how is necessary knowledge possible

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Review: How Is Necessary Knowledge Possible? Author(s): Richard F. Kitchener Review by: Richard F. Kitchener Source: The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 108, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 443-449Published by: University of Illinois PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1422900Accessed: 05-03-2015 01:30 UTC

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Learning by Duckworth (1987). Gruber stresses the importance of the feeling of wonder in scientific work and the need to convey this feeling to students. The feeling of wonder and excitement is conveyed admirably in Creativity. Sandra W. Russ Psychology Department Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH 44106

References Barron, F, & Harrington, D. (1981). Creativity, intelligence, and personality. In M.

Rosenzweig & L. Porter (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 32, pp. 439-476). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.

Duckworth, E. (1987). The having of wonderful ideas and other essays on teaching and learning. New York: Teacher's College Press.

Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds: An anatomy of creativity seen through the lives of .Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. New York: Basic Books.

Isen, A., Daubman, K., & Nowicki, G. (1987). Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1122-1131.

Russ, S. (1993). Affect and creativity: The role of affect and play in the creative process. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Shaw, M., & Runco, M. (1994). Creativity and affect. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

How Is Necessary Knowledge Possible?

Necessary Knowledge: Piagetian Perspectives on Constructivism By Leslie Smith. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1993. 220 pp. Cloth, $49.95. Although the work ofJean Piaget is widely known among the general public, his theory has often been misunderstood by both friend and foe. Psychol- ogists acknowledge him as one of the two or three most seminal psychologists of the twentieth century, yet they too have not been very successful in interpreting his research program. The problem is that Piaget not only had a theory of cognitive-psychological development, he also had a theory of knowledge-genetic epistemology-and very often these two have been conflated. In truth, his genetic epistemology was his primary and lifelong concern, and it was this that drove his empirical, psychological research (Kitchener, 1986).

Among philosophers and psychologists, few read, appreciate, or have interest in his genetic epistemology, but for different reasons: Philosophers typically distrust nonphilosophers when the latter write on epistemology; psychologists typically distrust other psychologists when they wax philosophical. Piaget's psychology fares not much better: Philosophers have little interest in it, and many psychologists consider it to be empirically in deep trouble, to constitute, in the phrase of Lakatos (1980), a "degenerating research programme."

Why then write a book on Piaget's genetic epistemology and psychology?

Learning by Duckworth (1987). Gruber stresses the importance of the feeling of wonder in scientific work and the need to convey this feeling to students. The feeling of wonder and excitement is conveyed admirably in Creativity. Sandra W. Russ Psychology Department Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH 44106

References Barron, F, & Harrington, D. (1981). Creativity, intelligence, and personality. In M.

Rosenzweig & L. Porter (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 32, pp. 439-476). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.

Duckworth, E. (1987). The having of wonderful ideas and other essays on teaching and learning. New York: Teacher's College Press.

Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds: An anatomy of creativity seen through the lives of .Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. New York: Basic Books.

Isen, A., Daubman, K., & Nowicki, G. (1987). Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1122-1131.

Russ, S. (1993). Affect and creativity: The role of affect and play in the creative process. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Shaw, M., & Runco, M. (1994). Creativity and affect. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

How Is Necessary Knowledge Possible?

Necessary Knowledge: Piagetian Perspectives on Constructivism By Leslie Smith. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1993. 220 pp. Cloth, $49.95. Although the work ofJean Piaget is widely known among the general public, his theory has often been misunderstood by both friend and foe. Psychol- ogists acknowledge him as one of the two or three most seminal psychologists of the twentieth century, yet they too have not been very successful in interpreting his research program. The problem is that Piaget not only had a theory of cognitive-psychological development, he also had a theory of knowledge-genetic epistemology-and very often these two have been conflated. In truth, his genetic epistemology was his primary and lifelong concern, and it was this that drove his empirical, psychological research (Kitchener, 1986).

Among philosophers and psychologists, few read, appreciate, or have interest in his genetic epistemology, but for different reasons: Philosophers typically distrust nonphilosophers when the latter write on epistemology; psychologists typically distrust other psychologists when they wax philosophical. Piaget's psychology fares not much better: Philosophers have little interest in it, and many psychologists consider it to be empirically in deep trouble, to constitute, in the phrase of Lakatos (1980), a "degenerating research programme."

Why then write a book on Piaget's genetic epistemology and psychology?

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The answer is: to sort things out conceptually, to set aside misinterpretations and misunderstandings, to determine what kinds of empirical facts really are (or would be) embarrassing to Piaget, all of this with the aim of getting a better understanding of Piaget's program.

Smith achieves all these goals with consummate skill and scholarship. He knows full well that Piaget's genetic epistemology is not the same as his psychology; he has read-really read-Piaget, traipsing through the vol- umes of untranslated French works; he has spent a considerable amount of his career trying to interpret Piaget correctly (as well as criticizing him when appropriate). The result of all of this is an excellent work on Piaget's theory.

The central theme of Smith's work is (nominally) a critical account of Piaget's constructivist theory about necessary knowledge, about how the individual's conception of necessity develops. But while pursuing this aim, Smith also provides his own original and interesting account of several concepts and related issues. Smith plays on a dual keyboard, discussing necessity both from a psychological and philosophical point of view.

The central problem underlying the book is the following: Assuming the adult recognizes the necessity of certain relationships, consequences, and concepts, how is this possible when the individual at birth has no such conception and has available only non-necessary cognitive instruments? How, in short, can necessity come from the non-necessary? This is an important issue in (genetic) epistemology because adult knowledge presupposes a rec- ognition of necessity-of what must be the case, of what is possible, of what is contingent, etc. Indeed, such a notion seems central to the very nature of a concept, and such a notion is central to all logical inferences, because the concept of validity is typically defined in such modal terms.

Chapter 1 is an informative introduction to a set of background issues concerning the nature of necessity. In particular, Smith claims there are three sets of related claims about Piaget's theory: First, there is a philosophical claim that concepts have defining (necessary, essential) properties as opposed to nondefining (contingent, empirical) properties associated with it. (This claim would be questioned by several philosophers and psychologists.) These defining properties, Smith implies, are normative in nature, whereas the latter are empirical. (Why they are normative is never made clear.) Second, there is a psychological (empirical) claim to the effect that children gain their initial knowledge by use of the nondefining properties of concepts. Finally, there is the epistemological claim that this constructive process is one of differentiation, integration, and coordination, resulting in a coherent system. (It is never made clear what the nature of this epistemological strand is and how it relates to philosophy and psychology.)

Smith also provides a useful discussion of various theories of necessity, including Platonism, rationalism, Humean empiricism, and Kant's transcen- dentalism. Missing, however, are other equally important theories of necessity: Aristotelian essentialism, the linguistic theory, and the pragmatic theory. Smith misses the important tie between Aristotle and Kripke-a modern- day essentialist-and thereby misses the opportunity to see that one can

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have a theory of necessary, essential properties that is also a posteriori. In addition, a better choice of an empiricist would have been John Stuart Mill instead of Hume, who (contrary to Smith) was not an empiricist about necessity.

The next chapter is a summary of Piaget's empirical epistemology. This is an excellent chapter, which discusses, among other issues, the complex relations between philosophy and psychology, the empirical and the normative, the epistemological and the psychological. Piaget, we are told, transformed normative (philosophical) questions (e.g, What is knowledge? How is knowledge possible? What is necessary knowledge?) into their respective empirical questions (How do different types of knowledge succeed in growing with respect both to their intensions and their extensions? How do the different types of knowledge become possible? How does the actual process of construction result in atemporal norms?). The problem with this claim, however, is that the normative dimension is not eliminated (reduced) in the latter "transformations," because one has to make a normative decision about what constitutes knowledge. However, if normative claims are still present in the latter transformations, how is this supposed to be an empirical solution to the initial problem about normativity? If the normative status of such inquiry is eliminated by using epistemic terms in quotes, why not just do the same for the former claims? It would have helped Smith's discussion if Piaget's distinction between restricted and generalized genetic epistemology were clarified and stressed. In any case, Smith is clear that Piaget's genetic epistemology is both empirical and epistemological (normative) and hence that he cannot avoid the normative dimension simply by doing empirical research. Indeed, Smith makes the point that Piaget is knee-deep in normative issues, because the very process of construction and its consequent stagelike nature are normative in nature.

The two questions that arise, therefore, concern the adequacy of Piaget's normative and empirical accounts. Although Smith devotes some space to the former (see also Kitchener, 1986), he spends considerably more time on the latter.

According to Smith, an adequate analysis of the empirical standing of Piaget's theory involves several component issues: First, empirical research into genetic epistemology is necessarily driven by epistemological assump- tions (broadly Kantian ones about basic epistemic categories and capacities) and cannot be eliminated. Next, one must design a task relevant to assessing the absence or presence of this epistemic category. In so doing, one must specify criteria for a correct response along with appropriate procedures. Finally, one must develop a general method and methodology for all of the above. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 take up these issues and thus are collectively concerned with the empirical standing of Piaget's theory.

Chapter 3 contains an excellent discussion of Piaget's empirical methods and methodology. Both Piaget's critical method and his earlier methode clinique from which it developed are briefly discussed by Smith, but the heart of the chapter is a discussion of Piaget's methodology, that is, the theoretical justification of the use of the critical method.

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Chapter 4 is concerned with what procedures are appropriate in the empirical evaluation of Piaget's theory-in particular, with the question of whether experimental studies are necessary or not. After discussing several senses of "experimental," Smith concludes that although Piaget does use an experimental method in the forensic sense, he does not employ it in the more standard sense. However, Smith has reservations about whether the latter is necessary for the empirical testing of Piaget's theory.

The focus of chapter 5 ("Tasks") is the question of what performances are necessary, sufficient, or both, for assessing (inferring) the possession of knowledge (competence). Smith concludes that (standard) assessment tasks are not sufficient because of a variety of reasons, including the competence- performance distinction, the issue of conceptual displacement (decalage), etc. (Presumably, however, such assessment tasks would be necessary for the empirical testing of Piaget's theory.) In short, all assessment tasks under- determine the ascription of epistemic competence to the individual and, as a result, psychologists have been overly sanguine about the falsifiability of Piaget's theory.

What, then, is Smith's view about the current empirical status of Piaget's theory?

The argument in Chapters 3-5 has been that although there are psychological challenges to consider in relation to the acceptability of Piaget's account of the construction of necessary knowledge, those challenges do not require substantial change to that account. Piaget's main problem has been variously bypassed or subjected to inappropriate operationalisation in much psychological research. This research may have contributed substantially to the psychology of childhood without significantly addressing a central issue in empirical epistemology. (p. 123)

In chapter 6, Smith discusses "alternatives to constructivism," in particular, social constructivism (e.g., Harre) and Fodor's nativism. There are excellent discussions and criticisms of both of these alternatives, which are committed to Platonism and hence incompatible with constructivism. Smith concludes that Piagetian constructivism has more explanatory potential than either of these two approaches. This raises the question, however, of the nature of Piaget's explanation of developmental change-the mechanism of epistemic construction, which presumably will involve the concept of equilibration. All of this is nominally the subject of chapter 7, "Epistemic Construction." However, there is unfortunately little discussion of this key explanatory notion-equilibration-although there is a sustained discussion of formal models of constructivism.

Finally, chapter 8 provides an overall conclusion. In brief, Smith concludes, the empirical dimension of Piaget's theory is not that bad after all, because much of the negative evidence accumulated by psychologists is simply mis- placed owing to inherent misunderstandings and misinterpretations of Pia- get's theory or based upon incompatible theoretical commitments (e.g., to nativism). All of this concerns the empirical or psychological strand in Pia- get's genetic epistemology. What then of the philosophical and the epistemological strands? Although Smith says relatively little, at least explicitly,

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about the epistemological strand mentioned earlier, the philosophical strand in Piaget is addressed throughout the book, if often only tacitly. Indeed, Smith is concerned with the larger philosophical issues surrounding both Piaget's psychology and his genetic epistemology because genetic epistemology contains both normative (philosophical) and empirical (psychological) issues.

There is, in particular, one philosophical strand I wish to draw attention to because I believe Smith is in error about it and because it nicely illustrates how substantive philosophical issues can underlie the methodological issues debated by psychologists while doing their empirical research.

Piaget's critical method is a dialogical, dialectical, or Socratic method of question-answer-question, where the child must answer a question by providing a response or judgment and then justify this answer by providing a reason for it. If the child cannot justify the response given, we have insuf- ficient evidence for the child's possession of knowledge. Hence, a child knows a proposition p only if the child can provide a justification for his belief (judgment) that p. This is the J-J (justification for judgment) method.

Smith discusses and criticizes the contrary position, held by many psychologists, that judgment alone is sufficient for ascribing knowledge to the child (i.e., the child knows that p only if the child believes p and p is correct)- the J method. Such issues are not merely methodological ones, however; they presuppose a substantive epistemological issue about the underlying nature of knowledge. To show that Piaget is correct about the (tacit) substantive epistemological issue, Smith looks to two dominant, contemporary philosophical accounts concerning the nature of knowledge: foundationalism, and the causal theory of knowledge. Both accounts (in different ways) support Smith's interpretation of Piaget.

It is at this point, however, that serious questions arise about several of Smith's claims. It is not just the reservation that these two accounts are not the only ones available concerning the nature of knowledge (see Shope, 1983), it is Smith's use of these accounts that seems questionable to me.

First, Smith (correctly) claims that the standard pre-Gettier account of knowledge is that a person S knows that p iff (if and only if) (a) S believes p, (b) p is true, and (c) "the person is justified in believing p." This classical account, which Smith endorses, is committed to foundationalism, and foundationalism requires the J-J account because of condition (c). (Although Smith does not define it, we may take foundationalism to be the view that person S is foundationally justified in believing p iffS is justified in believing p, S is noninferentially justified in believing p, and p inferentially justifies S in believing other propositions q, r, s, etc.)

First, the classical account of knowledge is not (contrary to Smith) a version of foundationalism. For example, Lehrer (1974) has defended a modified version of the classical definition of knowledge, in which knowledge is (roughly) undefeated, justified, true belief, but Lehrer completely rejects foundationalism. Second, what Smith should have said is that the classical account of knowledge requires the J-J account. But this is also mistaken because the

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third condition does not specify that "the person must be able to provide a justification for his belief p." Hence the classical definition of knowledge does not entail the J-J account. But (for the same reason) neither does foundationalism require the J-J account. Hence, neither the classical nor foundational account entails theJ-J account. But even less so does the causal theory, the other epistemological alternative that Smith discusses, entail the J-J account. Hence, neither of Smith's philosophical positions supports the J-J account. In fact, both are compatible with the J account. Hence, Smith has offered no philosophical (epistemological)justification for theJ-J account and, a fortiori, for the preferability of the J-J over the J account.

I would suggest that Smith has misidentified the real epistemological issue underlying methodological disputes concerning the appropriate testing of children's knowledge. The issue is not foundationalism versus nonfounda- tionalism but rather internalism versus externalism.

Internalism is the view that if S is justified in believing p, then not only must there be a justification for S to believe p (say, j) but S himself must be aware of (have access to, be able to provide) j. Externalism is the view that if S is justified in believing p, S need not be aware of (have access to, be able to provide) j, because other agents may be aware of S's justification, no one may be aware of it, etc. (See, e.g., Luper-Foy, 1988.)

It is clear, I think, that on Smith's interpretation of Piaget, Piaget is committed to what can be called genetic epistemological internalism: a child S knows that p only if S judges that p, there is a justification j for p, and S can provide j. But another possibility would be genetic epistemological externalism: a child S gives judgment p and there is a justification j for p even though S cannot provide j. Smith is really claiming that the Piagetian J-J methodology is committed to internalism. This seems to me to be correct. However, the real question is whether internalism is adequate. I have my reservations. To be able to give a reason (justification) j for judgment p requires that S not only have the belief (a representation) but that S be aware of this belief (a belief about a belief) and be aware of the justification for this belief. This requires what some would call a metacognitive level- a representation of a representation. However, it seems clear that cognition emerges earlier than metacognition does, (partly) because the latter is at a higher cognitive, representational level than the former. Indeed, this metacognitive view is one Piaget himself articulated and defended in several later works (e.g., Piaget, 1974/1976; 1974/1978). If there are, as Piaget suggests, different epistemic levels (e.g., success vs. understanding) and if the latter is developmentally and epistemically more complex than the former, then clearly a child may be at the earlier level but not at the later one. If so, then the child may possess knowledge (e.g., know-how) but not be able to justify it (know-that). If so, then this latter account of the growth of knowledge needs to be squared with Piaget's earlier account of his methodology.

All of this raises questions about whether and why Piaget insisted on J-J, that is, internalism. If he did assume this view in his methodology, he did not seem to have good substantive epistemological or empirical grounds to

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do so. If he did not assume this view, then are his methodological critics correct about their claim that children know things much earlier than Piaget was willing to countenance? Can their views be criticized on methodological grounds? All of these questions await more sustained discussion.

Although I have raised some objections to Smith's account, this should in no way overshadow the positive contribution of the book. He has given a balanced perspective on the empirical dimension of Piaget's genetic epistemology, and he has also defended certain philosophical conceptions relating to genetic epistemology. Philosophers and psychologists may disagree with both assessments, but Smith is certainly correct that any assessment of Pi- aget's program must involve the kind of collaborative discussion of philosophy and psychology that I believe Smith's book so admirably illustrates. Richard F. Kitchener Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Ft. Collins, CO 80523

Refee ences Kitchener, R. F (1986). Piaget's theory of knowledge: Genetic epistemology and scientific

reason. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lakatos, I. (1980). Falsifiability and the methodology of scientific research pro-

grammes. In J. Worrall & G. Currie (Eds.), Imre Lakatos: Philosophical papers (Vol. 1, pp. 8-101). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Lehrer, K. (1974). Knowledge. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Luper-Foy, S. (Ed.). (1988). Internalism. Synthese, 74, 263-414. Piaget, J. (1976). The grasp of consciousness (S. Wedgwood, Trans.). Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1974) Piaget, J. (1978). Success and understanding (A. Pomerans, Trans.). Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1974) Shope, R. K. (1983). The analysis of knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press.

The Lure and Limits of Young Children's Utterances

Language Development From Two to Three By Lois Bloom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ix + 514 pp. Paper, $24.95. To provide a context for Lois Bloom's new book Language Development From Two to Three, we have to look not at recent child language research but at work carried out in the 1960s. The theoretical underpinning of that work was transformational grammar, an approach to language which even in the 1960s was multifaceted but which nevertheless took the idea of universal base structure as its guiding hypothesis. On the assumption of universal base structure, human linguistic knowledge involves a common core, which is built on and transformed in ways that differ from language to language. Because the core must in some sense precede the variations, the implication

do so. If he did not assume this view, then are his methodological critics correct about their claim that children know things much earlier than Piaget was willing to countenance? Can their views be criticized on methodological grounds? All of these questions await more sustained discussion.

Although I have raised some objections to Smith's account, this should in no way overshadow the positive contribution of the book. He has given a balanced perspective on the empirical dimension of Piaget's genetic epistemology, and he has also defended certain philosophical conceptions relating to genetic epistemology. Philosophers and psychologists may disagree with both assessments, but Smith is certainly correct that any assessment of Pi- aget's program must involve the kind of collaborative discussion of philosophy and psychology that I believe Smith's book so admirably illustrates. Richard F. Kitchener Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Ft. Collins, CO 80523

Refee ences Kitchener, R. F (1986). Piaget's theory of knowledge: Genetic epistemology and scientific

reason. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lakatos, I. (1980). Falsifiability and the methodology of scientific research pro-

grammes. In J. Worrall & G. Currie (Eds.), Imre Lakatos: Philosophical papers (Vol. 1, pp. 8-101). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Lehrer, K. (1974). Knowledge. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Luper-Foy, S. (Ed.). (1988). Internalism. Synthese, 74, 263-414. Piaget, J. (1976). The grasp of consciousness (S. Wedgwood, Trans.). Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1974) Piaget, J. (1978). Success and understanding (A. Pomerans, Trans.). Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1974) Shope, R. K. (1983). The analysis of knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press.

The Lure and Limits of Young Children's Utterances

Language Development From Two to Three By Lois Bloom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ix + 514 pp. Paper, $24.95. To provide a context for Lois Bloom's new book Language Development From Two to Three, we have to look not at recent child language research but at work carried out in the 1960s. The theoretical underpinning of that work was transformational grammar, an approach to language which even in the 1960s was multifaceted but which nevertheless took the idea of universal base structure as its guiding hypothesis. On the assumption of universal base structure, human linguistic knowledge involves a common core, which is built on and transformed in ways that differ from language to language. Because the core must in some sense precede the variations, the implication

449 449 BOOK REVIEWS BOOK REVIEWS


Article Contentsp.443p.444p.445p.446p.447p.448p.449

Issue Table of ContentsThe American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 108, No. 3, Autumn, 1995Front MatterDifferences in Divergent Thinking as a Function of Handedness and Sex [pp.311-325]Accuracy of Metacomprehension Judgments for Questions of Varying Importance Levels [pp.327-344]Symmetrical Cuing Effects for Item and Position Information [pp.345-358]Orientation Specificity: How General Is It? [pp.359-380]Selective Influences of Age and Speed on Associative Memory [pp.381-396]History of PsychologyAnger Theory and Management: A Historical Analysis [pp.397-417]Creative Cognitive Processes in Kekul's Discovery of the Structure of the Benzene Molecule [pp.419-438]

Book ReviewsVisions of Creativity [pp.439-443]How Is Necessary Knowledge Possible? [pp.443-449]The Lure and Limits of Young Children's Utterances [pp.449-457]As Time Goes by [pp.457-460]Eye Movements and Cognitive Processes [pp.460-464]The Nature of Memory Span Deficits in People with Severe Learning Difficulties [pp.464-470]

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how is necessary knowledge possible

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