The Slippery Slope of Downward Causation

摘要

In his astute and persuasive article, David Witherington identified a critical watershed between two schools of dynamic systems (DS) approaches to development. One describes development in terms of real-time changes in behavior, determined by task factors and other contextual variables. This 'contextualist' approach is termed antistructuralist because it avoids bestowing explanatory power on the child's 'internal' structure. Conversely the 'organismic-contextualist' approach identifies the internal (e.g., cognitive, mental) structure of the developing child as a causal factor that is critical for explaining developmental change. Witherington pointed out that the