Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution. a Completely New Foundation to the Interrelationship Between Psychology and Sociology

CULTURA 2014_265846_VOL_11_No1_GR_A5Br.indd.indd 1 CULTURA Founded in2004, judged tomake anovelandimportantcontributiontounderstan- the submissionofmanuscriptsbasedonoriginalresearchthatare regional andinternationalcontexts. The editorialboardencourages mote theexplorationofdifferentvalues andculturalphenomenain ted tophilosophyofcultureandthestudyvalue. Itaimstopro Culture and Axiology and Culture www.peterlang.com ding thevalues andculturalphenomenainthecontempo ISBN 978-3-631-65486-6 ISBN Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Philosophy of Journal International Cultura. isasemiannualpeer-reviewed journaldevo- rary world. - 2014

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF 1 CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY CULTURA CULTURA 2014 AND AXIOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHYCULTURE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Vol XI Vol No 1 No 14.05.14 17:43 CULTURA 2014_265846_VOL_11_No1_GR_A5Br.indd.indd 1 CULTURA Founded in2004, judged tomake anovelandimportantcontributiontounderstan- the submissionofmanuscriptsbasedonoriginalresearchthatare regional andinternationalcontexts. The editorialboardencourages mote theexplorationofdifferentvalues andculturalphenomenain ted tophilosophyofcultureandthestudyvalue. Itaimstopro Culture and Axiology and Culture www.peterlang.com ding thevalues andculturalphenomenainthecontempo Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Philosophy of Journal International Cultura. isasemiannualpeer-reviewed journaldevo- rary world. - 2014

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF 1 CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY CULTURA CULTURA 2014 AND AXIOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHYCULTURE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Vol XI Vol No 1 No 14.05.14 17:43 CULTURA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology E-ISSN (Online): 2065-5002 ISSN (Print): 1584-1057

Advisory Board Prof. Dr. David Altman, Instituto de Ciencia Política, Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile Prof. Emeritus Dr. Horst Baier, University of Konstanz, Germany Prof. Dr. David Cornberg, University Ming Chuan, Taiwan Prof. Dr. Paul Cruysberghs, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium Prof. Dr. Nic Gianan, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines Prof. Dr. Marco Ivaldo, Department of Philosophy “A. Aliotta”, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy Prof. Dr. Michael Jennings, Princeton University, USA Prof. Dr. Maximiliano E. Korstanje, University of Palermo, Argentina Prof. Dr. Richard L. Lanigan, Southern Illinois University, USA Prof. Dr. Christian Lazzeri, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France Prof. Dr. Massimo Leone, University of Torino, Italy Prof. Dr. Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain Prof. Dr. Christian Möckel, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany Prof. Dr. Devendra Nath Tiwari, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India Prof. Dr. José María Paz Gago, University of Coruña, Spain Prof. Dr. Mario Perniola, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy Prof. Dr. Traian D. Stănciulescu, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Iassy, Romania Prof. Dr. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Purdue University & Ghent University

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief: Co-Editors: Prof. dr. Nicolae Râmbu Prof. dr. Aldo Marroni Faculty of Philosophy and Social- Dipartimento di Lettere, Arti e Scienze Sociali Political Sciences Università degli Studi G. d’Annunzio Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Via dei Vestini, 31, 66100 Chieti Scalo, Italy B-dul Carol I, nr. 11, 700506 Iasi, Romania [email protected] [email protected] PD Dr. Till Kinzel Executive Editor: Englisches Seminar Dr. Simona Mitroiu Technische Universität Braunschweig, Human Sciences Research Department Bienroder Weg 80, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University 38106 Braunschweig, Germany Lascar Catargi, nr. 54, 700107 Iasi, Romania [email protected] [email protected]

Editorial Assistant: Dr. Marius Sidoriuc Designer: Aritia Poenaru Cultura International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology Vol. 11, No. 1 (2014)

Editor-in-Chief Nicolae Râmbu Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Umschlagabbildung: © Aritia Poenaru

ISSN 2065-5002 ISBN 978-3-631-65486-6 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-653-04760-8 (E-Book) DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-04760-8 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2014 All rights reserved. Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH. Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com

CONTENTS

Kyung Han You & Jiha Kim 7 Marcuse’s Legacy and Foucault’s Challenge: A Critical Inquiry into the Relationship between Comedic Pleasure and the Popular Media

Pedro Blas González 23 The Economics of Being: The Struggle for Existence in Prehistory

Luka Zevnik 41 The Discussion about the Universality of Happiness and the Promise of Neuroscience

Peter Mathews 63 The Morality Meme: Nietzsche and A Serious Man

Patrizia Torricelli 83 The Cognitive Basis of Value in Grammatical Form: A Case Study of the Italian Verbs vedere volere and avere

Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji 99 A Philosophical Comparison of John 1:1-18 and the Yoruba Concept of ÒrÒ

Mahdi Dahmardeh, Hossein Timcheh Memar & Abbas Timcheh 113 Memar On Ethics and Culture: A Matter of Variation or Deviation? A study on Top Notch Series

Adrian Nita 127 Leibniz on Spontaneity as a Basic Value

Benaouda Bensaid & Fadila Grine 141 Old Age and Elderly Care: An Islamic Perspective

Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff 165 Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution. A Completely New Foundation to the Interrelationship between Psychology and Sociology

Dragos Bigu 193 The Place of Values in Scientific Knowledge

10.5840/cultura201411110

Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192

Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution. A Completely New Foundation to the Interrelationship between Psychology and Sociology

Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, Department Sociology PO BOX 6980 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany [email protected]

Abstract. Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology, and Norbert Elias, the last classical sociologist, based their sociologies on the idea that humankind has gone from a stage of childhood to adult stages. The essay shows that there has actually taken place a psychogenetic evolution of humankind in history. Empirical researches across the past generations, namely Piagetian and intelligence cross-cultural researches, have been continuing to support the idea, whether the researchers in- volved have been aware of it or not. The essay demonstrates further, that the history of society, economy, culture, law, morals, politics, customs, religion, etc. can only be described against the background of developmental psychology. Keywords: psychological stages, intelligence, social evolution, industrial society, religion, democracy.

STRUCTURE-GENETIC SOCIOLOGY AS FOUNDATION TO HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

This idea in question was widespread in former humanities and social sciences, from the era of Enlightenment up to World War II or even later. It lost its influence especially after 1945 and moreover after 1980. Today, this theory appears usually most social scientists as completely outdated, even as ridiculous. Actually, they do not have the prerequisite knowledge about the facts related, opposite to many pre-war scientists. However, well-known authors even of the past decades contributed to this idea, for example Jürgen Habermas (1976), Christopher Hallpike (1979, 2004), Charles Radding (1985), Jean Ziégler (1968), and others. I have developed an own theory program with this regard, basing on eleven books and numerous essays, in the past 30 years, naming it “structure-genetic sociology.”

1. Ontogenesis and history Every (!) classical author of child or developmental psychology emphasized similarities between children and premodern humans, with regard

165 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution to psyche and cognition, including morals, social affairs, and world understanding: James Mark Baldwin, William Preyer, Pierre Janet, Èdouard Claparède, William Stern, Karl Bühler, Felix Krüger, Eberhard Jaensch, Karl Zeininger, Henri Wallon, Heinz Werner, Jean Piaget, etc. (Oesterdiekhoff, 2012b). Numerous and just the most prominent scholars of several humanities and social sciences followed this prime idea, especially in the time span 1800î1945/1980.

The topos of the childlike nature of savages runs as a constant thread through 19th century literature and continues well into the 20th century. Numerous writers held to this assumption, among them early writers on child psychology such as Preyer, Sully, and Stern, who often made comparisons between savages and children. (Jahoda, 1999: 229)

Jean Piaget himself evidenced the similarities between children and premodern humans regarding countless aspects covering all dimensions of world understanding and intellectual functions. Heinz Werner (1948) collected these parallels in one central book, while Piaget distributed these notions in small pieces in almost all of his books and essays (Oesterdiekhoff, 2013b; Piaget and Inhelder, 1969). Half a century ago roughly, Talcott Parsons (1961) designated J. Piaget as one of the greatest sociologists (!) and the TIME MAGAZINE added Piaget to the list of the hundred most influential contemporaries. Of course, these estimations match to Piaget as someone who researched the link between child psychology and history, and not to Piaget only being a child psychologist. Many known scholars such as Jürgen Habermas, Jean Ziégler, Charles Radding, Christopher Hallpike, Suzi Gablik, Don LePan, and others have contributed to the parallel between child development and history, ontogenesis and social change, in the past decades too, maintaining that premodern societies base on childlike cognitive stages, while modern societies are connected with the rise of higher psychological stages. Thus, it is not only useful but moreover necessary to follow these ideas. These researches are by no means outdated although not as prominent as they had been before World War II.

2. Culture and cognition Piagetian-Cross-Cultural Psychology (PCCP), the twin sister of the cross- cultural psychometric intelligence research, evidenced in numerous empirical studies from 1932 onwards, that stage theory applies to all peoples

166 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192 around the world. All humans start their life with the sensorymotor and the preoperational stages. The development of the third stage of concrete operations in premodern societies runs asymptotically and partially. Some adults of recent premodern societies develop it at least partly, others do not attain this stage. The development of formal operations totally lacks among adults living in illiterate or semi-literate, premodern, traditional, archaic societies, or underprivileged milieus. People of archaic tribal societies stay even somewhat lower than underprivileged classes living in big cities in the developing countries. Formal operations are ab- sent in tribal societies, bands of hunters and gatherers, nomadic groups, and the lower classes in developing countries. Especially Hallpike (1979) and Oesterdiekhoff (1997î2013) delivered summaries and interpreta- tions of the empirical findings of the PCCP.

In particular it is quite possible (and it is the impression given by the known ethnographic literature) that in numerous cultures adult thinking does not proceed beyond the level of concrete operations, and does not reach that of prepositional operations, elaborated between 12 and 15 years of age in our culture. (Piaget, 1974: 309)

This notion implies an early stop of premodern humans’ psychological development and consequently their childlike mentality and reason. PCCP found out with regard to numerous milieus across all continents what already Lew Wygotski (1962) had concisely worked out, relying on Alexandr Lurija’s (1982) proof of the childlike reasoning of the Kashgar illiterates, namely that especially exposure to modern systems of schooling and education is necessary to arouse the adolescent stage of formal operations. People from whichever race, culture, and region do not develop formal operations when living in illiterate or semi-literate milieus or in premodern societies. People from whichever race, culture, and region develop formal operations when exposed, early in their life, to education, as it is typical for modern societies. Latecomers in changing to modern milieus however fail. They are doomed to the fate of “arrested development,” as Pierre Janet and Édouard Claparède named the phenomenon (Jahoda, 2000; Dasen and Berry, 1974; Dasen, 1977; Schöfthaler and Goldschmidt, 1984; Mogdil and Mogdil, 1976; Oesterdiekhoff, 2011: 61î75, 2013a:. 49î78; 2013b, 2012c). Thus, all races and peoples can attain formal operations, even Austral- ian aborigines, or Black Africans. For example, Mediterranean Europe- ans 50 years ago, living in the weaker or traditional milieus, mostly did

167 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution not develop the formal operations (Peluffo, 1962, 1967; Maistriaux, 1955: 442 f). It is obvious that we can transfer these data to all Europe- ans living in premodern societies. The historical data about magic and superstition, primitive and archaic ideas, prevalent in the whole premodern history of Europe, known as typical for stages below formal operations, evidence that Nicolai Peluffo’s and Robert Maistriaux’s data are transferable to Europeans living in former centuries. Thus, it is evident that medieval Europeans stayed on lower stages, comparable to current premodern peoples of the southern hemisphere. Conversely, present-day Africans, when living in modern milieus, stay higher than people from Sardinia or South Italy 50 years ago. Present-day Africans in North America stay higher than Europeans 50 or 80 years ago. The psychometric data show the same coherences, as I will display below. Consequently, if genetic influences had shaped group differences, they would have been completely overpowered by socialisation influences and therefore diluted to ancillary phenomena (Dasen, 1977; Mogdil and Mogdil, 1976; Oesterdiekhoff, 2011: 61î75, 2013a: 49î78, 2013b, 2012c). These results displaying lower stages concern tribal societies around the world, premodern civilizations such as the Roman Empire, the Chi- nese Empire, the medieval Europe, etc. Data show this with regard to the relevant mental functions and areas of world understanding such as logic, physical understanding, social affairs, self-awareness, and morals. I have compiled the data in books construed as encyclopaedia to cover both the whole range of societies and topics. The target of the structure- genetic sociology is to base humanities and social sciences and to recon- struct the history of humankind as well (Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a, 2011, 2012a, 2013a, 1997). This theoretical framework is the key to interpret the masses of data disciplines such as ethnology have collected in the past 300 years regarding the completely deviating forms of thinking, emotions, behaviour, morals, and worldview of premodern peoples. The developmental psychology enables to explain and to frame the ethnological descriptions excellently contributed by scholars such as Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, James Frazer, Edward Evans-Pritchard, Reo Fortune, Edward Tylor, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, etc. That developmental psychology is necessary to explain, to interpret, and to base ethnological data, was already the opinion of Raoul Allier, Joesph Murphy, Alfred Vierkandt, Jean Piaget, Heinz

168 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192

Werner, Robert Kaplan, Henri Wallon, Charles Blondel, and Ernst Cassirer (Oesterdiekhoff, 2013b, 2012b).

3. Are childlike structures only limited modules or structures d’ensemble covering the whole premodern psyche? People living in premodern societies or in developmental regions (within the current developing countries) remain bound to childlike anthropological or psychoneurological stages. They do not surmount the mental age (anthropological stage) of children aged 12, usually even not that of children aged 8 years. People living in modernising cultures raise their mental ages continually from generation to generation. People in the currently most advanced societies distribute on mental ages roughly between 12 and 20 years of age, staying on stage A or B of formal operations. Thus, they differ from premodern peoples by 5, 10, or more developmental years (Hallpike, 1979; Oesterdiekhoff, 2013b, 2012c, d, 2011: 40î75, 2013a: 49î78). Hallpike (1979) found the right formula writing that children and premodern humans share the qualitative development (stages) but not the quantitative development (life experience and knowledge). However, he estimated the role of the latter one higher than that of the former one in forming the psyche. I regard it otherwise: The influence of the stage development is more decisive in shaping reason, psyche, and behaviour. There is no common adulthood, premodern humans and modern people share. Each stage has the tendency to conquer the whole consciousness, reason, psyche, and personality, a tendency Piaget named the “structures d’ensemble,” comparable to Robert Spearman’s g, but more complex, because not restricted to reasoning abilities, but including emotions, will, and other psychological features. Stages are not modules embedded in a personality that shares common traits with personalities staying on other stages. Premodern humans do not have in common with modern people many functions and psychological phenomena apart from some features. They do not share a common psychological adulthood apart from some diverging cognitive functions. Thus, premodern humans have completely a childlike psyche and manifest a fully arrested development covering the whole personality.

169 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution

4. Developmental ages and cultural development On the whole, the psychology of children is identical with the psychology of the biggest part of the premodern world, concerning Kantian categories, understanding world and nature, social affairs, morals, and religion, down to details and particularities. Children and premodern humans share the same forms of logic and arithmetic, causality, chance, and probability (Lurija, 1982; Hallpike, 1979; Oesterdiekhoff, 2011, 2009a; Werner, 1948; Piaget, 1969, 1975b). For example, children younger than ten years of age, below the stage of formal operations, do not master syllogisms. They don’t understand the logical implications but take the sentences as logically independent statements, being not interconnected to each other. Further, they don’t have any logical understanding of quantifiers such as “all” and “some.” Only children, adolescents, and adults staying on the formal operational stage master syllogisms due to their rise of abstract and logical reasoning abilities (Piaget, 1959). The worldwide research amongst premodern cultures has discovered that adult illiterates do not master syllogisms due to the same reasons developmental psychology has described regarding children. Illiterate premodern peoples, irrespective from what race, con- tinent, and culture they are coming, fail in understanding and mastering syllogisms and hypothetical-deductive reasoning forms (Lurija, 1982; Hallpike, 1979; Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a, 2011). Children and premodern humans go through the same steps of arithmetic. Usually, most primitive peoples around the world did not know numbers at all. They usually could not even count 1, 2, 3… Even if, on higher stages, they were able to count by 5 or even higher, then by seeing and touching the objects, not by mental calculations only. Some other populations have learned to count but not to add and to subtract, irrespective which supports being used. Arithmetic calculations evolved late in history, always being restricted to subgroups. Against the background of ethnographic data it is obvious that the biggest part of humankind was unable to add 2+2=4. Children attaining the concrete operations grasp arithmetic, while preoperational children manifest the same shortcomings I have reported from primitive peoples. Calculations, additions and subtractions, are manifestations of the third stage. Humankind has gone through the same stages in learning arithmetic as small children do still nowadays (Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a: 161î169, 2013a: 99î115, 2011: 76î86).

170 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192

Children and premodern humans share the same forms of causality and chance. Children and premodern humans regard descriptions as explanations or see the empirical factors only as the hull in which the actual causes, the mystical beings, are encapsulated. Their causality consists of animistic, moral, and physical aspects at the same rate. There is no causality without reference to the will of phenomena and to the moral order the phenomena are obeying.

In conclusion, without touching upon the very subtle problems which would have to be solved before any comparison could be made between the physics of the child and that of the ancient Greeks, it will suffice to say that the explanations given by our children of the third and fourth stages bear a close (or distant) resemblance to the two famous explanations of projectiles which Aristotle has discussed in his ‘Physics.’ (Piaget, 1969: 23)

Humans that do not understand the empirical forms of causality do not grasp likewise chance, probability, necessity, and possibility. Hundreds of ethnographers have described the lack of understanding of the category “chance” among premodern peoples around the world. They do not understand independent rows of causalities, which automatically produce new phenomena when they meet each other. They always interpret accidental phenomena as being caused by malevolent or benevolent mystical intentions. Edward Evans-Pritchard (1937) wrote one of the most influential books on the complete lack of “chance” in reasoning and worldview of premodern humans. Only developmental psychology is able to explain this phenomenon. Piaget (1975b) displayed the stages children have to go to understand “chance.”

Before the age of 7î8 the child seeks as far as possible, to eliminate chance from nature. The very way in which he formulates his ‘whys’ shows that for him every- thing has a reason, even when to us it seems fortuitous and contingent. (Piaget, 1969: 275)

Modern adolescents on the formal operational stage attain a mature understanding of causality, chance, possibility, probability, and necessity. Only modern humans surpass then the childlike forms of these categories (Piaget, 1969, 1975b). Children and premodern humans share the same forms of understanding nature and physics, down to the smallest details such as shadows,

171 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution streams, volumes, masses, etc. They have the same ideas about physical laws and regularities, time and space. They share the animistic and met- amorphic understanding of the world; both groups see things and inci- dents as animated and alive. Children and premodern humans initially regard stones, rocks, mountains, rivers, clouds, trees, etc. as being alive and animated. Moreover, the premodern humans tend to regard them as persons and as gods. They adore them and bring sacrifices to them. Children and premodern humans regard animals as humanlike beings, having a humanlike mind and personality (Werner, 1948; Hallpike, 1979, Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a, b, 2011, 2013a; Piaget, 1969, 1975a). To see the commonalities in detail I mention the children´s idea that shadows human bodies throw are ghostly emanations with own will and mind. That is what premodern humans around the world believed, too. Medieval courts sometimes punished the shadows of the delinquents, not they themselves (Piaget, 1969: 180î194, 1975a). Developmental psychology evidenced that children around the world believe in magic. Magic refers to a power, which all objects and beings can own and release, not only humans and gods. Magic implies a direct impact on phenomena and occurrences, stemming from wishes of whomever. Magic creates the coherence of the whole cosmos. Magical beliefs and practices are linked to lower forms of causality and understanding nature. Weak reasoning abilities and a weak sense of reality, egocentrism and further childlike traits account for the phenomenon “magic.” Modern children start surpassing magical beliefs with their sev- enth year, having deleted it nearly completely with 10 years roughly. The rise of the formal operations eradicates magic, being replaced by empirical-causal explanations and the mechanical worldview (Piaget, 1969, 1975a) “In the first stage, therefore, the child really does think that the hands create wind (air in movement) and that this wind, or the action of the hands, draws in the air from the street. There is genuine participation” (Piaget, 1969: 10). The first stage of children’s magic accounts to the magical practices and beliefs of premodern humans around the world. Sorcerers, magicians, witches, and shamans around the world have tried to make rain or winds, sun or whatever by rituals similar to the child that claps in his hands in order to make wind. If we only knew from premodern humans their magical beliefs and practices, this would be sufficient to evidence their childlike psychological stage. The belief in magic disap-

172 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192 peared from the era of Enlightenment onwards until the early 20th century. The belief in sorcerers and witches decreased since the 18th century. The disappearance of magic is one of the manifestations of the evolution of the adolescent stage of formal operations in the brains of modern humans (Oesterdiekhoff, 2013a: 157î168, 2009a: 203î210, 2011: 112î117; Hallpike, 1979; Evans-Pritchard, 1937; Piaget, 1975a). Children on the preoperational stage around the world believe that cats can transform to dogs, trees to ghosts, humans to rocks, or whatever. The evolution of the concrete operations among children aged six establishes the notion of the invariance (conservation) of the kind, simul- taneously with the invariance of mass and number, but earlier than the notion of the invariance of volume and other physical, logical, and social dimensions. The children’s belief in metamorphosis bases worldview and religion of premodern humans around the world. Their superstitious assumptions regarding nature and physics are full of ideas circling around metamorphosis. Totemism and fertility ceremonials consist of the belief that all things can change into each other, that the first humans created the world by their transformation in objects of all sorts, and that all objects are nothing else than transformed ancestors. The evolution of concrete operations has diminished this belief in metamorphosis and the to- temic religion (Oesterdiekhoff, 2011: 110 f, 2013a: 151î156). Children and premodern humans have a common understanding of morals and justice. Children’s ideas about just punishments correspond to premodern punishment laws, the modern adolescent’s ideas correspond to modern practices of punishment. Children initially regard severe punishments as just and are adherents of a law-and-order-moral. The premodern punishment law, spread across all continents and times, especially consists of torture and mutilation, cruelty and sadism. Only modern adolescents (and adults) demand a moderate correspondence of punishment and misdeed. The adolescent stage then accounts for the modern humane punishment system and therefore for the banning of body mutilation (Piaget, 1932; Oesterdiekhoff, 2012a: 369î431, 2011: 172 f). Further, children’s belief in “immanent justice” underlies the ordeals to decide about judicial cases, as a main system of judicial trials spread across the whole premodern world from the oldest times up to their end. Peoples around the world used fire-, water-, and poison ceremonials to decide about guilt and innocence. They really believed that these natural

173 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution elements would know about what happened in the past or what will happen in future. Children’s animism and magic underlie these beliefs in ordeals. Formal operations, raised in the early modern times, abolished these systems. The era of Enlightenment abolished ordeals in Europe and the colonialism did the same overseas (Piaget, 1932; Oesterdiekhoff, 2011: 118î126, 2009a: 344î367; Hallpike, 1979). Children’s belief in objective responsibility accounts to the premodern tendency to convict people for action consequences and occurrences they did not make. Legislation, judicial institutions, and customs manifest this premodern tendency to punish innocent people due to the preva- lence of the primitive psyche. The mere involvement of a person in a damage or mishap she or he did not cause was often sufficient to suggest guilt and to demand punishment. The evolution of the stage of formal operations both in modern adolescents and in modern laws causes the replacement of the objective responsibility by the subjective responsibility (Raddings, 1985; Hallpike, 2004; Piaget, 1932; Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a: 333î409, 2011: 118î126). Developmental psychology does not only explain the evolution of law but also the evolution of the constitutional state and democracy, diplo- macy and international relations. Developmental psychology of the past 100 years demonstrated that children don’t understand democracy, liberty rights and the principles of the constitutional state. Piaget (1932) launched one of the first great contributions to the research in the rise of democratic ideas in children. He found that children by their tenth year of life grasp rules and laws as unchangeable, as parts of nature and as being made by gods, ancestors, or elderly. They believe that they have to obey laws, having no right to modify them by whichever means. Practi- cally, children this age do not understand rules very good and tend to abuse them due to both egocentrism and ignorance. Older children and adolescents, establishing the formal operational stage, discover that rules are not eternal and divine, but being made by humans and changeable whenever people want to. Modern adolescents discover and practise democracy. Further, due to their better understanding of the rules they improve their social practice and their rule obedience. Thus, children combine a holy law understanding with a bad practice, while adolescents link a democratic law understanding to an improved social practice. The Piaget following developmental psychology has been confirming his early find-

174 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192 ings by now (overview in Damon, 1983; Connell, 1971; Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a: 336î343, 2013a: 391î494). Piaget himself suggested parallels between ontogenesis and history regarding the evolution of democracy. Basically, some historians (Kern, 1952) described the medieval understanding of law and the medieval social practice by nearly the same words as Piaget had described children’s related ideas, without knowing anything about developmental psychology. The civil and political life of premodern societies manifests insecurity, corruption, cruelty, and oppression, while modern societies have been installing continuously higher standards of sociomoral life, security, and peace. The correspondence to Piaget´s description of the social life and rule praxis of children is obvious. Some authors have supported the reli- ability of these parallels between ontogenesis and political history, too (Radding, 1985; Habermas, 1976; Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a, 2013a). The premodern preference of monarchy, tyranny, etc. is rooted in children’s ideas of authority. Empirical surveys among premodern populations have repeatedly evidenced their preference of authoritarian forms and their denial of democratic forms. The political philosophy of the Middle Ages or of ancient Asia supports only authoritarian forms. Ex- cept ancient Greece for a limited time and one an insufficient basis, the whole premodern humankind did not know the principles of liberty rights, constitutional state, and democracy, but only tyranny or monarchy. The reconstruction of the political philosophy reveals the same development of political ideas the ontogenetic development manifests. This implies that developmental psychology delivers the explanatory model to the evolution of political philosophy. John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were the first to establish the formal operational stage Piaget discovered among Swiss adolescents in 1932. These three authors described the basic principles of liberty rights, constitutional state, and democracy. The American “bill of rights” of 1791 and the French “déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen” of 1789 established a new form of political thinking and practice that has no counterpart in antiquity or in Asia. Any culture that does not even formulate a philosophy similar to these declarations does not truly want democracy. The continuous growth of formal operations from the era of Enlightenment up to now carries the steady rise of democracy, not being fully accomplished in Europe up to 1945 or up to 1990.

175 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution

Until recently, roughly 35 nations fulfilled or manifested sufficiently the democratic principles. “Freedom House” identified two third of nations belonging to the non-democratic world in 1975, nowadays only one third, while the others belong to half-democracies or democracies. There is a process of democratisation and liberalization across the continents, which roots in the rise of the adolescent stage of formal operations, that is, in the rise of sociomoral reasoning and political standards. I have developed an encompassing theory that shows that developmental theory is the long-searched theory of the evolution of democracy. I have also shown that the classical theories of dictatorship and democracy suffer from flaws the new theory is able to remove (Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a: 336î343, 2013a: 391î494). Here is not the place to show that developmental psychology is also strong in explaining the evolution of international relations and the history of violence and wars (Oesterdiekhoff, 2013a, 2011).

PSYCHOMETRIC INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH, THE TWIN SISTER OF THE DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH

1. The empirical findings of the psychometric intelligence approach Many intelligence psychologists don’t understand that the changing scores reveal the dependence of intelligence levels on environments. They ignore that intelligence has a social history measurable both with the psychometric and with the developmental approach. Europeans, Northern Americans, Japanese, and other populations of the currently most advanced countries have IQ levels of more or less 100. The peoples of the USA, France, England, and Germany 80 or 100 years ago scored around 70, when compared to present-day results. This difference runs through several and the relevant test procedures and refers therefore to the general intelligence (Flynn, 1987, 2007; Raven et al., 1993; Sowell, 1994; Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a, 2011). Peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe (from Russia, Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Spain, etc.) 80 or 100 years ago, scored at least 20 points below the Western Europeans and Northern Americans of that time. This implies that the Southern and Eastern Europeans scored with 50 or 60 points, compared to present-day adjustments (Pintner, 1931; Bayley, 1955; Storfer, 1990; Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a: 82î97, 2011: 41î44, 2012a: 130î144, 2012c). Chinese and Japanese tested 90 years ago

176 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192 scored too lower than the former Western Europeans or Northern Americans, similar to the Southern and Eastern Europeans of that time (Lurija, 2002: 42; Sowell, 1994: 160). Among others, the tests from Ellis island, New York, created masses of related data. The Chinese, Eastern and Southern Europeans scored similar to the weakest groups of Black Africa of today. Further, the people of present-day Africa score similar to the Western Europeans and Northern Americans three or four generations ago and mostly higher than the Southern and Eastern Europeans of that past. Test psychologists detected the rising scores early in the Thirties, for example in the United States, both among groups living there for generations and among children of the immigrants of the first generation onwards (Bayley, 1955; Tuddenham, 1948; Sowell, 1994). The rise of the intelligence concerns today most nations around the world, all those people that have admittance to modern social settings. Only people living remote from such settings continue to score on lower scores (Irvine and Berry, 1988; Lynn and Vanhanen, 2002; Flynn, 2007). At the average, the whole humankind of today is more intelligent than it was 100 years ago. The biggest intelligence push right across the five continents that occurred ever in the history of mankind happened especially in the past 100 years (Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a: 82î97, 2011: 41î44, 2012a: 130î144, 2012c). The premodern Eastern and Southern Europeans, the Africans and the Chinese one hundred years ago scored with 50 or 60 compared to present-day adjustments because they “suffered” from low schooling and life in premodern cultures. Now they have come close to the current Eu- ropeans due to modernization. Even the Africans have considerably raised their scores. Thus, it is clear that the Western Europeans and Northern Americans also scored lower around 1800 or 1850 when school education was rare and bad and modernization was just in the be- ginnings. I contend that they had scores in the time span 1800/1850 comparable to those of the other peoples mentioned, the Southern and Eastern Europeans, around 1900/1920. Already at first glance, it is absolutely improbable that the Western scores of 1920, around 70 compared to current adjustments, existed already 1800/1850, before the time of compulsory school attendance. Conclusively, the whole premodern humankind scored with 50 or 60, in comparison to modern test adjustments. The humans had an intelligence of children aged seven more or less.

177 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution

These facts reduce any racial theories of intelligence to small stumps or even eliminate them. In any case, even if biological factors might af- fect national differences, they are obviously overpowered by socialisation factors. The Flynn effect, thoroughly analysed, eradicates biological theories of national intelligence differences. It rather shows the historical bi- furcation between a premodern low and a modern high intelligence (Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a: 69, 2012a: 152î171). Modern children exposed to intelligence tests made for adults score with about 70 when they are roughly twelve years old, with 50 when they are about seven years old. Children aged three score with about 20 (Vernon, 1969: 19; Inhelder, 1944; Rindermann, 2011). Since the days of Alfred Binet, psychometric intelligence research has been using to define adults with scores of 50 or 75 as such who have “mental ages” or “developmental ages” of children aged 7 or 12 respectively (Maistriaux, 1955; Vernon, 1969; Inhelder, 1944; Oesterdiekhoff, 2012d). Had psychometric intelligence researchers been consequent in that what they had already known to be sure restricted to some contexts, they would have come to the conclusion, basing on the notions about the distribution of IQ scores right across the world, that the whole premodern humankind had “mental ages” of children. They would have come to the conclusion that the rise of intelligence during the modernization process manifests a developmental maturation of humankind. The data show that the West- erners around 1900 had a developmental age of roughly twelve years and the other peoples of roughly eight years. To some certain aspects, psychometric intelligence research has come then to the same conclusions as the Piagetian research. Children aged seven from all cultures around the world score with 50, staying on the preoperational stage mainly. Modern children aged 12 score with 75, ac- complishing the transformation from concrete to formal operations. Modern adults aged 20 score with 100, staying on the formal operational stage (Oesterdiekhoff, 2012d: 474). Correspondingly, nations staying on pre-operational stages have scores around 50 and nations staying at the border concrete/formal operational stages have scores around 75. In the past 80 years, PCCP has evidenced that primitive peoples stay either pre- dominantly on the pre-operational stage or on the concrete stage, or covering the intermediary or overlapping stages between their pure forms. This fact matches completely to the data won by the psychometric intelligence research.

178 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192

Thus, basing on these notions several stages of interpreting the data are distinguishable. The lowest group of authors do not understand the findings. The next higher group understands the fact of the rising intelligence due to modernization, including the overall low intelligence of premodern peoples. The third group belongs to those who understand that PCCP backs and proves of the phenomenon of the historical evolution of intelligence. PCCP helps the psychometric intelligence research to end the tremendous insecurity about the nature of rising scores, whether they may stem from methodological failures or may reflect true trends. The fourth group understands that the psychometric intelligence research is only a small part of the developmental psychology, and that both approaches have proven of the childlike nature of premodern humankind and of the psychological maturation of modern humankind.

2. Psychometric intelligence research as a small part of the developmental approach Intelligence is not a transcendental or apriori-capacity as Descartes and Kant had believed but it is a developmental phenomenon. Children have a lower intelligence than adults have. Intelligence increases when children grow up. Growth of brain and interaction between brain, psyche, and environment originate the growth of intelligence. The higher the developmental distance between children and adults the higher the intelligence. Primitive environments cause lower stages of human development; educated, modern environments account for higher stages of human development. As the previously mentioned cross-cultural data evidenced, humans of premodern societies do not develop beyond childlike anthropological stages. Therefore, the people reveal childlike developmental/intelligence levels. Modern humans elaborate 5 or 10 more developmental years and manifest higher developmental/intelligence levels. Thus, lower scores are manifestations of a childlike system of psyche and cognition; higher scores are parts of a system of psyche that stays on higher anthropological stages. Developmental psychology describes a wider range of the human’s psyche and personality in comparison to the psychometric intelligence research (Piaget and Inhelder, 1969). The latter one describes humans only with regard to one aspect, namely their ability to think that is to use abstract and logical reasoning forms. However, humans are more than beings using reasoning abilities. Moreover, the psychometric intelligence

179 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution research has not any theory about human’s intelligence. For example, it has not any theory on the ontogenetic development of intelligence. It only measures answers and reactions knowing nothing about the sources from where they come from. To psychometric intelligence research, intelligence is a black box; it knows only some of its outcomes. The failure of psychometric intelligence research regarding the description of the history of intelligence is only one of the many consequences of these shortcomings. Piaget himself moved from Alfred Binet’s laboratory to child psychology due to these reasons. He formulated a comprehensive theory of the nature and the mechanisms of the (evolving) intelligence. He worked out a theory of mental development that described the mechanisms underlying the answers and reactions the tests only measure. Moreover, he described the evolution of the mechanisms from where both the early er- rors and then the rising intelligence, that is, the improvement of the answers and reactions stem (Piaget, 1959). Developmental psychology describes the overall development of psyche and personality, will and emotions, social competences and morals. It describes the growing distance between animals and humans, children in ontogenesis and humankind in history/sociogenesis build up (Werner, 1948; Piaget and Inhelder, 1969). For example, the psychometric intelligence research is neither able to explain the rise of sciences nor the phenomenon of religion (see chapter below). The adherents of this approach have not the slightest idea how to develop a theory of religion. They simply have not any admittance to the tools necessary to encounter the single phenomena religion consists of. Religion composes the simple-minded belief in divine creation and rule of the world, childlike tendency to fancy myths and to take them as true reports, egocentric belief in immortality of the soul, odd belief in huge imaginary beings such as ghosts or gods, etc. Developmental psychology can describe the entire psychology behind these beliefs and the complex of cognitive and emotional mechanisms underlying them. The psychometric intelligence research is helpless and useless in any trials to explain religion and religiousness. If people said the psychometric intelligence research could explain religion with reference to low intelligence and atheism with high intelligence then this conclusion would be right only in the context of developmental psychology, not in the narrower context of the psychometric intelligence research. Why? Animals have a

180 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192 low intelligence, too, but are not religious. Low intelligence, described by psychometric intelligence research, does not explain religion. Only a low human intelligence explains religion: Intelligence forms, describable by developmental psychology, beyond the stages of mammals but below the stages of highly educated people make religion (so already Feuerbach, 1985: 1). These stages are something psychometric intelligence research cannot describe. Only developmental psychology can describe the psychological mechanisms that originate religion (Oesterdiekhoff, 2014, 2011: 147î161, 2013a: 215î240, 2013b). The developmental psychology describes fully the human’s psyche, the psychometric intelligence research not at all. The superiority of the developmental psychology in comparison to the psychometric intelligence research is not only valid with reference to religion but also with reference to the development of law, morals, customs, philosophy, sciences, arts, literature, magic, superstition, everyday behaviour, violence, economy, social structures, and rise of modernity, as I outlined in my books related. Developmental psychology is able to describe the contents of these phenomena and the historical evolution of these contents, and their transformation in dependence on stage evolution (Oesterdiekhoff, 2013a, 2012a, 2009a, 1997). Concerning the rise of sciences, developmental psychology has all the tools available needed for the description of the pre-scientific disciplines and for the evolution of the modern sciences. Developmental psychology, not the psychometric intelligence research, can describe (as parts of the childlike psyche) magic, animism, and the other mechanisms underlying alchemy, astrology, pre-Newtonian physics, etc. It can further explain the rise of the formal-operational concepts of causality and mechanics making the basis concepts of the rising natural sciences (Oesterdiekhoff, 2013a: 287î328). Furthermore, how could psychometric intelligence research describe the ancient belief into magic? What would it help to explain the belief into magical powers by mentioning low scores? Not much. Developmen- tal psychology can however refer magical beliefs and practices to the entire system of the childlike psyche, cognitive egocentrism, wishful thinking, specific features of categories such as causality and chance, animism, etc. Developmental psychology can explain the cognitive mechanisms that originate magical beliefs and practices.

181 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution

Further, developmental psychology is able to explain the evolution of law. It explains the mechanisms underlying the ordeals basing a major part of the judicial procedures right across the premodern world. Addi- tionally, it explains the transformation from ordeals to the modern forms of trial. It explains the evolution from objective forms of responsibility to subjective ones. It explains the transformation from the holy law to the democratic legislation. It explains the transformation from the sadistic to the humane punishment law. It explains the main structures of the evolution of law (Oesterdiekhoff, 2011: 118î126, 2013a: 363î390, 2009a: 333î409). What I outlined here with reference to sciences, religion, magic, and law corresponds to the possibilities developmental psychology offers regarding the description of the evolution of economy, culture, society, customs, and everyday reasoning. The developmental psychology explains the evolution of culture and society to a rate no other theory could afford. Quantitatively, the developmental psychology is the small twin sister of the psychometric intelligence research. Qualitatively, the reverse is true. The reason to that unequal relationship is that developmental psychology describes the whole human personality and psyche, while the psychometric intelligence research describes only the outcomes of reasoning abilities. Nonetheless, the psychometric intelligence research is able to deliver a mass of quantitative data that can be interpreted in the frame of developmental psychology. I do not want to refute the psychometric intelligence research but to define its role and to clear its relationship to the broader and deeper frame of developmental psychology (Oesterdiekhoff, 2012 c, d, 2013b).

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION

The humankind of the past 5 or 6 thousand generations stood on childlike anthropological stages except for the past 5î10 generations and except for some specific groups that might have occupied intermediary stages mainly in the early transition phases to modernity. To my opinion, this is the most fascinating, interesting, astonishing, and powerful notion ever won across all humanities and social sciences in the past 300 years. This is the only discovery in social sciences and humanities that corresponds to the discovery of the evolutionary theory in biology (Oesterdiekhoff, 2012c, d, 2013b).

182 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192

I have shown in my books that developmental psychology explains the length of Pleistocene, decisive peculiarities of premodern societies, and the rise of modern society and modern sciences. It explains the mere existence of religion, its nature, and its diminution. It explains the history of philosophy, law, morals, politics, economics, social relations, gender relations, educational patterns, arts, literature, customs, everyday behaviour, and violence. Humans on different stages are divergently enabled to create different social structures, economies, and technologies. Humans staying on childlike stages live without any exception in premodern societies. Humans staying on higher stages live in modern societies. Without a theory about the psychology of humans we cannot understand societies. History consists of a dialectics of societal and cognitive development, object and subject, environment and human. History does not result simply from psychological development but from a positive feedback loop between environment and human development. Higher developed environments arouse higher cognitive stages of the following generations; they again are enabled to improve culture and society (Oesterdiekhoff, 2009a: 8î35, 2012c, 2011: 176î220; Flynn 2007: 106î108).

DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY AND RELIGION

Religion is one of the most influential phenomena across premodern societies. However, its impact has been weakening since the era of Enlight- enment continuously up to now. Developmental psychology explains both universality and strength of religion across premodern cultures and the rise of agnosticism and atheism in the past 200 years. It explains its core and its nature, its existence and main structures, not only some of its accompanying aspects or manifestations. My theory of religion is in the heritage of that of Ludwig Feuerbach but bases on modern developmental psychology, a discipline that did not exist at that time. Chil- dren’s ideas about religion cause the popular religion of ancient times, as already Feuerbach (1985) outlined. Every religion relies on myths and legends that describe the biography and the deeds of the gods. Wilhelm Wundt and others determined that religious myths do not differ originally from myths for children. Modern children are keen on myths by their eight year of life, premodern humans however all their lifetime. This central element of religion is thus rooted in the childlike psyche of premodern humans. Secondly, traditional reli-

183 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution gions around the world imply the worship of ancestors, namely the cult of dead fathers and relations. This most important cult is rooted in children’s adoration of their parents and adults as powerful magicians and gods. As Pierre Bovet (1951) described modern children from their sixth year onwards surmount this stage, experiencing their first sceptical crisis. The psychology of the belief in Olympic gods and godfather is psycho- logically not much distant from that. Thirdly, all children believe originally that persons (first humans, gods) created the world and rule it by magic. The religious ideas about the divine creation and government of the world are thus rooted in children’s psychology. Fourthly, children have not the intellectual capacity to understand that all humans have to die. That is what ethnographers have been reporting from many primitive tribes, too. Many primitive peoples occupy the childlike fantasy to fancy a paradise and a hell as concrete places. Comprehensively, every trait building the traditional religion is rooted in the children’s psyche. Agnos- ticism and atheism, born in the era of enlightenment, not existing in medieval times or in tribal societies, have reached now roughly half of the people in Japan and Europe. Correspondingly, 90% of the people in developing countries believe in god and immortality. Though, they have usually not the strong and vivid religion primitive societies cultivate. Pre- sent-day religious people especially in the advanced countries, who have restrained to weaker, diluted, and more abstract religious assumptions, manifest intermediary stages both of psycho-cognitive and religious development. Already Sabino Acquaviva (1964), Ludwig Feuerbach (1985), and James Leuba (1916) demonstrated that religiousness in modern societies is weaker than in premodern ones. I emphasize that religious beliefs are never disconnected from stage development. That only 3% of the members of the Royal Society of London and 7% of the members of the American Academy of Sciences are still religious suffices to evidence that occupation of the highest stages attainable today eradicate all forms of religion, even the most diluted ones. If humankind had always stayed on formal operations of level B, religion would not at all have existed in history (Oesterdiekhoff, 2014, 2011: 147î161, 2013a: 215î240).

THE RISE OF MODERN, INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

The rise of the modern, industrial society bases not only on the introduc- tion of economic growth and industrial technologies, but on a change of

184 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192 the entire corpus of culture and society. The evolution of industrial economy, sciences “im eigentlichen Sinne,” Enlightenment, humanism and morals, constitutional state and democracy characterize and shape the modern society. These five features originated and grew gradually in the Western culture after 1700. Therefore, there has to exist a common source of them. Developmental psychology discloses these five phenomena as manifestations of the adolescent stage of formal operations. The five phenomena occurred due to the rise of formal operations in the Western educated classes after 1700. Whenever people develop this stage, they automatically develop higher professional abilities (thus carry- ing industrial economy), scientific capacities (originating scientific disciplines), Enlightenment (banning superstition and serfdom), higher morals (fostering higher stages of humanism right across society), and elevated socio-moral attitudes (introducing liberty rights and democracy). Premodern societies did not provide these features because humans on childlike anthropological stages do not think scientifically, are not en- lightened, have childlike morals and corresponding social competences (e.g., prefer the sadistic punishment law and tolerate slavery), and favour authoritarian political forms, denying democracy and liberty rights. Children and premodern humans are not able to think scientifically; modern adolescents learn it when the formal stage arises. Consequently, this corner pillar of modern society stems solely from the rise of formal operations. Children and premodern humans believe in magic, ghosts, superstition, and myths due to their anthropological stage. Modern adolescents surpass these ideas and practices due to the rise of formal operations. Thus, the single root of the era of Enlightenment is the rise of the adolescent stage. Children and premodern humans have a moral, which prefers severe punishments, primitive forms of law, and a law-and-order state. The moral ideas of modern adolescents however correspond to the rise of morals and humanism that originated in the era of enlightenment. Further, as the entire developmental psychology has described, children prefer authoritarian forms in politics, while modern adolescents on the formal stage develop liberal and democratic ideas. Thus, the origination of democracy and constitutional stage stems from the rise of anthropological stages. This new theory of liberalism and democracy is unknown in the political sciences. While traditional theories regard democracy as an accidental outcome of class conflicts or social changes, the new theory can explain the evolutionary character of democracy and its origin in

185 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution the laws of psychogenesis. The new and revolutionary theory of democracy solves many problems the older ones have suffered from. Structure- genetic sociology explains the origins, the mere existence, and the nature of democracy, not only some of its accompanying aspects or ideologies. All five main characteristics of the modern, industrial society are inevi- table parts of the adolescent stage of formal operations, whereas its premodern predecessors correspond completely to the children’s psychological stages. Childlike stages form the features of premodern societies, the adolescent stage of formal operations cause and build the five main characteristics of modern societies. They do not only adorn or shape some features of the modern society; they have rather caused, created, and made the modern society. They have built up the social, economic, insti- tutional, and cultural body of the modern society. There are no other causes and influences that have caused the modern society. The main features of modernity are rooted in the rise of anthropological stages and in nothing else. There are no other sources of sciences, humanism, democracy, industrialism, and Enlightenment than the emergence of the adolescent stage of formal operations. Psychogenesis is then not one among other influences that erected the modern society; it is the only cause. It is not the “überbau,” it is the “basis,” to use Marxian words. Structure-genetic sociology does not explain only the symptomatology of the modern society; it explains its mere existence. In several publications The traditional theories on the rise of modern society, which focus on material, economic, and social factors, are insufficient (Oesterdiekhoff, 2013a: 523î580, 2013b, 2011: 176î205). Psychometric intelligence research and PCCP, righly interpreted in the frame of my structure-genetic sociology, has evidenced that premodern humans stay on lower anthropological stages, while modern humans stay on elevated anthropological stages. The main features and the corpus of modern society root in the adolescent stage of formal operations. Thus, the evidence is accomplished that modernity roots in psychogenesis alone and in nothing else. The new theory of modernity roots directly in the empirical data the both branches of intelligence research have collected. The riddle is not solved why the rise of formal operations (and modern society) took place in the European culture around 1700, why not earlier, and why not in Asia or Mediterranean antiquity. Considerations upon this point are not sufficient. Basically, the central model is the dia-

186 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192 lectics of environment and psyche, a model I have been continuously adhering since my first work of 1987, and a model that Marx formulated similarly in his “German ideology” (Oesterdiekhoff, 1997: 11î44, 2011: 25î39, 176î205, 2009a: 8î35, 98î111, 410î420, 2012 c, 2013a: 29î48, 523î580). Consequently, this self-reinforcing dialectics was in Europe higher developed than in Asia or in ancient times. It is easy to understand that the medieval society could not arouse formal operations. Trib- al societies, agrarian civilizations on the level of the medieval society have not the cultural altitude, the high stage of the dialectics of environment and psyche, which is necessary to arouse formal operations. But it is not as easy to understand the unique character of the European society around 1800 with this regard comparing to Asia around 1800 or ancient Alexandria around 200 B.C. However, the answer could simply be that Europe ran a little bit faster for whichever reasons (which might not be very relevant or even trivial) to pass the winner’s line in elevating the self-reinforcing dialectics. I discriminated two theoretical possibilities with this regard. The first one is an easy model, just following from the obvious and valid model of dialectics. The civilizations in China, Japan, Europe, and India grew more or less continually right across the second millennium, with from time to time changing backbenchers and frontbenchers. Just by any reasons, Europe developed the dialectics of environment and psyche a little bit higher than the other cultures and arrived the line of formal operations and modern society a little bit earlier. Eradicating Europe from the globe and waiting for another few centuries more, the self-reinforcing dialectics especially in Japan (or China) would have possibly climbed to a stage, where Asia would have reached or caused the modern era by itself. This theory, on a deviating theoretical basis, is frequently believed by Asian social scientists today (Oesterdiekhoff, 2005: 81î174). My other idea is that Europe had some advantages for long that favoured the European ascendancy before it´s actual begin. Several scholars emphasized the advantages of the European alphabet in fostering logical thinking, thus giving birth to Aristotelian logics. It seems that Asia did not develop this logical and scientific training, thus hampering the rise of rationality and sciences to some degree (Goody, 1968; Nisbett, 2003; Oesterdiekhoff, 2012a: 247î256). Perhaps both approaches might explain together the European preponderance, as I do believe.

187 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution

This point of finding the last triggers, which favoured Europe in climbing the self-reinforcing spiral somewhat, is surely interesting and important. However, the absolutely central points are rather 1) the rise of the adolescent stage of formal operations originates and carries the whole body of modern society, 2) the adolescent stage explains all the central peculiarities of the modern society, while the childlike stage explains the main characteristics of premodern societies, 3) the alternative and widespread economic and sociological theories are wrong or mis- leading, and 4) developmental psychology (structure-genetic sociology) explains the points 1, 2, and 3, and it is the incomparable breakthrough in finding an encompassing theory of modernity. It is absolutely of ancillary importance whether genetic, geographical, political, social, cultural, or educational factors favoured the rise of formal operations in Europe. We have to discriminate between “trigger” and “cause.” The Greek alphabet, peculiarities of the universities, or whatever could have been the trigger to favour Europe’s self-reinforcing dialectics in comparison to Asian developments. The answer to this question is however a trifle against the notion that the adolescent stage of formal operations is the origin of sciences, industrialism, Enlighten- ment, humanism, democracy, and the subsequent features of modern society. Against this background it appears to me somewhat strange to demand a full knowledge about the favouring triggers but having not un- derstood the developmental theory of modernity and social evolution at the same time. It reminds to people who intend to build a castle and believe the most crucial problem thereby be the choice of the colour of the tuxedos of the servants but having not the financial means to pay the entire building. Consequently, whichever triggers may have aroused the European advantage regarding the self-reinforcing dialectics, only the developmental psychology (the structure-genetic sociology) explains the 100-Million-Dollar question of social sciences, and no alternative theory does so else. Not this or that trigger but the self-reinforcing dialectics explains the rise and the nature of modern, industrial society. Emergence of the adolescent stage is the reference point to understand rise, existence, and nature of the modern, industrial society.

188 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192

SUMMARY

Developmental psychology is both helpful and necessary to explain social evolution and social change, social structures and mentality of premodern societies and the rise of modern societies, the historical development of everyday reasoning, morals, customs, religion, politics, law, world understanding, sciences, and further cultural patterns. The idea that children’s psychology might help to understand history was born among philosophers of the era of Enlightenment. It was an idea widespread among early sociologists, ethnologists, and historians. The Twen- ties and Thirties of the past century built the period where even the most influential scholars worked upon this basic idea. The experience of the big wars, postcolonialism, and the oblivion of the own past belong to the factors that have misled social sciences to ignore this great tradition. Nonetheless the empirical research in the past decades both replicated and enlarged these notions and some authors continued in theorizing about these facts. Many great scholars of the past, among them Hermann Schneider, a philologist, and James Frazer, an anthropologist, assumed a breakthrough in finding foundations for social sciences and humanities would necessitate a reference to developmental psychology. Only on this basis social sciences and humanities might attain the level biology had reached by the Darwinian revolution, they said. Frazer interpreted his own anthropological researches as something that prepared future break- throughs basing on developmental approaches. Developmental psychology was born in Darwinian theory and has already accomplished what Darwin had once demanded, namely the delivery of a theory of the development of human mind. Actually, humans in history have gone through the same path every child has to go on his or her own. It is time now for the social sciences and humanities both to resume older tradi- tions, circling around the names Cassirer, Lévy-Bruhl, Lurija, Piaget, Werner, Frazer, Tylor, etc., and to develop in a direction this essay and those books manifest that combine developmental psychology and social sciences. These researches allow to formulate a general theory of the historical development and to surmount the small-scale researches that characterize greater parts of present-day social sciences.

189 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution

References Acquaviva, Sabino. Der Untergang des Heiligen in der industriellen Gesellschaft. Essen: Ludgerus, 1964. Bayley, Nancy. “On the Growth of Intelligence.” American Journal of Psychology 10 (1955): 808î815. Bovet, Pierre. Le sentiment religieux et la psychologie de l´enfant. Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestle, 1951. Damon, William. Social and Personality Development. New York: Norton & Company, 1983. Connell, Raewyn. The Child´s Construction of Politics. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1971 Darwin, Charles. Gesammelte Werke. Frankfurt am Main: Zweitausendeins, 2006. Dasen, Pierre and John Berry, eds. Culture and Cognition. London: Methuen & Co., 1974. Dasen, Pierre, ed. Piagetian Cross-Cultural Psychology. New York: Gardner Press, 1977. Evans-Pritchard, Edward. Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: University Press, 1937. Feuerbach, Ludwig. The Essence of Christianity. New York: Harper & Collins, 1985. Flynn , James. “Massive IQ-Gains in 14 Nations: What IQ Tests Really Measure.” Psychological Bulletin 101.2 (1987): 171î191. Flynn, James. What is Intelligence? Cambridge: University Press, 2007. Goody, Jack. Literacy in Traditional Societies. Cambridge: University Press, 1968. Habermas, Jürgen. Zur Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976. Hallpike, Christopher. Foundations of Primitive Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979. Hallpike, Christopher. Evolution of Moral Understanding. London: PRG, 2004. Harris, Marvin. Fauler Zauber. Wie der Mensch sich täuschen lässt. München: DTV, 1997. Inhelder, Bärbel. Le diagnostic du raisonnement chez les débiles mentaux. Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1944. Irvine, S. H. and John W. Berry. Human Abilities and Cultural Context. 2 vols. Cambridge: University Press, 1988. Jahoda, Gustav. “Piaget and Lévy-Bruhl.” History of Psychology (1999): 2000, 3. Kern, Fritz. Recht und Verfassung im Mittelalter. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1952. Leuba, James. The Belief in God and Immortality. Boston: Sherman, French & Comp., 1916. Lurija, Alexandr R. Cognitive Development. Its Cultural and Social Foundations. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. Lurija, Alexandr R. Kulturhistorische Humanwissenschaft. Berlin: ProBusiness. 2002. Lynn, Richard and Tatu Vanhanen. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2002. Maistriaux, Robert. “La sous-évolution des noirs d`Afrique. Sa nature, ses causes, ses remèdes.” Revue de psychologie des peuples 10 (1955): 397î455.

190 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 11(1)/2014: 165î192

Mogdil, Celia and Sohan Mogdil. Piagetian Research. 8 vols. London: INFR, 1976. Nisbett, Robert. The Geography of Thought. London: N. Brealey, 2003. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. Kulturelle Bedingungen kognitiver Entwicklung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. Entwicklung der Weltgesellschaft. Von der Steinzeit zur Moderne. Hamburg/Münster: Lit-Verlag, 2005. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. “Familie, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Europa.” Familiengeschichte. Die europäische, chinesische und islamische Familie im historischen Vergleich. Ed. R. P. Sieferle. Münster / Hamburg: Lit-Verlag, 2008. 47î142. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. Mental Growth of Humankind in History. Norderstedt: Bod, 2009a. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. “Trials against Animals.” The Mankind Quarterly. Spring/Summer 3.4 (2009b): 346î389. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. The Steps of Man Towards Civilization. The Key to Disclose the Riddle of History. Norderstedt: Bod, 2011. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. Die geistige Entwicklung der Menschheit. Weilerswist: Velbrück Verlag, 2012a. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. “Ontogeny and History. The Leading Theories Recon- sidered.” Cultural-Historical Psychology 3 (2012b): 60î69. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. “The Rise of Formal Operations and Intelligence in His- tory. The Dialectics of Cultural and Cognitive Evolution.” Psychological Science and Education 3 (2012c):1î13. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. “Was Pre-modern Man a Child? The Quintessence of the Psychometric and Developmental Approaches.” Intelligence. A Multidisciplinary Journal 40 (2012d): 470î478. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. Die Entwicklung der Menschheit von der Kindheitsphase zur Erwachsenenreife. Wiesbaden: Springer VS., 2013a. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. “The Role of Piagetian Cross-Cultural Psychology to Humanities and Social Sciences.” American Journal of Psychology 4 (126) 2013b: 477î492. Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W. Traumzeit der Menschheit. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014 (forthcoming). Parsons, Talcott and Edward Shils, eds. Theories of Society. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Peluffo, Nicolai. “Culture and Cognitive Problems.” International Journal of Psychology. Vol. II. No. III, 1967. Peluffo, Nicolai. “Les notions de conservation et de causalité chez les enfants pro- venant de differents milieux physiques et socioculturels.” Archives de psychologie 38 (1962): 275î291. Piaget, Jean and Rolando Garcia. Psychogenesis and the History of Sciences. New York: Columbia University, 1989. Piaget, Jean and Bärbel Inhelder. The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books, 1969. Piaget, Jean. Le jugement moral chez l´enfant. Paris: Alcan, 1932.

191 Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff / Psychological Stage Development and Societal Evolution

Piaget, Jean. Judgment and Reasoning in the Child. New York: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1959 Piaget, Jean. The Child’s Conception of Physical Causality. Totowa, New Jersey, 1969. Piaget, Jean ,“Need and Significance of Cross-Cultural Studies in Genetic Psycholo- gy.” In Culture and Cognition. Eds. P. Dasen and J. Berry. London, 1974. 299î310. Piaget, Jean. The Child’s Conception of the World. New York: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1975a. Piaget, Jean. The Origin of the Idea of Chance in Children. New York: Norton Company, 1975b. Piaget, Jean. Im Allgemeinen werde ich falsch verstanden. Ed. J.-C. Bringuier. Hamburg: EVA, 1996. Pintner, Robert. Intelligence Testing: Methods and Results. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1931. Raddings, Charles. A World Made by Man. Chapel Hill: University of California, 1985. Raven, John et al. Manual for Raven’s Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales. Oxford: Oxford Psychologist’s Press, 1993. Rindermann, Heiner. “Intelligenzwachstum in Kindheit und Jugend.” Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht 58 (2011): 210î224. Schöfthaler, Traugott and Dietrich Goldschmidt, eds. Soziale Struktur und Vernunft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984. Sowell, Thomas. Race and Culture. A Worldview. New York: Basic books, 1994. Storfer, Marc D. Intelligence and Giftedness: The Contributions of Heredity and Early Envi- ronments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990. Tuddenham, Read D. “Soldier Intelligence in World Wars I and II.” American Psy- chologist 3 (1948): 54î56. Vernon, Philipp. Intelligence and Cultural Environment. London: Methuen & Co., 1969. Werner, Heinz. Comparative Psychology of Mental Development. New York: Follet, 1948. Wygotski, Lew. Thought and Language. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962. Ziégler, Jean. Sociologie et contestation. Paris: Gallimard, 1968.

192