MARIO BUNGE Treatise on Basic Philosophy VOLUME 5 Epistemology & Methodology I: :XPLORING THE WORLD ga kluwer the language of scienceMARIO BUNGE Treatise on Basic Philosophy VOLUME § Epistemology & Methodology I: EXPLORING THE WORLD D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY AMEMBER OF THE KLUWER ‘ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LANCASTERLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data ap Bunge, Mario Augusto. Exploring the world. (Epistemology & methodology ; 1) (Treatise on basic philosophy ; ¥. 5) Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Knowledge, Theory of. 2. Methodology. I. Title. II. Series: Bunge, Mario Augusto. Epistemology and methodology, 1. III. Series: Bunge, Mario Augusto. Treatise on basic philosophy ; v. 5. BD161.B86 1983 121 83-3236 ISBN 90-277-1511-4 ISBN 90-277-1523-8 (pbk.) Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers 190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, MA 02043, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland. All Rights Reserved © 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Company. Dordrecht, Holland No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner Printed in The NetherlandsCONTENTS OF EPISTEMOLOGY I GENERAL PREFACE TO THE TREATISE v pReFAcE TO EPISTEMOLOGY I & Il xiii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii SPECIAL SYMBOLS xix INTRODUCTION 1 1, Descriptive Epistemology 1 2. Normative Epistemology (Methodology) 4 3. Epistemology and Biology 6 4. Epistemology and Psychology 8 5. The Place of Epistemology 10 6. Uses of Epistemology 13 7. Concluding Remarks 16 PART 1, COGNITION AND COMMUNICATION 19 1, COGNITION 21 1. The Knowing Subject 23 1.1, The Cognitive Organ 23 1.2, Brain States and Processes 28 2. Cognitive Functions 35 2.1. Perceiving, Thinking, and all that 35 2.2. Learning 42viii CONTENTS OF EPISTEMOLOGY 1 3. Development and Evolution 50 3.1. Cognitive Development 50 3.2. Cognitive Evolution 57 4. Concluding Remarks 59 |. KNOWLEDGE 61 1. From Cognition to Knowledge 62 1.1. Knowledge Acquisition and Use 62 1.2. Knowledge Evolution 67 2. Modes of Knowledge 72 2.1, Basic Categories 72 2.2. Tacit and Explicit Knowledge 77 3. Belief 80 3.1, Belief System 80 3.2. Belief and Knowledge 86 * . Inquiry 88 4.1. Field of Knowledge 88 4.2. How is Knowledge Possible? 92 yw . Concluding Remarks 96 . COMMUNICATION 97 . Subject and World 97 1.1. Subject—Object Relation 97 1.2. Inter-Subject Relation 101 2. Social Matrix 103 2.1. Cognitive Habitat and Niche 103 2.2. Learning Community 108 Ye . Communication 112 3.1. Communication System 112 3.2. Language, Thought, and Reality 120 4. Concluding Remarks 124CONTENTS OF EPISTEMOLOGY I ix PARTI, PERCEIVING AND THINKING 127 4. PERCEIVING 129 1. From Sensing to Perceiving 130 1.1, Sensing 130 1.2. Perceiving 133 2. Observing 139 2.1, Direct Observation 139 2.2. Indirect Observation 142 3. Mapping Reality 146 3.1, Perceptual Mapping 146 3.2. Appearance and Reality 150 4. Concluding Remarks 155 5. CONCEIVING 159 1. Concept 159 1.1, From Percept to Concept 159 1.2. Concept Formation 164 2. Proposition 174 2.1, From Thought to Proposition 174 2.2. A’Priori and a Posteriori 180 3. Exactification 182 3.1. From Vagueness to Exactness 182 3.2. Quality and Quantity 187 4. Representation 191 4.1. Conceptual Map 191 4.2. Discovery or Invention? 194 5. ‘Concluding Remarks 196 6. INFERRING 199 1, From Spontaneity to Formality 200 1.1, Natural Reasoning 200 1.2. Formal Reasoning 203 2. Plausible Reasoning 210 2.1. Analogical Inference 210 2.2. Statistical Inference and Hypothetical Reasoning 214x CONTENTS OF EPISTEMOLOGY 1 3, Discussing 218 3.1. Analysis and Criticism 218 3.2. Controversy 224 4. Concluding Remarks 228 PART HI. EXPLORING AND THEORIZING 231 7, EXPLORING 233 1. Exploratory Behavior 233 L.1. Psychobiology of Problems 233 1.2. Sources and Choices 241 2. From Intuition to Method 248 2.1, Intuition 248 2.2. Method 250 3. Approach and Research 258 3.1. Approach 258 3.2. Research 262 4. Analysis of Problems 269 4.1. Logic and Semantics of Problems 269 4.2, Solved, Unsolved, Insoluble 280 5. Concluding Remarks 284 8. CONJECTURING 286 1. From Preconception to Hypothesis 286 1.1. Psychobiology of Conjecturing 286 1.2. Hypothesis 290 2. Scope and Depth 297 2.1. Scope 297 2.2. Depth 300 3. Chance and Cause 305 3.1. Probabilistic Hypotheses 305 3.2, Causal Hypotheses 310CONTENTS OF EPISTEMOLOGY I xi 4. Requirements 314 4.1, Strength and Precision 314 4.2, Systemicity and Serutability 318 5. Coneluding Remarks 320 9. SYSTEMATIZING 323 1. Classification and Theory 324 1,1, Classification 324 1.2, Theory 331 2. Construction and Reality 340 2.1, Theory Construction 340 2.2. Theory and Reality 350 3. Convention and Law 355 3.1. Convention 355 3.2, Law 359 4, Concluding Remarks 373 APPENDICES 377 1. The Power of Mathematics in Theory Construction: A Simple Model of Evolution 377 2. The Prose Identifying the Variables 380 BIBLIOGRAPHY 383 INDEX OF NAMES 396 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 401PREFACE TO EPISTEMOLOGY I&II We have learned a good deal about many things, we have come to realize that if we value knowledge we should continue to inquire because we shall never know enough, and we keep expanding, applying, and diffusing nearly every bit of knowledge we manage to acquire. So many people are engaged in generating new knowledge, using it, and diffusing it, that economists speak of the knowledge industry. Yet we are still remarkably ignorant about knowledge itself. We still argue whether it is the brain or the mind that knows, and are uncertain about the cognitive abilities of subhuman animals as well as of computers. We have only the most rudimentary information about the development (ontogeny) and evolution (phylogeny) of such abilities, and we continue to ask whether the study of knowledge is a harmless armchair specialty or a useful cross-disciplinary field of inquiry, both factual and theoretical, scientific and philosophical. In short, while the knowledge industry is thriving, the science and philosophy of knowledge are still in bud. There are several possible explanations for the underdevelopment of our knowledge of knowledge. One could be that epistemology is impossible: this is the view of the radical skeptics and a few others (e.g. Nelson, 1912). Another view is that epistemology and, in general, philosophy has nothing new left to say (e.g. Rorty, 1979). I find such skepticism and pessimism unacceptable, in view of the rapidly expanding body of interesting epistemological problems raised by science, technology, and the humanities, as well as recent advances in the physiology, psychology, and sociology of perception, learning, and ideation. There must be an alternative explanation for the underdevelop- ment of epistemology. We may have to blame the conservatism of most philosophers, who stick to the same old problems and rely exclusively on ordinary knowledge as well as on the authority of classical isms instead of engaging in a scientific investigation of the problems of cognition and knowledge. If this is the case, then what epistemology needs is not more obituaries but a radical reorientation. I hope this work will contribute to such renewal. This book and its companion, namely Volume 6 of my Treatise, concern the basic traits of cognition and knowledge, as well as theaa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.p pad PYq pq pq ALB & | Fx} Rt S:Av>B f(x) FHC Fy Fays R&D S&T SPECIAL SYMBOLS not-p pand q (conjunction) P or q (disjunction) If p, then q (implication) If p, then q, and conversely (iff) Premises A entail conclusions B Identical by definition The ser of objects possessing property F The empty set Individual a belongs to set A Set A is inchided in set B The set of objects in 4 or in B The set of objects in A and in B The set of objects in 4 but not in B The set of objects in 4 or in B but not in both The ordered pair of a and b The cartesian product of A and B, i.e, the set of ordered pairs (a,b), where ais in A and b in B The power set (family of all subsets) of set 4 The cardinality (numerosity) of set A The set of natural numbers (0, 1, 2,...) The real line The set of non-negative real numbers The function f maps set A into set B The value of function f at x ..+> A state function for some system. Research and development Science and technologyaa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.4 INTRODUCTION 2. NORMATIVE EPISTEMOLOGY (METHODOLOGY) Unlike descriptive epistemology its normative partner, methodology, has only weak roots in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Leaving logic aside, they amount to a handful of rules, such as Plato’s injunction to shun opinion (doxa) and seek only certain knowledge (episteme), Aristotle's practice of defining everything, Hippocrates’ recommendation to abstain from supernaturalistic explanation, and Ptolemy's advice that astronomy be restricted to describing phenomena (appearances). The idea of a universal method for acquiring knowledge did not appear until ca. 1600. Discoursing on method became then fashionable, even a craze. There was hardly a scholar who doubted that, if only the right method could be found, mankind would attain instant wisdom. Bacon swore by induction and Descartes by conceptual analysis and deduction from indubitable first principles. Leibniz dreamed not only of a logical algorithm (characteristica universalis) but also of an ars inveniendi leading securely to first principles. It was a time of mythodology and methodolatry rather than methodology. The illusion lasted nearly three centuries. Methodology proper did not come until the first modern philosophers of science, in particular Whewell (1847). Although some investigators deny the existence of methodology, it is easy to find methodological problems, many of which have not yet been given satisfactory solutions, or at least generally accepted ones. Here is a sample of rather classical problems of this kind. (i) Is there a single best way of advancing knowledge and, if so, which is it? (ii) What is the scientific method? (iii) What kinds of convention do we stipulate and which are their roles in inquiry? (iv) What are the rules of correct definition? And are there creative definitions? (v) What are the principles of correct classification? (vi) What is the role of regulative (or heuristic) principles in inquiry? (vii) What kinds of theory should we prefer: descriptive (phenome- nological) or explanatory (mechanismic), deterministic or probabilistic, single-level or multilevel? (viii) | What is the point of axiomatics? (ix) What is testability: confirmability, refutability, or either?aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.8 INTRODUCTION Neither Nietzsche nor Spencer nor Mach may be said to have built a biological psychology, let alone an evolutionary one. (See Capek (1968) for the opposite view.) The same holds for Peirce, another thinker influenced by Darwin's theory, and who stated that the truest beliefs are those that “live” longest—-an idea refuted by the persistence of superstition. Nor is evolutionary epistemology related to Popper’s analogy between natural selection and refutation, let alone to his speculations on disembodied “world 3” items (Popper, 1972). Indeed the theory of evolution applies only to concrete systems, namely biopopulations, not to disembodied objects such as ideas in themselves (Bunge, 1981a). If epistemology is to become scientific it will have to learn not only from neurophysiology and physiological psychology but also from developmen- tal (genetic) psychology and from whatever evolutionary biology has to say about cognition. That is, it will have to include evolutionary epistemology. So far this is little else than a thesis and a program. The thesis is this: “Our cognitive apparatus is a result of evolution. The subjective cognitive structures are adapted to the world because they have evolved, in the course of evolution, in adaptation to that world. And they match (partially) the real structures because only such matching has made such survival possible” (Vollmer, 1975, p. 102). This is a programmatic thesis: it orients a whole research project that has still to be implemented not only with more observations in comparative psychology and ethology but also with theoretical synthesis and speculation, as well as the conceptual clarification (of, e.g. the hazy notions of cognitive structure and real structure). However immature, the project of evolutionary epistemology is well grounded, not wild: it fits in with evolutionary biology. 4. EPISTEMOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY Except for physiological psychologists and the rare zoologist, ethologist, or neuroscientist, cognition is usually regarded as a suprabiological pheno- menon and studied separately from the nervous system. One main reason for this non-biological approach is the persistence of the ancient myth of the immaterial mind. This myth is not only a component of most religions and popular world views but also of most psychological doctrines (in particular psychoanalysis) and most philosophies of mind. (For a defense see Popper and Eccles (1977), «ind Eccles (1980); for criticisms see Bindra (1980), Bunge (1980a, 1981a), and Hebb (1980).)aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.12 INTRODUCTION (Likewise there is no borderline between science and ontology: see Treatise, Vol. 3, Introduction.) This way of conceiving of epistemology is likely to advance our knowledge of cognition and knowledge, for each partial view can be allowed to enrich and check the other. An additional advantage of conceiving of philosophical epistemology as a member of the large family of cognitive sciences (or cognitology) is this. Ordinarily epistemology is regarded as being far removed from both ontology and ethics. In our perspective cognition is only a special kind of biological process, and therefore it is an object of study of the ontology of organisms; and organisms capable of sharing knowledge are members of some society or other, and therefore the object of study of the ontology of society. Thus any reasonably true generalizations about cognition may be placed in the intersection of the science and the philosophy of cognition. Nor is epistemology alien to ethics or the study of morality. Indeed normative epistemology is about rules of correct (or successful) inquiry; and rules, unlike laws of nature, can be either obeyed or broken with honest or dishonest intentions. Besides, all knowledge is valuable in one way or other; and anything valuable can be well used or ill used, shared or stolen—as well as traded and faked. The pursuit of knowledge must then involve a moral code. In fact it does involve one: recall the commandments to prefer truth to error, to check conjectures, not to make up data, to seek criticism, to acknowledge truth in the rival and error in the friend, to share information, and so on. This code of inquiry intersects with methodology: every correct procedure of inquiry is intellectually honest even though it may be morally objectionable on other grounds. What about logic and mathematics in their relation to epistemology? These two formal sciences provide the backbone of all the other sciences but they do not investigate cognition and they are not in a position to discriminate factual truth from factual! error. In short, they are not members of cognitology. To be sure, logic used to be regarded as the organon of inquiry and thus as identical with methodology. But we have learned since the beginning of the modern period that logic may at most discover (logical) error: it is not a guide of inquiry but a constraint on it. We now tend to conceive of logic as the intersection of mathematics and philosophy, as well as a tool of conceptual analysis and criticism in all cognitive fields. In conclusion, epistemology is not an independent discipline. It must make use of logic and can make use of mathematics, and it belongs to the family of cognitive sciences. Moreover it has considerable overlaps with allaa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.16 INTRODUCTION rarely, of empirical test; believing that all the mathematics they need is a handful of statistical recipes—or, on the contrary, that mathematics suffices for science. Any such scientist would profit by some methodology. And even the most experienced and successful researchers can benefit from pondering, once in a while, over such rules as: “Place your problem in a wider context”, “Look for deeper (non-apparent) variables”, and ‘Do not underrate chance”. (See Ch. 15, Section 3.2, for a short list of regulative principles of research.) 7. CONCLUDING REMARKS Epistemology teems with open problems: a sign that it has a right to life. But epistemology is still immature: a sign that it has a long way to go. It cannot go it alone and in fact it has interacted vigorously with natural science, in particular physics, since the 17th century. But until recently epistemology has had only very weak ties with evolutionary biology, neuropsychology, and social science—not surprisingly, for these came long after epistemology was born. Epistemology must mesh in with biology, psychology, and social science, because the learning process happens to occur in and among animals. The immaterial and isolated (and male and adult) knowing subject of tradi- tional epistemology must be replaced with the inquiring brain, or team of brains, embedded in society. The unchanging mature mind must be replaced with developing and evolving animals exploring their environ- ment as well as themselves, and changing both with the help of the knowledge gained in such inquiries. Epistemology, in sum, must be biologized and sociologized. However, this proposed reconstruction of epistemology with the help of biology, psychology, and social science, should not be taken as a pretext for neglecting the epistemological problems that can be handled inde- pendently. Thus regardless of whether or not conjecturing and jumping to conclusions are inborn human dispositions; regardless of the particular neural systems that do the conjecturing and the jumping to conclusions; and regardless of the way social circumstances stimulate or inhibit such brain processes, hypotheses and inferences have certain logical, semantical, and methodological properties (e.g. generality, factual reference, and testability) that can and must be studied separately from the corresponding concrete biological and social processes. Likewise we do not need biology,aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.38 CHAPTER | STIMULI Sib)x ft) BODILY EVENTS: EXTERNAL EVENTS: PERCEPTUAL EVENTS: Fig. 1.7. Events in the environment ¢ of animat bare projected into pairs bodily state, set of bodily events>. This map dovetails with the next, or somatosensory map, which projects external events into cortical events, or points in the secondary or tertiary sensory area. The composition of the two maps yields the external world map for the corresponding sensory system. E(e) is the set of possible events in the environment of the a: S(b) the state space ‘ofthe animal and E(6) < S(b) x S(b) itsevents space. 2” is the family of ali subsets of E(b); 2° is the family of all subsets of the event space E(c) of the cortical system concerned. Details in Bunge (19804). system of the animal. In every case the map or function depends not only upon the sensed stimuli but also upon the state of the animal. See Figure 1.7. Maps or internal representations of this kind allow the animal! to “navigate” in its environment. Whereas some memories are remembered, others are forgotten, tem- porarily or permanently. And those that are recalled are so, more often than not, in a distorted way: like perceiving, memorizing is creative—i.e. not just storing and retrieving but reconstructing (Bartlett, 1932). Donald Hebb used to ask his students to remember breakfast. They all “saw” themselves (with their mind’s eye, as we say in ordinary language) sitting at table—an obvious construction. This constructive or creative feature of memory is ignored by the computer (or information-theoretic) metaphor, according to which the learned items are encoded, stored, and then retrieved, possibly with loss, never with gain. This holds literally for computer memories and library systems, but is grossly off the mark in the case of brains. Since the storage models of memory are inadequate, some dynamical model is likely to prevail. One such model involves the following hypothesis: ‘Remembering consists in the fresh production or recon- struction of an item, not in the re-activation of some permanent repre- sentation of the item as such, and what item is remembered —the response production—is the pexgo [psychon] selectively activated at the time of remembering” (Bindra, 1976, p. 330). Rather than permanent changes inaa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.46 CHAPTER | Not only Jearning theory but most of psychology and the whole of epistemology are attempts to answer the question ‘How do we learn?’ The empiricist answer is: ‘I learn from my own experience and provided my behavior is reinforced (e.g. my ideas are confirmed)’. Skeptics and idealists, on the other hand, deny that we learn from experience—unless perhaps from negative experience, i.e. from mistakes. As is so often the case, each of the contenders holds a grain of truth. We do learn something (not everything) from experience —provided our nervous system is in a receptive condition, we are motivated (and thus willing to make an effort), and the material to be learned is somewhat organized. That the nervous system must be in a receptive condition is obvious, although this point is ignored by both empiricists and idealists. No matter how well a learning material is presented, a person under the influence of alcohol or some other drug may be unable to learn it. But a healthy brain is not enough, nor is skillful teaching sufficient. Thus whereas Pavlov believed that we can learn automatically from paired experiences (e.g. sound of a bell and temporally contiguous presentation of food), it has been found that repeated paired experiences do not guarantee learning. (See Dickinson and Mackintosh, 1978.) It has been conjectured that, for somebody to learn to do B whenever A happens, he must somehow realize that A and B may be associated (Dawson and Furedy, 1976). Learning requires also some motivation: an animal without motivation to learn will not explore (Bindra, 1974). Motivation for learning can be intrinsic (curiosity) or extrinsic (for the sake of a reward other than satisfying curiosity). Hence we can teach ourselves, and others can teach us, to regulate both motivation sources. Thus the standard teaching tech- niques, by emphasizing extrinsic reward (praise, prize, raise in status, etc.) may inhibit adventurousness and may favor a mercenary attitude towards learning. (Anyone trained to respond primarily to external rewards will say to himself that, since he wants a sticker or some other prize, he should pick problems he knows how to solve safely and quickly rather than problems that will keep him wandering and wondering.) In any event, learning is the easier the more strongly motivated —and motivation is in turn enhanced by learning. Learning, then, is not just picking up information and processing it in a mechanical way: it is a highly selective and creative process (Piaget's assimilation). Nor does the brain remain unaffected by learning: it restructures itself as a result of learning (Piaget’s accommodation). To be sure an isolated brain would be unable to learn anything; moreover itaa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.50 CHAPTER | is wise, the more so since it tends to increase. Doctorates in science are obtained in the West on the average at 29 years of age, i.e. they take 23 years of schooling not counting preschool. The reasons for this long and costly apprenticeship period seem to be to make sure that the candidate (a) has mastered the skills of the previous generation —which is unnecessary and impossible anyway ; (4) will stick to the traditional ways (rather than try radical novelties), and (c) will stay out of the market place, thus protecting his teachers and himself. The apprenticeship should not be so short as to leave the student ill prepared to face professional problems by himself; but it should not be so long as to dry up every innovative and rebellious impulse. We should start earlier and be more demanding; but we should demand less curricular uniformity, cram less stray data, and allow more freedom of search and criticism. Finally, are there limits to what an individual can learn? Is every one of us, as information processing psychology claims, a limited capacity information processor subject to Shannon’s law concerning the limited capacity of every channel (Miller, 1967)? The limited capacity thesis applies to telephone lines, computers, and other artificial information systems, but it has not been proved for humans. There are indications that it does not apply to our brains: (a) unlike artificial information processors, our brains are plastic and, in particular, they have the property of self-organizability; (b) every time we learn something we become better prepared to learn further items: learning is an autocatalytic process, not the filling of prefabricated book shelves; (c) with practice we can learn to do two or more tasks at once—e.g. driving and chatting, typing and listening to music (cf. Neisser, 1980). Of course there are limits, some biological (e.g. poor genetic endowment, loss of neural plasticity, short life span) and others social (e.g. poor cultural environment, few opportunities). But these limits are not fixed once and for all: our brains and societies are to a large extent self-made. Wecan push the limits to what we can learn by buildinga society where everybody can freely exert the right to learn. We shall return to this theme in Ch. 13, Section 4. 3. DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION 3.1. Cognitive development Organisms develop from birth and biopopulations evolve over time. Hence there are three different though mutually complementary ways of studyingaa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.54 CHAPTER | look, or listen to spoken words in the case of human infants. Most inborn traits are inherited but some are outcomes of genic changes (e.g. mutations) or of original embryogenic processes. An inherited trait is one handed down by the animal's ancestors through the DNA molecules contained in the germ cells. Not all inherited traits are inborn; many emerge (or are “expressed”) during development until the adult stage is reached. And, whether present at birth (inborn) or expressed later on (inherited), every such trait is ultimately controlled by the hereditary equipment (genome). In particular, an innate (inborn or inherited) cognitive function is one performed by a genetically programmed system. Thus “Animal A possesses innate capacity B” is spelled out ‘‘Animal A possesses neural system C which, when activated, discharges function B”. Now, like any other material system, from atom to society, a neural system has properties of two kinds: actual and potential. Ie. there aresome “things” it does and others that it may do. Thus an atom is always moving relative to some thing or other (actual property), and it has the possibility of being excited by incoming radiation of certain wavelengths or, if already in an excited state, of decaying to some lower energy level. Likewise a neural system has, in addition to some permanent properties, others it can acquire, such as learning to perform certain functions. Indeed, whereas some neural systems are prewited (or develop into rigidly wired systems), others are plastic, ie. they are formed, strengthened, or weakened in the course of life. (Recall Section 1.1.) Thus an infant starts learning the moment it is born: this shows that the ability to learn certain skills is inborn. On the other hand, in order to learn other skills the animal must wait for its nervous system to mature, and for the environment to offer the opportunity. However, this opportunity may never arrive, particularly in conditions of extreme biological and cultural deprivation. Suffice it to recall that children raised with insufficient food, parental care, perceptual and mental stimulation, and interaction with their peers, do not develop a normal brain: they can seldom if ever become intelligent. In the light of the preceding we realize that nativism and empiricism, the psychological trends dealing with the nature/nurture controversy, are mutually complementary rather than exclusive (Dodwell, 1975)—and yet they are not exhaustive because neither acknowledges creativity. The reason both are needed is that, in the light of psychobiology, each is concerned with a certain kind of neural system. Nativism is (tacitly or explicitly) concerned with wired-in or rigid connections, which are typically innate (either inborn or formed later under the control of the genome). Onaa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.aa You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book.38 CHAPTER 1 (or “software’’) from brain (or “hardware”), one forgets that what behaves or ideates is always some animal or other, and that animals happen to be subject to evolution. Nevertheless palaeoanthropologists and primato- logists are beginning to learn a good deal about the evolution of the cognitive abilities of our ancestors over a time period of nearly three million years. (See Jerison, 1973; Masterton er al., 1976a, b.) Such problems and findings should be of interest to all biologically oriented psychologists. By the same token they are a matter of indifference to mentalist psychologists, in particular those of the information processing variety, who claim to study either immaterial (disembodied) minds or computer programs, neither of which are subject to organic evolution. Evolutionary psychology, then, is an underdeveloped branch of evolu- tionary biology. However, we cannot treat the evolution of the higher vertebrates in the same manner as that of the lower vertebrates, let alone that of invertebrates. Indeed the search for knowledge and possession of it modifies behavior, and behavior is not only an outcome of evolution but also a motor of it (Piaget, 1976b). In other words, by generating and using new knowledge the higher vertebrates can improve their survival strategies and thus modify the direction and pace of their own evolution. This being so, it is not true that for them, as for the lower animals, all variation is blind, and selection the only source of fitness—as assumed, e.g. by Campbell (1977). To some extent mammals and birds can control variations in themselves as well as in their environment, thereby improving their own fitness. Still, this does not entail that higher vertebrate (and particularly buman) evolution is Lamarckian rather than Darwinian (as claimed by Piaget (1976b)). DNA, which is what we inherit, does not learn from experience. (For further criticisms see Bunge (1981a).) A number of thinkers, notably Spencer, Helmholtz, Peirce, Mach, and Popper, have drawn a parallel between the history of ideas and biological evolution: in both cases there would be problems, trials and errors, and only the useful or adaptive novelties would “survive”. This analogy passes sometimes for evolutionary epistemology, but it is not. To begin with it isa metaphor, not a theory. Secondly, it is a superficial analogy for, unlike organisms, ideas are neither alive nor self-existent, hence they do not evolve by themselves. New knowledge is not gained by random mutation, and scientific and technological knowledge is seldom gained by blind trial and error. Most new knowledge is obtained by inquiry, and there is no such search unless the animal is motivated (by need or by curiosity) and unless it knows some search strategies, however primitive.