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The aim of the present paper is twofold. First, we are interested in assessing the validity of one version of Kim's argument against genuine higher level causation. Second, we discuss Wilson's proposal to consider a weaker notion of emergence as genuinely metaphysical and compatible with Non-Reductive Physicalism. Our conclusion is that both proposals fail: the first in preempting genuine (strong) emergent causation, whereas the second in ensuring a genuinely metaphysical status to weak emergence. After all, Wilson's proposal strongly depends on the success of Kim's, not only because it takes it as valid but, also, because in pursuing its own weaker model it shares the presuppositions that led Kim's to failure. At the end of the day, Wilson's conception of genuine weak emergence either breaks causal closure or is merely stipulative, namely confined at the descriptive level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nativist and empiricist approaches require foundationalism because they cannot account for the emergence of representation. Foundationalism is the assumption of an innate representational base. In turn, foundationalism places limits on the nature of learning as a constructivist process. In contrast, action-based approaches can account for the emergence of representation through (inter)action. In so doing, action-based approaches can pursue an emergent constructivism for learning and development. Despite the theoretical symmetry between nativism and empiricism with respect to foundationalism, there is an asymmetry in nativist and empiricist research programs. Nativism generally ignores constructivist complexity that non-nativist approaches assume needs to be investigated empirically. In practice, this means that the plethora of nativist looking-time studies do not provide adequate control conditions for the rich interpretations drawn from such research. Instead, it is the a priori assumptions of nativism doing the justification. Without such assumptions, the meaning of the data is unclear at best. Importantly, the problem of a priori assumptions driving rich interpretations is not specific to nativism or looking methodologies. Mindreading as a research program also engages in rich interpretations for studies that concern social-cognition from infancy through preschool. Similarly, these studies do not include the types of control conditions motivated by more constructivist thinking. To the extent that empiricist research programs incorporate constructivist thinking into research, they converge with action-based approaches. This creates a sort of methodological bridge between lean-empiricist research programs and action-based approaches. However, this bridge has limitations that we illustrate through an example concerning maternal mental-state discourse and theory of mind development. The ultimate conclusions are threefold: (a) Action-based approaches are the best theoretical framework for understanding learning and development; (b) constructivist methodology is multiply motivated; (c) there are varying degrees of methodological commensurability between empiricism and action-based approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An underlying process metaphysics is, arguably, necessary, but it is not sufficient for understanding the world, and, in particular, for understanding the mind and its development. It is necessary for both logical and empirical reasons, but we also need to account, within such a dynamic framework, for emergent normativity, adaptability, and cognition, among other phenomena, in order to model development. I will sketch these arguments, and then outline a model of development within that framework, with a brief introduction to how these processes are realized in the brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become increasingly clear over the last half century that there are multiple important changes in children’s abilities taking place at around age 4. These changes span social, emotional, and cognitive domains. While some researchers have argued that a domain-general development explains some of the changes, such a position is a minority view. In the current article, we provide some evidence for the development of an age 4 domain-general enabling constraint on children’s ability to reflect. In turn, the development of reflection is argued to enable the transitions that we see within and across developmental domains. The model of reflection being offered is part of a broader action-based model of cognition and mind – interactivism (Bickhard, 1973, 1978, 2009a,b). The empirical part of the article presents a new object reasoning task. This task was derived from theoretical constraints on the interactivist models of knowing and reflection. Results indicated that most children responded to the task incorrectly until age 4 which was interpreted as evidence that they lacked the ability to explicitly reason about relations between objects. Correlations between our new task and standard false-belief tasks were explored. Collectively, these results provide empirical support for the claim that children undergo a domain-general development in their ability for epistemic reflection at around age 4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current target article provides a robust investigation of the "cultural character" of cognitive development. This investigation has both theoretical and empirical/methodological aspects. Methodologically, the authors argue for a unit of analysis concerning the development of object knowledge that includes other agents engaged in communication with the infant (i.e., that includes the sociocultural aspects of the infants' developmental environment). We agree with such a position and further illustrate its utility in our own analysis of the phenomenon of overimitation. With respect to the underlying theory, we agree with the arguments against strictly cognitivist frameworks (including those with a more recent "embodied" flavor), as well as the fundamental importance ascribed to sociality and culture. However, for some aspects of the pragmatics of the object paradigm we would suggest narrowing the scope about the necessity of culture for development while in other respects we would like to suggest possible elaborations or extensions. Perhaps most fundamentally, we suggest that the physical versus cultural split that frames the target article discussion is not as metaphysically fundamental as seems to be presupposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of operationally defining a person is absurd, but no more so than other uses of “operationalization”. ‘Persons’ make that absurdity particularly clear because there is no sense in which persons can be directly observed, nor defined in terms of what might be observable, and thereby exposes the emptiness of the idea of operationalization more broadly. On the other hand, persons can be modeled, and their ontology investigated, within frameworks that can address the processes and organizations that actually constitute persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the pedagogical demonstration of reflective abstraction. Topics discussed include framework with respect to issues of normativity and emergent representation, the relation between action-based and sociocultural approaches with a constructivist model of scaffolding and self-scaffolding and issues concerning evidential relations to hypothesized cognitive constructive processes.

Interactivism and enactivism spring from some similar insights and intuitions. There are, however, some arguably significant divergences, and I will explore a few of the important similarities and differences. Topics addressed include the basic notions of how cognition and mind emerge in living systems; how growth, learning, development, and adaptation can be modeled within the basic frameworks; and how phenomenological investigations can be taken into account and their phenomena modeled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language is almost universally considered an encoding of mental contents into an utterance stream, and mental contents, in turn, are almost universally considered constituted as, or derived from, encodings of the environment. This basic framework has been in place for millennia, but it has remained mysterious and perplexing how it could be modeled. I have argued for some time that both aspects of this encoding framework are fatally flawed, and here I outline an alternative perspective on the nature of both mental representation and language. The model outlined is generally pragmatist in the senses of Peirce (although it is not semiotic) and Dewey. It is an interaction-based model in which representation is emergent in interaction systems and language is constituted as a conventional system for generating interactions with social realities—which, in turn, are constituted as relations among individuals' representations of their environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on convergences and divergences between contemporary probabilistic models of learning and development and Piaget's model. It states that crucial assumption in Bayesian models is that the space of relevant hypotheses is available and psychologist Jean Piaget attempted to model representational emergence through a model of cognition as constituted in potential action. It mentions that Piaget discusses mastery of causality and probability.

No abstract available Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We argue that the nativist–empiricist debate in developmental psychology is distorted, both theoretically and methodologically, by a shared framework of assumptions concerning the nature of representation. In particular, both sides of the debate assume models of representation that make the emergence of representation impossible. This, in turn, distorts conceptions of cognitive development by forcing developmentally new representation to be constructed out of some already available (innate) foundation of atomistic representations – it forces a foundationalism. Contemporary nativists and empiricists differ with respect to the size and scope of such foundations, but are equally committed to some form of foundationalism. In further consequence, this foundationalism distorts methodologies by rendering any form of developmental emergence of representation impossible, and, thus, renders control conditions in experiments for such kinds of development (and their precursors) crucially irrelevant. We end by outlining an approach to modeling representation that is not committed to foundationalism because it explicitly models representational emergence. This is an action-based approach, with similarities to Piaget''s model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Persons are socio-cultural emergents—emerging progressively in the bio-psychological development of the individual. Persons are special kinds of agents, crucially characterized by their abilities to participate in the constitution of emergent social ontologies. I will present a model of these special bio-cultural relationships, and argue that modeling these relationships requires revisions in conceptions about the ontology of social realities, the relationships between agency and cognition, and naturalism and normativity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article, the author focuses on the dynamic systems (DS) approach to human development study and normativity as a crucial type of emergence. The author notes that normativity has cascading implications on understanding various mental phenomena such as learning, representation, and development. The author says that emergence's centrality requires metaphysical adoption where process organization creates the locus for studying far from thermodynamic equilibrium (FFE) systems.

Abstract: The interactivist model has grown over the last several decades from a narrower initial beginning into an evolving systematic theory and underlying philosophy. It has been induced to do so because the underlying assumptions that framed the beginnings of the model were fundamentally different from those that are dominant throughout psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. Consequently, the model faced multiple instances of attempting to integrate with literature in neighboring fields, discovering that such integration was not possible because the basic assumptions were not compatible, and having to either give up on the model thus far constructed, or else extend it in a way consistent with those assumptions into those neighboring (and foundational) domains. This manifesto outlines the resultant interactivist framework, presents some of the arguments for its underlying assumptions, and argues that these avoid problems that are fatal for many standard approaches in the literature. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Cognitive Science originated in reactions against behaviorism that were motivated in significant part by the example of the computer. The computer raised the exciting possibility that mind could be understood almost entirely independently of brain: if the operations of the mind are akin to the execution of a program, then almost all the relevant aspects of mind would be captured by that program, independently of whatever was running it, be it transistors or neurons. This presumed independence of cognitive science from biology has waned considerably in recent decades, but in this paper, I argue that there is at least one crucial aspect of biology that has yet to be appreciated for its relevance to mental and other normative processes—the thermodynamics of living systems. In particular, I argue that the emergence of normativity in general—and normative function and representation in particular—depends on special systems that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium; these form the interface between the factual world of atoms and molecules and the normative world of mind. The nature of that emergence, in turn, imposes strong constraints on how the central nervous system functions, and, therefore, on how cognition is realized. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We argue that the traditional theory of mind models of social cognition face in-principle problems in accounting for enculturation of social cognition, and offer an alternative model advanced within the interactivist framework. In the critical section, we argue that theory of mind accounts' encodingist model of mental representation renders them unable to account for enculturation. We focus on the three problems: (1) the copy problem and impossibility of internalization; (2) foundationalism and the impossibility of acquisition of culturally specific content; and (3) the frame problems and the inadequacy of mental-state attribution as a way of coordinating social interaction among (encultured) individuals. The positive section begins with a brief sketch of the theoretical basics of interactivism, followed by a more focused presentation of the interactivist model of social cognition, and concludes with a discussion of a number of issues most widely debated in the social cognition literature. • Theory of mind models cannot account for genuine enculturation of social cognition. • An alternative, action-based (interactivist) model of social cognition is presented. • Social ontology is modeled as convention emergent in interaction. • Social cognition is part of social ontology and is inherently cultural. • False-belief task, folk psychology, language, and social reality are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A complete and thorough grasp of culture eludes psychology because of the pervasive dualism that pervades psychology and Western thought more broadly. Drawing on interactivism, a process model for human phenomena, we make two main points: first, culture cannot be reified, seen as distinct from the self, nor can it be treated as something objective or subjective; and, second, agency and culture are intertwined and distributed across levels of knowing. We explore how interactivism provides powerful resources for modeling the relationship between culture and the person and indicate how interactivism is generally compatible with social practice, hermeneutic, dialogical and narrative insights but situates them within a developmental ontology. We consider implications of interactivism for existing theories like internalization, self-construal theory and individualism—collectivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this article I present a programmatic outline of a new kind of model of language, and offer some criticisms of standard approaches. The discussion begins with issues concerning representation because, so I argue, problems with standard approaches to representation are at the heart of notions of and problems with language. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There are serious theoretical problems with the free-energy principle model, which are shown in the current article. We discuss the proposed model's inability to account for culturally emergent normativities, and point out the foundational issues that we claim this inability stems from. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Models of the nature of representation and cognition ground and constrain models of the construction of representation in learning and development: models of what is being constructed ground and constrain models of the processes of construction. Insofar as the notion of scaffolding is intended to refer to particular kinds of supports for learning and development, it too will be variously enabled and constrained by underlying assumptions concerning representation and cognition. I will argue that action based models of representation, which have their own powerful supports, also make possible a functional notion of scaffolding that, in turn, makes sense of processes of self-scaffolding as a central field of development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An interactive process model of the nature of representation intrinsically accounts for multiple emergent properties of consciousness, such as being a contentful experiential flow, from a situated and embodied point of view. A crucial characteristic of this model is that content is an internally related property of interactive process, rather than an externally related property as in all other contemporary models. Externally related content requires an interpreter, yielding the familiar regress of interpreters, along with a host of additional fatal problems. Further properties of consciousness, such as differentiated qualities of experience, including qualia, emerge with conscious reflection. In particular, qualia are not constituents or direct properties of consciousness per se. Assuming that they are so is a common and ultimately disastrous misconstrual of the problems of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on an article about the internal and external sources of human development. Factors that influence development; Concept of scheme-scheme interaction in development; Notions about the constructivist theory of human development; Computer simulation of scheme-scheme interaction.

The variation and selection form of explanation can be prescinded from the evolutionary biology home ground in which it was discovered and for which it has been most developed. When this is done, variation and selection explanations are found to have potential application to a wide range of phenomena, far beyond the classical biological ground and the contemporary extensions into epistemological domains. It appears as the form of explanation most suited to phenomena of fit . It is also found to participate in multiple interesting relationships with other forms of explanation. We proceed with an examination of multiple kinds of phenomena, interrelationships with other members of the family of forms of explanation, and some novel applications even within the home ground of evolutionary biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If the general arguments concerning the involvement of variation and selection in explanations of ``fit'' are valid, then variation and selection explanations should be appropriate, or at least potentially appropriate, outside the paradigm historistic domains of biology and knowledge. In this discussion, I wish to indicate some potential roles for variation and selection in foundational physics – specifically in quantum field theory. I will not be attempting any full coherent ontology for quantum field theory – none currently exists, and none is likely for at least the short term future. Instead, I wish to engage in some partially speculative interpretations of some interesting results in this area with the aim of demonstrating that variation and selection notions might play a role even here. If variation and selection can survive in even as inhospitable and non-paradigmatic a terrain as foundational physics, then it can survive anywhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents insights on internal and external relations and representation. Definitions of internal relations and representation; Interactive model of representation; Part models of representation; Description of the interactive model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A naturalized model of rationality is developed, with a focus on an important but largely neglected aspect: knowledge of error, or “negative” knowledge. The development of knowledge of what counts as error occurs via a kind of internal variation and selection, or quasi-evolutionary, process. Processes of reflection generate a hierarchy of principles of error, a hierarchy that frames and constrains positive rationality. The dynamics of rationality is an internalization of processes of reflected-upon variation and selection. The nature and origin of logic are addressed from within this framework, and the overall rationality model is applied to three central issues in the philosophy of science: the rational function of truth and realism in science, the nature of progress in science, and the rationality of certain induction-like considerations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Outlines the etiological theory of normative functionality. Analysis of the autonomous system; Function of systems-oriented approaches; Specifications of system identity.

A conceptual and empirical critique of Kernberg's influential object relations theory is presented as a case study of the limitations of structural ontological presuppositions in accounting for psychological processes. A summary overview is provided of Kernberg's systems model, the process of internalization, his developmental stages, and his conception of the borderline personality organization. Then a detailed critique con-siders: (1) the foundations of Kernberg's model in affective memory and units of internalized object relations; (2) the principles of construction underlying his developmental processes; (3) the resulting product of these processes, his structural model and theory of the borderline personality organization; and (4) the relationship between his metapsychology and his clinical theory. Suggestions are made for how process models of person-ality and psychopathology can redress the problems with structural ac-counts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the dynamic emergence of error avoidance and error vicariants. Ability of the kinds of interactive systems to learn to avoid error and develop vicariants; Complexity of error dynamic range; Role of microgenesis in the simplest kind of learning to avoid error.

In keeping with other recent efforts, Fodor's CONCEPTS focuses on the metaphysics of conceptual content, bracketing such epistemological questions as, "How can we know the contents of our concepts?" Fodor's metaphysical account of concepts, called "informational atomism," stipulates that the contents of a subject's concepts are fixed by the nomological lockings between the subject and the world. After sketching Fodor's "what else?" argument in support of this view, we offer a number of related criticisms. All point to the same conclusion: Fodor is ultimately not merely bracketing the epistemology of conceptual content; his theory makes answers to the epistemological questions impossible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study in which boys and girls at each of the Piagetian preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational cognitive stages were given an interview focusing on their concepts of family. Methods; Results; Discussion.

Examines the functionalism in Adlerian psychology. Details of the philosophy of the 'as if'; Aspects of Vaihinger's fictions; Difference between fictions and hypotheses.

Examines the Adler's theory of personality and psychopathology. Observation of inferiority feelings; Distinction between interactions and adaptations; Performance of subjective adaptationalism.

Focuses on the concept of social interest within Adlerian theory. Insights of Alfred Adler on human nature; Perception of James E. Crandall on the concept; Alternative view of Crandall on social interest.

Examines the role of 'as if' in Adlerian psychology of the life-style. Recognition of the cognitive limitations of the child; Provision of conceptual navigating tools for mapping the lives of individuals; Basic principle of interactive representation and knowledge holds.

Examines the potential explications of the social interest concept of psychologist Alfred Adler. Delineation of the boundaries of the core of social interest; Elucidation of a number of apparent interpretations of social interest; Clarification of the relationships between social interest and other issues in Adler's theory.

In this article, the author comments on the research "Computational Constructivist Model" by Filipo Studzinski Perotto. Topics discussed include development of interaction-based models of cognition force constructivist and anticipatory models, features of computer program language (CALM) model, and role of the CALM model in a machine learning framework for cognitive development. Also mentioned are problems associated with the interactive dynamic systems framework.

The thesis of our commentary is that the framework used to address what are taken by Carey to be the open issues is highly problematic. The presumed necessity of an innate stock of representational primitives fails to account for the emergence of representation out of a nonrepresentational base. This failure manifests itself in problematic ways throughout Carey's book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

- Passive versus active ontologies for modeling the nature of representation impose powerful constraints on the conceptual possibilities for the different versions of constructivism. The neoconstructivism outlined by is convergent with an active, action-based approach to representation; however, it does not directly address the issue of representational emergence. If cognition is fundamentally emergent from (inter)action, then an emergent constructivist approach to development is necessary to fully transcend the limitations of the passive ontologies inherent to nativist and empiricist perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We address the is issue of the normativity of representation and how Grush might address it for emulations as constituting representations. We then proceed to several more detailed issues concerning the learning of emulations, a possible empirical counterexample to Grush `s model, and the choice of Kalman filters as the form of model-based control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. The standard research programs in moral development have been criticized for adopting a narrow and restrictive view of the moral domain. There has been a dearth of alternative theories that account for the diversity of mature moral viewpoints both within and outside Western culture. We present an interactivist framework that takes into account the plurality of moral perspectives. It does so by addressing fundamental issues of psychological ontology and providing an account of values and the self based on the interactivist conception of knowledge and the knowing-levels treatment of consciousness and developmental stages. We discuss foundational questions such as the nature of the self, how it develops and the relationship between the self and values or morals, with special attention to the nature and source of value conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Provide additional evidence for the interactivist model of reflection. • Replicate an object-reasoning task called Leaning Blocks (LB). • Test alternative, EF interpretations of the age 4 shift observed on the LB task. • Extend the measurement of reflection to a novel object-reasoning task. The literature provides many examples of important developments across different social and cognitive domains at around age 4. Based on an action-based approach to cognition - interactivism - we argue that the changes across different domains can be explained by the development of a domain-general cognitive enabling: reflection. The interactivist model's claim about reflection was empirically supported on the basis of a novel object-reasoning task called Leaning Blocks (LB) developed by Allen and Bickhard (2018). In the current study, there were three aims. First, to replicate the age 4 shift on the LB task in a non-western sample. Second, to explore the LB task's relations with Executive Functioning skills (working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control) in order to test alternative interpretations of performance on LB. Third, to diversify the measurement of reflective reasoning with two new tasks based on Piaget's categorization of mental imagery. The results showed a replication of Allen and Bickhard's 2018 findings on the LB task and failed to show any relations with the EF measures after controlling for age. One of the new reflection tasks (Candy Monster) showed both the age 4 transition and a correlation with LB (before-and-after controlling for age and the EF measures). Overall, as in Allen and Bickhard (2018) the current study's results support the interactivist model's claim that the development of reflection is responsible for the transitions in performance across domains in a "stage-like" fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]