Genetic Epistemology

GENETIC EPISTEMOLOGY Jean Piaget TRANSLATED BY ELEANOR DUCKWORTH The Norton Library W • W ·NORTON & COMPANY· INC· NEW YORK COPYRIGHT @ 1970 BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS First published in the Norton Library 1971 by arrangement with Columbia University Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY JN CANADA BY GEORGE J. MCLEOD LIMITED, TORONTO Books That Live The Norton imprint on a book means that in the publisher's estimation it is a book not for a single season but for the years. W. W. Norton SBN 393 & Company, Inc, 00596 8 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 12}4567890 GENETIC EPISTEMOLOGY * 1 * GENETIC EPISTEMOLOGY attempts to explain knowledge, and in particular scientific knowledge, on the basis of its history, its sociogenesis, and espeCially the psychological origins of the notions and operations upon which it is based. These notions and operations are drawn in large part' from common sense, so that their origins can shed light on their significance as knowledge of a somewhat higher level. But genetic epistemology also takes into account, wherever possible, formalization-in particular, logical formalizations applied to equilibrated thought structures and in certain cases to transformations from one level to another in the development of thought. The description that I pave given of the nature of genetic epistemology runs into a major problem, namely, t~1e tra~ ditional philosophical view of epistemology. For many philosophers and epistemologists, epistemology is the study of 1 2 GENETIC EPISTEMOLOGY knowledge as it exists at the present moment; it is the anal~ ysis of knowledge for its own sake and within its own [ framework without regard for its development. For these persons, tracing the development of ideas or the development of operations may be of interest to historians or to psychologists but is of no direct concern to epistemologists .. This is the major objection to the discipline of genetic epistemology, which I have outlined here. But it seems to me that we can make the following reply to this objection. Scientific knowledge is in perpetual evolution; it finds itself changed from one day to the next. As a result, we cannot" say that on the one hand there is the history of knowledge, and on the other its current state today, as if its current state were somehow definitive or even stable. The current state of knowledge is a moment in his~ tory, changing just as rapidly as the state of knowledge in the past has ever changed and, in many instances, more rapidly. Scientific thought, then, is not momentary; it is not a static instance; it is a process. More specifically, it is a process of continual construction and reorganization. This is true in almost every branch of scientific investigation. I should like to cite just one or two examples. The first example, which is almost taken for granted, concerns the area of contemporary physics or, more specifically, microphysics, where the state of knowledge changes from month to month and certainly alters significantly within the course of a ye"ar. These changes often take place even within the work of a single author who transforms his view of his subject matter during the course of his career. GENETIC EPISTEMOLOGY 3 Let us take as a specific instance Louis de Broglie in Paris. A few years ago de Broglie adhered to Niels Bohr's view of indeterminism. He believed with the Copenhagen school that, behind the indeterminism of microphysical events, one could find no determinism, that indeterminism was a very deep reality and that one could even demonstrate the reasons for the necessity of this indeterminism. W