Seven Basic Epistemological Perspectives

* Article: Seven Perspectives. C. George Boeree.

Available at https://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/sevenpersp.html

Online essay outlining seven basic epistemological perspectives, i.e. 'ways of seeing / interpreting the world'

Typology

From the reading notes of Michel Bauwens, 2004:

1. Autistic Perspective

- Infants, autistic children, several psychotic adults, everyone when we engage in automatic, instinctive, defensive behaviour

   - our own personal subjective perspective is the only one, "everyone sees reality the same way"
   - symptoms: belief in magical efficacy, animism

2. Authoritarian perspective

- Most children, adults in highly structured traditional societies

   - There are other perspectives, but only one social reality, and those that do not  accept it are wrong and have to be made to conform

3. Rationalistic Perspective

- Children in the 2nd half of elementary school

   - truth is objective, and be uncovered by the mind commonalities amongst various perspectives are sought
   - symptoms: idealism, argumentation

4. Mechanistic Perspective

- Adolescents and young adults now; scientists

   - seeks universal laws, but not in the mind through logic, but in nature and matter, through empiricism and quantitative laws

5. The Cybernetic Perspective

- finally accepts both material and non-material realities, both reason and empiricism, but recognizes that the observer influences the observied. Centers around information and modelling rather than cause and effect.

6. The Epistemic Perspective

- ultimate reality cannot be other than the sum of all perspectives, plus much that is unperceived. Sometime called intersubjective, or 'phenomenological'. Full accepts relativity and uncertainy

7. The Transcendental Perspective

- Attemtps to deconstruct perspectives, mind and self

Overview of subjective/objective stages

   - 1. autististic and 2. authoritarian = SUBJECTIVE

   - 3. rationalistic and 4. mechanistic and 5. cybernetic: OBJECTIVE

   - 6. epistemic and 7. transcendental: SUBJECTIVE-OBJECTIVE

Overview of moral stages

   - 1. Piaget: pre-operational ; Kohlberg: pre-conventional; Bronfenbenner: self-oriented
   - 2. Piaget: concrete operations ; Kohlberg: conventional; B: other-oriented
   - 3. Piaget: formal operations ; K: stage of universal principle
   - 4. Kohlberg: post-conventional ; K:stage of social contract
   - 5. Bronfenbenner: objectively oriented
   - 6: Perry: idea of commitment