Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was a Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental theorist, well known for his work studying children, his theory of cognitive development, and his epistemological view called "genetic epistemology." In 1955, he created the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva and directed it until his death in 1980. According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget was "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing."
Piaget går igenom olika former av evolutionär förändring, och argumenterar i princip för att självstyrt beteende påverkar sannolikheten att en potentiell egenskap framträder.
PIAGET TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO THE ROLE OF BEHAVIOR IN EVOLUTION
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as "genetic epistemology".
He states in the Introduction to this 1976 book, "My concern, however, is not with behavior's internal mechanisms. That is a question for the ethologists. Rather, I want to evaluate behavior's role within the framework of the general processes of the evolution of life."
Here are some representative quotations from the book:
"We are forced to conclude that the ultimate aim of behavior is nothing less than the expansion of the habitable---and later, of the knowable---environment." "Thus, we find ourselves confronted right away by a general problem that will be coming up constantly: the problem of the teleonomy and orientation of behavior." "I have no wish to deny the role of selection in such cases; I would merely insist that it be attributed to an internal environment modified by the phenotype, and that its operation go no further than the canalization of the genetic reorganizations which result from the fact that normal hereditary programming is countered by these modifications."
A bit dated but nonetheless a pivotal work in the study of the evolutionary basis for behavior. Criticize him but many of the thoughts expressed here are still without resolution.
Relative to his extensive work on cognition, Piaget’s theory of evolutionary development has not received much attention. In this book, Piaget outlines a perspective that lies between the discarded Lamarckian theory (habitual actions lead to heritable transformation) and today’s prevailing Neo-Darwinian theory (evolution via chance mutation and natural selection). Piaget works with Lamarck’s idea that behavior leads to evolutionary development. He also works within the Neo-Darwinian framework, but goes beyond it by saying that evolution involves far more than mutation and natural selection.
Piaget outlines “seven principal formative mechanisms of instinctive behavior” that, in essence, make instincts and behavior flexible, not deterministic. As opposed to the one-way causality of the Neo-Darwinians where natural selection acts on mutations, biological causality for Piaget always involves feedback from the outside, and modification based of internal structures.
Piaget begins with elemental behavior structures. This is the floor upon which ever more complex behavior is constructed. At this level, the organism assimilates or applies its behavioral structures to the world and integrates that world into itself. When the fit with the outside is not adequate and needs are not being met, disequilibrium is the result. Organisms then work with the genetic variations that are inherent within the species’ reaction norm and “look for” ways to refine or accommodate behavior to better match what the environment requires.
This is where Piaget departs from Lamarck. While Lamarck has the organism directly modifying its behavior to match up with what the external world requires, Piaget has the organism actively reconstructing itself. Piaget has the organism sensing via feedback loops that “something is wrong” and this prompts it to try out various refinements within the limits of its genetic program to arrive at, in trial and error fashion, behavioral, morphological and physiological modifications that work better (“adequation”). When behavior is refined in this way, which Piaget refers to as “internal selection,” an external selective advantage results, and the reaction norm of the species is moved to provide a stronger propensity for a more adaptive relationship with the environment (Drawing upon C.H. Waddington, Piaget adds “that only a section of the genome’s ‘reaction norm’ is retained”).
From this general description, Piaget describes the seven principal formative mechanisms. This part of the book is difficult to follow – the ideas are complex and the prose is thick. As I understand it, the first mechanism involves “anticipation” where patterns are established at the basic physiological level to the point where the organism begins to anticipate them. For example, encounters with food become established as objects that the organism then actively seeks via goal-seeking (teleonomic) behavior. The other mechanisms are: Generalization of an existing behavior structure by using it for “new purposes in a new situation”; combining existing structures for new purposes; differentiation of new sub-structures; compensation for deficiencies; the reinforcement of existing structures; and, the construction of new structures.
Operating this way, genes are not purely deterministic, but are part of a ‘“supra-genetic system.’” They are open to take information from, and to be transformed (behaviorally, physiologically, morphologically) by the external world. Genes, in other words, have an invariant (stable, permanent, determined) component that, importantly, includes an openness to information coming from the environment that allows them to be transformed. This openness and flexibility to solve survival problems may seem intelligent, but Piaget says it is not intelligence proper. It is built into instincts and the gene structure itself and long precedes the beginnings of the rudimentary brain and memory systems.
From these “speculations” in Chapter 7, Piaget arrives at his conclusion that behavioral evolution “drives” evolution. As opposed to just sitting there and waiting for the right mutation to occur and waiting for natural selection to give its approval, Piaget has the organism drawing from its reservoir of genetic variations and using them to create more effective and efficient behavior. The more complex behavior structures have a dual goal “to widen the environment and to increase the living organism’s capacities.” This effort to improve itself Piaget calls “self-transcendence.” This, in turn, and not mutation, is what leads to the “evolution of forms and organs.” Piaget seems to be saying that if behavioral changes result in an advantage, these bring about changes in the “instrumental organs.”