism points at the holistic, not to say
monolithic tendencies in developmental theories, tendencies that cause them
to fail to appreciate the diversity of cultures and individuals and the
diversity or complexity within cultures and individuals. This criticism
assumes that developmental theories must have hierarchical ordering
conceptual patterns that destroy their particularity by eventually fusing
them into a single unifying and totalizing theory. In a way, Foucault himself
fell victim to this holistic tendency during his archaeological period, by
distinguishing rather holistic epistemes that were supposed to control all
aspects of culture for several centuries. However, in his later genealogical
period Foucault turned to "micro-theories," in which he focuses on local
power-knowledge complexes that are not taken to be representative for
modem culture as a whole. The writings of Lyotard are characterized by a

comparable critique of "totalizing" pretensions: "Let us wage war on tota-
lity; let us be witnesses to the unpresentable; let us activate differences and
save the honor of the name" (1984,p. 87).
A second, related, conceptual argument raised by postmodemists against
developmental theories concems their alleged teleological character. Fou-
cault, for example, argues that developmental theories necessarily presup-
pose some kind of telos or millennial ending, in which all disagreements and
differences between individual interests will be reconciled. According to the
postmodemists the concept of telos as well as other implicitly comparative
notions like development and emancipation, belong to a metaphysical
tradition that has become hopelessly problematic. Also at this point the
postmodemists themselves sometimes seem caught up in some form of
(negative) teleology, for example when they present apocalyptic images of
the future. But of course this observation only points to a certain incon-
sistency of the postmodemists and does not undermine their argument
against traditional developmental theories itself.
A third conceptual argument of the postmodernists is that there are no
justifiable criteria which can ground our preference of one stage vis-a-vis
another. Postmodem criticism generally is inclined to emphasize the rela-
tivity of different language games and normative positions. In this they join
the structuralist and hermeneutic transformations of transcendental philos-
ophy discussed in the preceding chapter (section 2). However, the view that
conceptual frameworks may differ in time and space (i.e., from one culture
to the next) is often radicalized by postmodern thinkers. In its most radical
variant, postmodemists argue that no justification of the better claim is
logically possible. In the context of his discussion of the relation between
narrative knowledge and science, Lyotard argues: "It is therefore impossible
to judge the existence or validity of narrative knowledge on the basis of
scientific knowledge and vice versa: the relevant criteria are different. All we
can do is gaze in wonderment at the diversity of discursive species, just as
we do at the diversity of plant or animal species" (Lyotard, 1984, p. 84).
The fourth criticism of developmental theories is probably the most
radical one. It is implied in Derrida's notion of dissemination of meaning. As
Asher puts it: "Derrida proceeds as if the connection between words and the
world were arbitrary and proscribes any serious attempt by language ade-
quately to reflect the world as the worst kind of mauvaise foi" (Asher, 1984,p.
171). According to Derrida, in the tradition of Western metaphysics philos-
ophical theories always have aimed at the disclosure of a "transcendental

signified," that is, an ultimate foundation of being and thought (e.g., Idea,
God, History, or Being). However, metaphysical statements consist of lin-
guistic signs, and are unable to transcend the realm of language. In his
writings Derrida aims at showing that the transcendental signifieds pro-
posed by metaphysical theories from the past never succeed in the re-
presentation of reality itself. Derrida - radicalizing Heidegger's thesis that
language is the house of Being - provocatively claims that nothing "exists"
outside the text. Signs always refer to other signs (words and concepts) and
are part of an endless play that cannot be controlled by man. The sign always
is in a process of dissemination and its meaning never can be fixed . Here we
hear an echo of Heidegger's conception of an uncontrollable and abyssal
history of Being, one that precedes every ontological foundation and as such
does not allow or need a foundational analysis.
However, Derrida does not pretend that he is able to destroy meta-
physics, because he states that we can pronounce not a single destructive
proposition which has not already had to slip into the form, the logic, and
the implicit postulations of precisely what it seeks to overcome (Derrida,
1978, pp. 280-281). Instead of aiming at a complete destruction of meta -
physics, Derrida aims at revealing the denotative failures of metaphysics in
order to create room within which the event of the totally other can happen
(laisser venir l'aventure ou l'eoenemeni de tout autre; Derrida, 1987, p. 61). Here
again we hear the echo of Heidegger, this time his notion of Gelassenheit as a
precondition for the possibility of Being revealing itself. Derrida's approach
is generally known as deconstruction. However, we should not forget that
Derrida is not advocating deconstructivism as a philosophical method or
position. He claims that Western culture itself has reached a stage of decon-
struction. Deconstructionists in fact only reveal the decline of founda-
tionalist metaphysics at the end of the modem era .
According to Derrida, one of the metaphysical theories that quite re-
cently have become "victims" of deconstruction is structuralism. In a lecture
called Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences (in
Derrida 1978, pp . 278-293), Derrida argues that the word "structure" is as
old as Western philosophy. In this tradition the play of structure, or as
Derrida also calls it, the structurality of structure, "has always been
neutralized or reduced, and this by a process of giving it a center or of
referring it to a point of presence, a fixed origin" (1978, p . 278). According to
Derrida, the notion of structure on the one hand makes possible the constant
substitution or transformation of contents and elements, but on the other
hand itself escapes from this play which it opens up . In other words, struc-
turalism, no less than other metaphysical theories, tries to control "the play
of signifiers" by claiming that structure is a timeless concept that refers to a
fixed entity which itself does not belong to the ever-fleeting world of
contents and elements. However, according to Derrida, the pretension to
have access to a transcendental signified has become utterly problematic
since the linguistic tum: "Everything became discourse - provided we can
agree on this word - that is to say, a system in which the central signified,
the original or transcendental signified, is never absolutely present outside a
system of differences. The absence of the transcendental signified extends
the domain and the play of signification infinitely" (1978, p. 280). According
to Derrida this significantly comes to the fore in the different attempts to
destruct foundationalist metaphysics. Because there is no archimedean point
of criticism, destroyers like Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger are able to
destroy each other reciprocally - for example, Heidegger regarded
Nietzsche as the last metaphysician (Derrida 1978, p. 281). At first sight
Derrida seems to be the most consistent in his analysis of the consequences
of the deconstruction of modernist-foundationalist theories in the last
century. If his dismissal of foundational thinking as such were justified, this
would effectively undermine the claims made in the present book about
justification within a genetic structuralist philosophy of development.
Before evaluating Derrida's radical critique, we will first reply to
Lyotard's and Foucault's less radical criticisms of the metaphysical
connotations of the concept of development. With regard to the alleged
universal claims of developmental theories we admit that this notion in
classical developmental theories - above all in Hegel's Odyssey of the
Mind - has an undeniably strong metaphysical dimension and as such has
functioned as an ideology or a meta-narrative. Were one to try to justify a
theory of development by seeking refuge in absolute categories like
"Progress" or "Humanity," then the postrnodern critique would be correct.
However, we believe that our own reinterpretation of the concept of
development - in Lyotard's terminology we might call our project "a
rewriting of modernity" - successfully overcomes the "foundationalist"
connotations this concept once possessed. After all, the philosophy of
development we defend implies that an absolutist foundation is not possible
at all. We have argued that there is no archimedean point from which one
could provide a definite justification. However, this does not mean that
justification of foundations as such is impossible, even though it does imply
that all justifications are relative in more than one respect (see chapter 6). In
short: with regard to foundationalism, we are as critical of modernism as the

postmodern philosophers are.
The postmodern criticism of universality is strongly connected with the
conviction that diversity should be preferred to universality. However, the
philosophy of development defended in this book does not so much argue
against d iversity but, on the contrary, provides arguments in favor of
conceptual diversity. Even the basic notion of qualitatively different stages
requires that differences should not be overlooked. As chapters 7-13 illus-
trate, we distinguish between several dimensions in various domains of
development. Also, our insistence that there can be different developmental
patterns within each domain has to be regarded as a defense of diversity.
Moreover, the attention to structural similarities between expressions within
each of the stages presupposes a diversity at the level of expressions. In
conclusion, we believe that our approach is much more cognizant of
diversity than the often monolithic historical periodizations we find in the
writings of Heidegger and - at least in his archaeological period - Fou-
cault (see de Mul, 1996, chapter 8).
With regard to the critique of the alleged teleology of developmental
theories, a concise answer is possible. As argued so emphatically in section 3
of chapter 2, the idea of a preformed pattern with a definite end-state or
telos is by no means a necessary feature of the concept of development.
Insofar as classical developmental theories did presuppose such a telos, we
fully agree with postmodern criticisms of them. However, because
development is not inherently teleological, we need not reject the concept of
development as such.
With regard to conceptual relativism we also agree with the postmodern
criticism of absolutist metaphysics, though only to a certain extent. We have
argued above that there are no stage-independent criteria for evaluating
foundational development in several dimensions of the domains discussed in
this book. Though we have argued that in cases where no forks occur in the
developmental pattern, justification is in principle possible (see chapter 6
above), we hold that conceptual relativism is unavoidable in cases of
branching. However, even in these cases the resulting relativism is partial in
the sense that there need be no relativism within foundational stages. For a
person or a collective, criteria may have an absolute character.
Turning now to Derrida's critique, we will again start with the points of
accord. In a sense, our notion of development includes a notion of dissemi-
nation. After all, we do not believe that concepts refer unproblematically to
fixed entities in reality. We hold that each conceptualization of a certain
domain of reality - be it science, morality, or art - bears the marks of the

context of the conceptual framework as a whole. Conceptual development
may be defined as a constant reconstruction of our conceptual framework.
In that sense we agree with Derrida's critique of the notion of a "transcen-
dental signified."
We also agree with Derrida's criticism of static structuralism, as found in
the earlier works of Levi-Strauss and in Foucault's archaeological writings.
In our philosophy of development, however, the structure under consider-
ation is not an invariant structure that exists somewhere beyond history, but
rather is in a constant process of transformation. In this respect even Piaget's
genetic structuralism is an important improvement over classical structural-
ism (see section 3 of chapter 16). The very notion of "development" is not an
ahistorical entity, but is instead a conceptual tool that itself undergoes
constant development. The reformulation of the concept of development in
this book may count as an example of the liquid character of structural
concepts.
However, we are not willing to go as far as Derrida does in deconstruct-
ing this concept. The fact that the notion of "development" is itself in devel-
opment is no reason to abandon it altogether. The difference between Der-
rida's position and our own has to do with (1) a different conception of
reference, and (2) a different view of the ultimate consequences of the
deconstruction of modernist foundationalist philosophy.
Derrida's radicality with regard to the issue of reference - and at this
point, especially in his writings of the sixties, he is even more radical than
Nietzsche and Heidegger - consists in his thesis that the referent is nothing
morethan an effect of a differential system of signs, that is, of what Derrida calls
differance (Derrida, 1981, pp. 17-36). However, in our opinion the fact that
every sign in the process of signification always refers to other signs, and for
that reason never can realize an absolute reference to a reality outside the
system of signs, does not imply - as Derrida seems to presuppose - that
signs do not refer to any extralinguistic reality at all. With Dilthey we defend
the idea that a historically and culturally variable conceptual framework
always has to prove itself in experience. A system of signs only receives its
articulation in a confrontation with an extralinguistic reality, although this
reality as such (that is, independent of the conceptual framework of the
beholder) remains, as Kant has rightly argued, unknowable. However, that
we do not have access to reality as such does not mean that we do not have
access to reality at all.
In the last analysis the difference between deconstructivism and philos-

ophy of development is connected to these different interpretations of the
consequences of the decline of the foundationalist project of modernist
philosophy. Both deconstructivism and philosophy of development agree
that the kind of absolutist foundation defended by the Cartesian-Kantian
tradition is no longer defensible. But whereas deconstructivism, following
the later Heidegger, directs its attention to the loss of the absolutist preten-
sions - and in this respect indeed "slips into the form, the logic, and the
implicit postulations of precisely what it seeks to overcome" - philosophy
of development emphasizes the limited possibilities of justification that can
be defended after the decline of absolutism. The fact that the pretension of
an absolute foundation of our knowledge, normative standards, and values
is no longer defensible does not mean that there can be no justification of
knowledge, normative standards, or values at all. Claiming this amounts to
throwing out the baby with the bath water. In this book we have tried to
show that some limited forms of justification are possible. Those who think
that this is not sufficient still stick to the "superhuman" absolute standards
that have become obsolete. Finite justification is the type of justification
finite beings like man can realize. Nothing less and nothing more.
5 Conclusion
In this chapter we have reflected on some postmodern criticisms of tradi-

tional developmental theories and evaluated them from the point of view of
developmental philosophy elaborated in the preceding chapters. Though we
agree with some of Lyotard's, Foucault's, and Derrida's criticisms of the
empirical and normative claims of traditional developmental theories, we
have argued that these criticisms do not hold for the philosophy of
development presented in this book. With regard to the conceptual criti-
cisms of the notion of development, we have argued that the connotations
criticized by the postmodern authors - telos, universality, absolutism - are
not necessary features of the concept of development. As far as these
connotations can be found in traditional theories of development, we fully
agree with postmodern criticisms of them. We also agree with the post-
modern critique of modernist philosophical foundationalism. However,
whereas some postmodern philosophers conclude from the decline of mod-
ernist foundationalism that justification as such has become obsolete, we
defend a notion of finite justification.
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Index
a priori 48, 52f., 104, 224ff., 231f£. biological model of development 18,
accommodation ｾ assimilation 201
aesthetic development 135f£., 143 Blasi, A 132
aesthetics, the aesthetic domain Blocker, H.G. 140
135f£., 186f£. Blum, L. 120
affirmation & negation 112 Boom, J. 23,103, 106£.
age (in relation to stage) 60, 78 Boyd, D. 69, 128f£.
Allen, W.D. 188 Brahms, Johannes 81
Apel, K.-O. 40, 85f£., 119f., 178f. branching ｾ fork
Appel, Karel 141 Brezinka, W.203
archaeology (Foucault) 229ff. Busch-Rossnagel, N .A 95
Aristotle 16, 18, 26, 120, 138, 156f., Byrne,D.119
185 Callan, E. 214
art theories 138ff. Candee, D. 8, 126
artistic development 183f£., 186 care (ethics of) 126£.
Asher, K. 255 Carey, S. 106
assimilation & accommodation 77, Carnap, R. 153
193 Carr, D. 31
asymmetry (in development) 87 Case, R. 102, 104, 107
Auerbach, J. 128 causal explanation 32f., 39f., 43f., 67
autonomy (personal) 127, 209, 211f£., Cezanne, Paul 195
215f£. Chalmers, A.F. 153f.
Aviram, A 214 Chapman, M. 8,59,61,63,95, 101,
Bach, Johann Sebastian 81 108, 112f.
Bacon, Roger 156 Chi, M.T.H. 112
bag-of-virtues approach 208, 212, Childe, V.G. 98
220 Clastres, P. 174
Baillargeon, R 102,106 Clignet, R. 183, 190f£.
Baldwin, J.M. 55f£., 94 closure (of a structure) ll1f.
Barrow, R 20 Coffrey, AW. 149
Barthes, R 139,143 cognitive development 101f£., 232
Baumgartner, A 204 cognitive domain 101f£.
Beethoven, Ludwig van 26, 81 Colby, A 122f£., 204
Beilin, H . 68, 94 collective development ｾ
being 233ff., 247ff., 256 individual
Bendix, R 165f. communication 239f£.
Benhabib,S. 129, 131 community 214f£.
Benn, S.L. 217 Comte, A. 98f.
Berger, J. 196 Condorcet, M.J.AN.C. de 164
Bernstein, RI. 247 conflict (cognitive) 53, 205f£.
conservation 106f.
283
consistency (principle of) 84, 205f. Dray, W. 41, 68

Constable, John 189 Dreyfus, H .L. 230
constructivism 227ff., 231ff. Duchamp, Marcel 137
content learning & structure Durham, R 140
learning 20f., 203ff., 207, 219ff. Durkheim,E.174,209
continuity & discontinuity 23, 64, dynamic ｾ logic
192 Eckensberger, L.H. 31
critical thinking 215 Eco, U.139
Crittenden, J. 214ff. education & development 7, 19f.,
Da Vinci, Leonardo 195 199ff., 206ff., 211ff.
Damerow, P. 187 education (material & structural)
Danto, A. 4, 150 203ff.
De Boer, Th. 40, 57 Einstein, A. 156,159,186
De Mey, M. 156 Eisenstadt, S.N . 173, 174
De Mul, J. 139,188,195,228,233, Elliott, RK. 19
236,247,258 empiricism 153, 224f.
De Saussure, R. 60 epistemology 108, 225, 231
De Sousa, R 136 equilibration 64f., 108ff., 113ff.
decalage 107 evaluation ｾ reconstruction
decentration 156, 159ff., 189, 193 evaluative development claim 27f.,
deconstruction 256ff. 75ff., 116, 143ff., 175ff., 250ff., 255
deductive-nomological explanation explanation & prediction 33ff., 67f.
32f. fallibilism 85,154
depth hermeneutics 51, 55ff., 68f., feelings 136, 226
240 Finley, M.1. 167
Derrida, J. 12, 245, 248, 255ff. Flanagan, O . 60f., 77, 131
Descartes, R 224,247,260 Flavell, J.H. 61f.
description & evaluation 14, 146, fork in development 26f., 241f., 253
175, 197,223 form & content 46,191
development (the concept of) 8, formalism (in art) 139, 142
13ff., 18ff., 201f., 259 Foucault, M. 12, 166, 223, 229ff., 233,
development claim 8, 22f., 57f., 75ff., 236, 238, 243ff.
116, 143ff., 175ff. foundation 4, 40, 43, 47f., 51, 200,
Devries, R 204 235,238,256
Dewey, J. 209 foundational analysis 5, 43ff., 200,
differentiation & integration 50, 62f., 242
90, 145f., 227 foundational development 3, 5, 43ff.,
Dilthey, W. 12, 223ff., 246, 259 49ff., 72, 75, 80ff., 204, 238, 242,
dimension ｾ domain 258
directionality of development 108, foundationalism 4f., 247f., 256ff.
197 Fowler, J. 11,59,80,96
domain & dimension (of develop - Freire, P. 209
ment) 17, 57ff., 93ff., 97, 103, 106, Freud, S. 94, 138, 147, 246, 257
137 functional explanation 19,34, 39f.
Dostoyevsky, Fjodor M. 35, 38 Furth, H.G . 203
Index 285
Gablik, S. 183, 189ff. hermeneutic explanation 36, 39f., 56,

Gadamer, H.-G. 12,32, 36f., 139,223, 61,68
231, 233, 237ff. hermeneutics 55ff., 70, 223ff., 237ff.,
Galileo (Galilei) 1, 156 246ff.
Garcia, R 62,68, 103, 111, 159 heteronomous & autonomous
Gardner, H. 140 morality 121f., 211ff., 217ff.
Gellner, E. 98f., 169f., 173, 176ff. Hewer, A. 129, 132, 241
Gelman, R. 102, 106 Higgins, A. 95, 202, 207, 209
genealogy (Foucault) 231, 251ff. highest stage of development (status
genetic fallacy 77 of) 60, 72, 85, 129f., 167
genetic structuralism 3, 50ff., 69, Hirst, P.H. 201f., 206
192ff., 225, 232ff., 259 Hobhouse, J.T. 178
Gergen, K. 96 Hollway, W. 251f.
Gewirtz, J. 59 horizontal reconstruction 57ff., 224;
Giddens, A. 56, 70 ｾ vertical
Gilligan, e. 11,24,27,51,70,119, Hornstein, H. 213
121, 126ff. Hospers, J. 135, 137, 184
Glymour, e. 70 Housen, A. 140
Gmunder, P. 11, 80, 96, 98 Hume, D. 43f., 153, 225, 246
Gombrich, E.H . 141, 183, 188ff. Husen,J.19
Goudsblom, J. 171 Husserl, E. 230, 234f., 247
Gray,J.217 Hutchinson, J.E. 112
growth & development 15f. identity thesis (Kohlberg) ｾ
Gruber, H .E. 203 isomorphism
Habermas, J. 12,21,40, 55ff., 96,99, ideology 56f., 240, 251
119, 130f., 171f., 178f., 204f., 223, improvement ｾ progress
237ff. incommensurability 155, 228
Haeckel, E. 94 individual & collective forms of
Halford, G.5. 106 development 3, 14ff., 93ff., 98,
Hall, G.S. 94 137f., 156ff., 164, 177f., 183,226
Hamlyn, D.W. 18ff., 172, 201, 225 indoctrination 204, 212
hard stages & soft stages 97 Inhelder, B. 106
Hare, RM. 207 initiation into tradition ｾ tradition
Hare, W.217 integration ｾ differentiation
Harvey, W. 156 intellectual development ｾ
Hawkes, T. 139 cognitive
Hegel, G.W.F. 164, 183, 186ff., 196ff., interpretation 36f., 56, 68, 71, 146,
228,232,238,257 233ff., 237, 240, 246
Heidegger,M. 12, 139, 170,223, irreversibility of development 25, 61
231ff.,245ff. is-ought (Kohlberg) 79f., 178
Hempel, c.c, 67f. isomorphism (developmental
Henriques, J. 251f. psychology and ethics) 69f., 79f.,
Herbart, J.F. 213 241
Herder, J.G. von 246 James, Henry 1
Johnson, M.140
judgment criteria 2, 6, 82ff., 87, 148, Locke, D. 208

217 Locke, J. 3, 224
just community approach 208 Loevinger, J. 97
justice (distributive & retributive) logic & dynamic 6f., 23ff., 59ff., 63,
121ff., 128, 252 70, 81,95,107,169,229f.
justification 47, 75ff., 83ff., 116, 119, Luhmann, N . 40
131,136, 147, 175ff., 257, 260 Lyotard, J.-F. 12,245, 248ff.
Kandinsky, Wassily 196 MacIntyre, A. 31f.
Kant, I. 12,44, 50ff., 58, 79,85, 96, Makkreel, RA. 227
103f., 120, 122, 135f., 212, 223ff., Malewitch, Kazimir 196
239ff., 247ff. Mann,M.174
Kegan, R 97 Martini, Simone 194
Kesselring, T. 206 Marx, K. 9, 98, 165, 170, 180, 246
Kimball, B.A. 211 McNeill, W.H. 180
Kitchener, RF. 68f., 156, 232 Mead, G.H. 145
Kohlberg, L. 5ff., 17,20, 24ff., 45ff., meaning 35ff., 241ff., 256; ｾ levels
57f., 61, 69f., 75, 78ff., 89f., 95, 97, mechanistic model of development
107, 119ff., 140, 172, 178, 199, 32f., 39ff.
202ff., 211ff., 240ff. Meiland, J.W. 228
Koopman, C. 11 Milburn, G. 20
Korthals, M. 57f., 64, 69, 71f., 128 Miller,M.61,l64,204
Krohn, W.156f. mimesis (in art) 138, 141, 184, 190
Kuhn, T.S. 5,49,81, 153ff., 158ff., Mink, L.O. 31
190ff. modernism 197f., 245ff.
Kurtines, W. 59 Mondriaan, Pieter C. 145, 196
Kymlicka, W. 214 Montesquieu, C. S. de 164
Lakatos, I. 57, 153, 158ff. Moore, B. 72
Langford, G. 200f. moral development 2, 37ff., 78ff., 88,
learning & development 7, 19ff., 119ff.,202ff.
164ff., 168ff., 203ff. moral dilemmas 123, 127ff., 209
learning principles 64f., 68 moral education 202ff., 207
learning process (the concept of) morality, the moral domain 78,
168ff.,201 119ff., 123, 127ff.
Lee,J.26 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 26,81,
Leibniz, G.W. van 224 184ff.
Lemaire, T. 194f. Murphy, J.M. 24
Lerner, RM. 95 Nabokov, Vladimir 71
levels of meaning (expressions, Nagel, E. 201, 205
reasons, foundations) 45ff., 56ff., Nagel, T. 71
144,204 Napoleon (Bonaparte) 36
Levi-Strauss, L. 140, 166, 259 narrative model of man 35, 39ff., 89,
Levine, C. 128ff., 241 227
liberal education 211ff. naturalistic fallacy 77f., 86
Lickona, Th . 207 Needham, J. 65
Linton, R 166 Neiman, A. 82
Index 287
Nelson, B. 173f. Popper, K.R. 153ff., 158ff., 188f., 197/

Neumann, F. 66 221
Newton, I. 156ff., 185f. Posposil, L. 174
Nietzsche, F.W. 231/ 245ff., 257/ 259 Postlethwaite, M. 19
novelty 108ff., 116 postmodernism 245ff., 254ff.
Newell-Smith, P. 119 Pott/ H. 136
Nucci, L. 26 Power, F. C. 95/202/207/209
O/Hear, A. 211 pre-operational, concrete opera-
object of the development claim 25f. tional/ & formal operational
object permanence (Piaget) 104ff. stages 104ff., 149f., 194ff.
one-stage-above approach 204ff. preconventional, conventional, &
ontogenesis & phylogenesis 14 postconventionallevels 124ff.,
ontology 44/ 48/ 114/ 225/ 234ff. 145f., 150f., 204/ 207/ 213ff.
organismic model of development progress & development 14f., 24f.,
33/39ff. 64/77/81/ 108ff., 116/ 143f., 157/
Oser, F. 5/ 11/ 80/ 96/ 98 184ff.,189/ 192ff., 249f., 252/ 257
Osterrieth, P. 60 progression & regression 24/ 64/ 66/
Overton, W.F. 31/ 68 159
Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da 81 progressivism 9/ 249; ｾ progress
Panofsky / E. 171/ 180 Prox, L.139
Parsons, M.J. 5/ 11/57/80/135/ 140ff. psychologist's fallacy 202/ 209
Pascual-Leone, J. 107 Ptolemy 156/ 159
pattern of development 22f., 59ff., Rabinow, P. 230
70/77/95/ 192f., 227/ 240/ 250 Radding, Ch. 55/ 98f.
Paul, R.W. 215 Ranke, L. von 228/ 246
Paz, Octavio 184 Raphael (Santi) 194
periodization 98/ 167 ratio & narratio 26/ 47
perspective (in art) 194f. rationality 36ff., 83ff., 136f., 157ff.,
perspective taking 119/ 124/ 150f. 169/172/177/212/225/239ff.,
Peters, R.S. 19/119/ 201f., 205ff., 211/ 246ff.
218ff. Rawls, J. 79f., 129f.
Phillips, D.C. 78 recapitulation thesis 94
philosophical anthropology 12 reconstruction & description 6/ 67f.
philosophy & social sciences 58f., 69/ reconstruction & evaluation 27f.,
226ff. 60ff., 75ff., 143f.
philosophy of education 199ff. reconstruction & explanation 55ff.,
Piaget, J. 2ff., 11f., 18/20/ 47ff., 55/ 67f.
60ff., 68f., 77f., 89ff., 94ff., 101ff., Reese 31
119ff., 145/ 149/ 155ff., 172/ 174/ reflective abstraction 103/ 109ff.
183/187/ 190/ 193ff., 198f., 202f., regression ｾ progression
223ff., 251/ 253/ 259 relativism 72/81/ 166/ 225ff., 233/
Picasso, Pablo 185/ 191/ 195 238/242/258
Pines, S. 180 Rembrandt (H. van Rijn) 142/ 185
Plato 120/ 138/ 151/ 247/ 252 representation of space (enactive,
iconic, & symbolic) 194ff.
respect for persons 88, 122, 130 structuralism 9, 140, 223ff., 229ff.,
responsibility 123f., 217 259
Rest,J.119 structure learning ｾ content
Reuchlin, M . 90 subject & object 156, 193ff., 226, 232
Ricoeur, P. 3lf. subject of development 34, 38, 55
Robin, AF. 112 subjectivity & objectivity 136, 146
Rousseau, I.-J. 3, 7, 212 Swanger, D . 152
Sahlins, M. 174 Swanwick, K. II, 96
Salieri, Antonio 184 Tamir, Y. 215
Sandel, M.J. 214 Taylor, Ch. 34, 214
Sartre, J.P. 230 teleological explanation ｾ functio-
Sasseta (Stefano di Giovanni) 189 nal explanation
scale of understanding 40f., 68 telos (end-state of development)
Scheffler, 1. 81f., 87, 202, 221 18f., 241, 255, 258
Schluchter, VV.55 theoretical, practical, & aesthetic
Schonberg, Arnold 185, 187 reason 58, 96
Schopenhauer, A 246 Thiessen, E.J. 214
scientific community 154ff. Thomas, RM. 4
scientific development 153ff. Tobin, B. 120
Seebohrn, Th.M. 238 tradition 207f., 213ff., 218ff.
Selrnan,R. 59, 119, 150, 152, 164 transcendental argumentation 83ff.,
sensorimotor stage 103ff. 179
Seurat, Georges P. 191 transcendental philosophy 213,
Sheppard, A 138 223ff., 234ff., 239ff.
Shotter, J. 201 Turgot, AR.J. 164
Siegal, M. 122 Turiel, E. 26
Siegel, H. 69, 82, 159, 215, 218, 221 universality (claimed for develop-
Silbereisen, RK. 31 mental patterns) 21, 61, 96, 166ff.,
Snik, G.L.M. 4,83,88,214,217 233, 241, 253ff., 257
societal development 65, 98, 163, universalizability (in ethics) 79, 124,
173ff. 131
socio-eultural factors in Urwin, C. 251f.
development 64f., 68, 72, 170ff., value clarification 213, 220
227,233 Van der VVeyden, Rogier 195
sociomoral development 119ff., Van Geert, P. 59
173ff. Van Gogh, Vincent 135, 144f., 148
solidarity 121, 131 Van Haaften, AVV. 4, 23, 26, 69,
Spector, J.J. 138 81ff., 87f., 147, 214, 217
stage transition 107ff., 180, 191, 241 Venn, C. 251f.
stages (developmental) 2, 16ff., 23, verification & falsification 154
49f., 6Off., 106f. Vermeersch, E. 247
Stolnitz, J. 138 vertical reconstruction 59ff., 224; ｾ
story (as related to human life) 31f., horizontal
35 virtues (moral & intellectual) 208f.,
Straughan, R. 132, 200, 208 220f.
Index 289
Voltaire (P.M. Arouet) 164

Von Bertalanffy, L. 34
Voneche, J.J. 203
Vreeke, G.J. 128
Vuyk, R.103
Vygotsky, L. 7,8,51,221
Wachs, H. 203
Walkerdine, V. 251£.
Warhol, Andy 137
Watt,J.213
Weber, M. 40f., 170
Webem, Anton von 81
Weinreich-Haste, H. 128
Wemer,H.62
Wesel, U. 174
White, J. 217
Widdershoven, G.A.M. 36, 240, 248
Williams, B. 175
Wilson, J. 200
Winckelmann, J.J. 186
Wittgenstein, L.J.J.48
worldview 97, 227
Wren, T.E. 17
Wright, L. 20, 201
About the authors
Jan Boom studied psychology and philosophy in Amsterdam. He was a

member of the research group on philosophy of development at the Uni-
versity of Nijmegen and received his Ph .D. there with a dissertation on the
concept of developmental stages. He has published several articles on
psychological and philosophical topics, in Human Development, the Journal of
Moral Education, and elsewhere. He is now associate professor of psychology
at the University of Utrecht.
Wouter van Haaften studied Dutch language and literature, theology, musi-
cology, and philosophy in Utrecht and New York. His doctorate in philos-
ophy is from the University of Leiden, with a dissertation on epistemo-
logical relativism. He has written widely on philosophy of education and
philosophy of development and related subjects, including articles in the
Journal of Philosophy of Education, Studies in Philosophy and Education, and
elsewhere. He is professor of philosophy and chair of the department of
Philosophy and History of Education at the University of Nijmegen.
Michiel Korthals studied philosophy and sociology in Amsterdam and

Heidelberg and received his Ph .D. at the University of Amsterdam with a
dissertation on the Frankfurt school of social criticism. He was a member of
the research group in philosophy of development at the University of
Nijmegen, and also was senior research fellow at the universities of Frank-
furt and Leiden. He has written widely on issues in social philosophy, in-
cluding articles in Theory and Psychology and Philosophy and Social Criticism .
He is currently professor of philosophy and chair of the department of
philosophy at Wageningen Agricultural University.
loe de Mul studied philosophy and art history in Utrecht and Amsterdam.
He has been a member of the research group on philosophy of development
at the University of Nijmegen, and received his Ph.D. degree at the Uni-
versity of Nijmegen with a dissertation on Dilthey. His latest book is The
Tragedy of Finitude: Dilthey's Hermeneutics of Life (Yale University Press). He
is now professor of philosophical anthropology and aesthetics at the Uni-
versity of Rotterdam.
291
GerSnik has studied general education at Groningen University and taught

for several years in the Dutch school system. He obtained his Ph .D. at the
University of Nijmegen with a dissertation on the relation between educa-
tion and personal development. He has published several articles on topics
in the philosophy of education, which have appeared in the Journal of Moral
Education, Studies in Philosophy and Education, and elsewhere. He is presently
associate professor of philosophy of education and member of the research
group on philosophy of development at the University of Nijmegen.
Guy Widdershoven studied philosophy and political science in Amsterdam.

He received his Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam with a dissertation on
the relation between action and rationality in modem philosophy. He was a
member of the research group on philosophy of development at the Univer-
sity of Nijmegen. He has edited books and written articles on the relation
between hermeneutics, psychology and health sciences, and has made con-
tributions to The Narrative Study of Lives (R. Josselson & A. Lieblich, Eds.,
resp. vols. 1 and 4, Newbury Park, Ca: Sage, 1993, 1996). He is now pro-
fessor of philosophy and medical ethics at the University of Maastricht.
Thomas Wren studied philosophy, English literature, and educational psy-

chology in Chicago. His doctorate is from Northwestern University, where
he wrote a dissertation on moral philosophy. He has written and edited
several books and articles on ethics, moral psychology, and the history of
philosophy. His most recently authored books are Caring about Morality
(MIT Press/Routledge) and Promise-Giving and Treaty-Making, with P.
Karavites (Brill). He is professor of philosophy at Loyola University of
Chicago, where he also teaches in the graduate School of Education.
Philosophy and Education
1. C.J.B. Macmillan and J.W. Garrison: A Logical Theory of Teaching. Erotetics and
Intentionality. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2813-5
2. J. Watt: Individualism and Educational Theory. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0446-2
3. W. Brezinka: Philosophy of Educational Knowledge. An Introduction to the Founda-
tions of Science of Education, Philosophy of Education and Practical Pedagogics.
1992 ISBN 0-7923-1522-7
4. J.H. Chambers: Empiricist Research on Teaching. A Philosophical and Practical
Critique of its Scientific Pretensions. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1848-X
5. I. Scheffler: Teachers ofMy Youth. An American Jewish Experience. 1995
ISBN 0-7923-3232-6; (Ph) 0-7923-3236-9
6. P. Smeyers and J.D. Marshall (eds.): Philosophy and Education: Accepting Wittgen-
stein's Challenge. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3715-8
7. J.D. Marshall: Michel Foucault: Personal Autonomy and Education. 1996
ISBN 0-7923-4016-7
8. W. van Haaften, M. Korthals and T. Wren (eds.): Philosophy of Development.
Reconstructing the Foundations of Human Development and Education. 1997
ISBN 0-7923-4319-0
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS - DORDRECHT/ BOSTON / LONDON

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Philosophy of Development

Reconstructing the Foundations of

WOUTER VAN HAAFfEN

ISBN 978-90-481-4770-0 ISBN 978-94-015-8782-2 (eBook)

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved

PART ONE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

1. Philosophy of development: an invitation

PART TWO THEORIES OF INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE

7. Dimensions of individual and collective development in various

PART THREE DEVELOPMENTAND EDUCATION

14. Conceptual development and education

PART FOUR PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT

16. Structuralist and hermeneutic approaches to development

Philosophy of development has as its object a broad and fascinating area of

The individual chapters bear the names of the individuals primarily

Wouter van Haaften

Wouter van Haaften and Thomas Wren

humans who develop. Moral thinking is a form of creative imagination, of

The younger child's experiences are no less intense and complex or at

We shall return to Piaget's developmental theory throughout this book. But

2 Survey of the chapters

In the first part of this book (comprising chapters 2 to 6) we propose a gener-

problems. Next, theories in three domains of individual development are

In chapter 16, it is positioned between the two major movements of struc-

Wouter van Haafien

The term "development" is used in many different ways. This chapter be -

1 The many faces of "development"

matically mean progress. We can without any contradiction speak of an

2 "Development" and "change"

The term "development" is a member of the family of change-words. Other

In order to avoid m isunderstandings it must be emphasized again that

0 ° 0 -0. • • • •• •• • • • • "0. "0" • • • • • •

Figure 1. Domain anddimensions ofdevelopment

There is another implication of the general notion of change that we

3 "Development" and "learning"

Admittedly, the proposed definition of "development" is still very broad,

development we must be able to see it as connected essentially in some way

ment to come about (Wright, 1986). Education, learning, and development

character of that stage, on the one hand, and "structurallearning processes"

Another confusion that can now be made transparent concerns the

Figure 2. Progression andregression through time,

For the same reason it is wrong to make irreversibility a defining charac-

5 Reconstruction and evaluation

At this point we would like to emphasize one last important distinction. We

Guy Widd ershoven

Models and metaphors play an important role in the human sciences. In a

1 The mechanistic model

2 The organismic model

The organismic model of man is based on the metaphor of the biological

model the development of individuals, groups, or societies is seen as a

3 The narrative model

The narrative model of man is founded on the metaphor of the story. It is

In the narrative model, meaning is dependent upon interpretation. The

finishes Crime and Punishment by saying that Raskolnikov's transformation is

4 Relations between the models

The three models of development described above approach human devel-

to causal relations and none to hermeneutic ones. The existence of causal