On Kuhn’s case, and Piaget’s: A critical two-sited hauntology (or, On impact without reference)

Abstract

<jats:p> Picking up on John Forrester’s (1949–2015) disclosure that he felt ‘haunted’ by the suspicion that Thomas Kuhn’s (1922–96) interests had become his own, this essay complexifies our understanding of both of their legacies by presenting two sites for that haunting. The first is located by engaging Forrester’s argument that the connection between Kuhn and psychoanalysis was direct. (This was the supposed source of his historiographical method: ‘climbing into other people’s heads’.) However, recent archival discoveries suggest that that is incorrect. Instead, Kuhn’s influence in this regard was Jean Piaget (1896–1980). And it is Piaget’s thinking that was influenced directly by psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis then haunts Kuhn’s thinking through Piaget, and thus Piaget haunts Forrester through Kuhn. To better understand this second site of the haunting—which is ultimately the more important one, given the intent of this special issue—Piaget’s early psychoanalytic ideas are uncovered through their interaction with his early biology and subsequent turn to philosophy. But several layers of conflicting contemporary misunderstandings are first excavated. The method of hauntology is also developed, taking advantage of its origins as a critical response to the psychoanalytic discourse. As a result of adopting this approach, a larger than usual number of primary sources have been unearthed and presented as evidence (including new translations from French originals). Where those influences have continued to have an impact, but their sources forgotten, they have thus been returned. They can then all be considered together in deriving new perspectives of Forrester’s cases/Kuhn’s exemplars/Piaget’s stages. </jats:p>

Thinking in, with, across, and beyond cases with John Forrester

“…Jeremy Burman brings Forrester's work on cases, and especially on Thomas Kuhn, together with an appreciation of the influence of experimental philosopher and biologist Jean Piaget. In 'On Kuhn's Case, and Piaget's: A Critical Two-Sited Hauntology (or, On Impact Without Reference)', Burman (2020) If, for Burman, thinking in cases 'constrains our analyses', it also means that the sources of the insights that constitute 'thinking in cases' are obscured. This is something that Burman decisively rectifies here, bringing Piaget back to haunt Forrester's work through Thomas Kuhn.…”

“…Jeremy Burman brings Forrester’s work on cases, and especially on Thomas Kuhn, together with an appreciation of the influence of experimental philosopher and biologist Jean Piaget. In ‘On Kuhn’s Case, and Piaget’s: A Critical Two-Sited Hauntology (or, On Impact Without Reference)’, Burman (2020) takes us on a journey, inserting Piaget in a chain of influence, from Forrester, to his work on Kuhn, and back through Piaget’s influence on Kuhn. Crucial in this account is the idea expressed by Forrester that Thomas Kuhn was an historian (as opposed to a philosopher) insofar as he (Kuhn) attempted ‘climbing into other people’s heads’ (ibid.…”

“…How does one best conceptualize and represent the ‘tangled but non-identical’ threads that cross the epistemological domains of history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis when thinking about cases (Burman, 2020: 130)?…”

Proving nothing and illustrating much: The case of Michael Balint

“…Indeed, some of the articles in this special issue aim to fill this gap. See, for example, Burman (2020) for the claim that ‘Piaget’s decades of experimentation afford an explicit embryology of human reasoning, embedded in an implicit social ecology of knowledge… thinking in stages becomes thinking in a lineage of kinds , which we can think of as a variation through natural history of Forrester’s thinking in cases ’.…”

On the implications of object permanence: Microhistorical insights from Piaget's new theory

“…Nor were they solely a function of the development of knowledge in general. Rather, they were a function of life (Burman, in press). And so research like the authors’ contributes to more than just psychological knowledge.…”