Table Of Contentchapter 1
The Organismic-Developmental Framework
The organismic-developmental framework, though a unitary one, con
sists of the coordination and integration of two distinct orientations:
one organismic-holistic; the other, developmental. The general nature
of our framework will perhaps be best understood if we treat the
organismic-holistic aspect first and then indicate how the develop
mental orientation intertwines with the organismic one.
The Organismic-Holistic Orientation
Basic to any organismic approach are two closely related general
assumptions concerning the nature of behavior. One of these gen
eral assumptions is the holistic one, which maintains that any local
organ or activity is dependent upon the context, field, or whole of
which it is a constitutive part: its properties and functional signifi
cance are, in large measure, determined by this larger whole or con
text. The second general assumption is that of directiveness: it is
assumed that the various organs or activities of an organism function
in the realization of ends immanent in the activity of the organism
as a whole. These two general assumptions may be briefly elaborated.
The Holistic Assumption
The significance of whole or context in determining the properties
and values of parts has been maintained by various philosophers, e.g.,
3
Whitehead (229), Smuts (232) and theoretical biologists, e.g., Gold
stein (82) and von Bertalanffy (16; 17). In psychology, the holistic
notion has been most vigorously introduced and advocated by the
various schools of Gestalt psychology.1 The classic paradigm of the
role of the whole in the determination of parts is von Ehrenfels,
demonstration of the relation between tones and melodies. As von
Ehrenfels showed, individual tones differing in acoustic properties may
be functionally identical in melodic units transposed to a higher or
lower pitch level (principle of invariance), but tones identical in iso
lation may be functionally different in markedly distinct melodic
wholes (principle of variance). Since the time of von Ehrenfels,
numerous studies in quite different domains of psychology have shown
the general validity of the holistic thesis.2
In general, the holistic assumption is opposed to any view that would
treat an element (for example, a movement, a momentary experience)
as if it possessed a fixed structure and meaning, irrespective of the
whole or context of which it is a part. It thus makes one doubt the
value of relating, solely on the basis of a material similarity, elements
tom from quite different functional contexts.3 For example, it leads
one to question the justification of relating the vocalization of animals
or even of pre-speech infants to the actual speech sounds of a child.
Again it leads one to question the value of identifying two bodily-
movements before having considered the possibility of different func
tions which these externally (materially) similar movements may sub
serve. The rejection of analysis in terms of absolute material simi
larity does not, of course, entail an opposition to analysis per se: the
thesis is that analysis should take into consideration the context, espe
cially the functional significance, of an action. In brief, then, in terms
of the organismic-holistic assumption, every behavioral act, whether
outward bodily movement or internalized cognitive operation, gains
^-See Scheerer (212), Guillaume (89) for the history and critical evaluation of
Gestalt psychology.
2 The so-called Berlin Gestalt school (Wertheimer-Kohler-Koffka), though
holistic, is principally agenetic in contradistinction to the developmentally ori
ented Leipzig school of Krueger-Sander-Volkelt. It is also noteworthy that the
holism of the Berlin group is, with few exceptions, nonorganismic in approach
insofar as it studies functions (perception, etc.) unrelated to total organismic
activity. Again, in contrast, the Gestalt theory of the Leipzig school, in its
stressing of pervasive feelings as the psychophysiological background of all func*
tioning, bears a relatively close relation to more recent organismic theories.
aSee, in this connection, E. Galanter and G. Miller (72, pp. 279, 285 ff).
4 SYMBOL FORMATION
its significance and status in terms of its role in the overall function
ing of the organism.
With regard to the holistic assumption, one more point should be
made explicit; this pertains to the reciprocal relationship between an
organism and its environment: we hold with von Uexkiill (255; 257)
that the analysis of behavior in its fullest scope should not be directed
toward an organism in isolation, but an organism embedded in its own
vital field or “Umwelt.”
The Umwelt, however, should neither be confused with nor reduced
to the physical-geographical environment: the fact that one may de
scribe an organism’s Umwelt in physical-geographic terms makes it no
more a mere geographic-physical environment than would a physical
description of an organism or a physical analysis of its movement in
space render that organism an exclusively physical entity. The nature
of an organism’s Umwelt is, of course, dependent on the physical-
geographic environment; but it is to a large extent determined by the
“ends” of the organism and by its species-specific and individual ap
paratus for engaging in transactions with its surroundings.
The Directiveness Assumption
There are some indications of a tendency to reintroduce teleogical
conceptions in the analysis and description of behavior,4 though the
majority of American psychologists are not inclined to accept such
notions.8 It is our view that, like organismic theory of biology, organ
ismic theory of psychology requires teleological concepts: organismic
activity, whether biological or psychological, is by its very nature di
rected activity. There is, on one hand, the tendency of organisms to
conserve their integrity, whether biological or psychological: in the
face of variable, and often adverse, external or internal conditions,
the organism tends to maintain its existence as an integrated entity.
There is, on the other hand, the tendency of organisms to develop
towards a relatively mature state: under the widest range of condi
tions, organisms undergo transformations from the status of relatively
little differentiated entities to relatively differentiated and integrated
adult forms.
4 See, for instance, Miller, Pribram and Galanter (168), E. Russell (204; 205).
5Such notions often appear covertly in psychological theorizing: the very con
cept of “behavior” as distinct from “movement” appears to be a teleologieally
“tainted” notion.
The Organismic-Developmental Framework 5
It must be stressed that directiveness should not be understood to
imply conscious effort toward an end, so-called “subjective teleology.”
Directiveness in the sense of “objective teleology” is an observable
characteristic of organismic behavior irrespective of any consciousness
of ends on the part of the organism (Hofstadter, 106; 107). Purposive
or planning behavior, in particular, should not be confused with di
rectiveness in its generic sense, though it is likely that planning be
havior, consciously entertained in human beings, is a specialization
of that general directiveness immanent in all organic activity.6
In the maintenance and attainment of biological and psychological
ends, organisms bring into play built-in and acquired organs and op
erations. Such apparatus constitutes, collectively, the means by which
organisms exploit their milieus in the realization of their ends.
In such realization of ends, organisms may use one rather than another of
several available means or may utilize diverse means in a complementary or
cooperative way. The use of one rather than another of several potential
means may arise either through a free voluntary choice or through conditions
wherein the normally preferred means for the attainment of an end is blocked.
To illustrate the situation of “free choice,”' one may consider a normal adult
who in issuing some command, may use speech or gesture. For an example
of'a situation in which one turns to an alternative means because the nor
mally preferred' way is blocked, one may refer to Gelb and Goldstein’s case*
(74), in which the patient, unable to read written material in a normal manner,
utilized tracing movements with his head in order to “read” the material. As
an illustration of the complementary use of several means, one may refer to a
normal adult’s tendency to combine speech, gesture, facial expression, etc.,
in order to communicate more effectively.
One must stress the organic relationship between the means and
ends of an organism not only by and in itself but also in its relevance
for the interaction between the organism and its milieus: on one hand,
“means” and “ends” are correlative notions and cannot truly be con
sidered in isolation from each other. On the other hand, an organism
“copes” with its milieus by carrying forth its species-specific and in
dividual operations upon that portion of the geographical environment
to which its instrumentalities are adequate; it structures the environ-,
ment into its Umwelt through specific apparatus in the service of its
biological and psychological ends. This process of forming one’s
Umwelt requires some degree of congruity between means and ends:
that is, the ends are formed in relation to the available means and the
6Cf. Whitehead (280), Goldstein (82), E. Russell (205), Agar (2), E. Harris (97).
6 SYMBOL FORMATION
means undergo formation with respect to the ends to be attained. This
interdependence manifests itself with particular clarity in regard to
changes in the modes of structuring the environment in the normal
course of phylogenesis and human ontogenesis; the reciprocity be
tween mean and ends is also quite clearly observable in the deviant
ways of “coming to terms with the environment” (Goldstein) in cases
of psychopathology.
Implied in this notion of reciprocity between means and ends is the
thesis that changes in means affect the character of the ends, and con
versely, changes in ends influence the character of the means. The
full importance of this notion, as we shall see, becomes manifest when
one examines the developmental changes in means-ends relationships,
that is, when one observes the effects that newly emerging goals or
ends have on the formation and restructurization of biopsychological
equipment and the effects which in turn such newly formed equip
ment has in the determination of biopsychological ends.7
The Developmental Orientation
The organismic-holistic orientation, in our framework, is closely in
terwoven with a developmental orientation: development is a con
stitutive moment of organismic functioning. We assume that organ
isms are naturally directed towards a series of. transformations—re
flecting a tendency to move from a state of relative globality and un-
differentiatedness towards states of increasing differentiation and hier
archic integration. It is this tendency, formulated as “the orthogenetic
principle,” which serves for us to characterize development as dis
tinct from other types of change over time.
With regard to these developmental transformations, one of the im
portant issues concerns the much-discussed question whether these
changes are continuous or discontinuous. There are some who argue
for a pervasive continuity and insist on deriving the new from the
old; there are others who believe in a radical discontinuity, in an ir
reducible emergence of novel means or ends. Our point is that de
velopmental changes necessarily entail both continuity and discon
tinuity. On the one side, the orthogenetic principle in overall terms,
that is, in terms of an increase in differentiation and hierarchic integra
tion, necessarily implies continuity; on the other hand, in terms of
7 We shall sometimes refer in our later discussions to the notion and the genetic
principle of “means-ends” relationship by the term “form-function” relationship.
The Organismic-Developmental Framework 7
the specific, concrete forms and operations, novel functions and struc
tures “emerge,” and in this respect changes are discontinuous. Even
in the emergence of novel functions and forms, however, there is, as
a rule, an intertwining of continuous and discontinuous changes:
though novel features come about by qualitative change, which neces
sarily implies discontinuity, the manner in which such features emerge
may be gradual in various respects, e.g., there may be a gradual in
crease in the frequency of occurrence of the new over the old, or there
may be employment of older forms for new functions before the new
functions secure the formation of novel, function-specific means, etc.
(Mayr, 162; Werner, 273).
A further issue, of equal importance, concerns the “fate” of the
genetically earlier modes of functioning when higher functions and
forms have emerged. At least with regard to humans it must be main
tained that with the attainment of higher levels, lower levels of func
tioning are not lost. Under normal circumstances, such lower levels
of’ functioning (both in terms of means and of ends) are subordinated
to more advanced levels of functioning; they may come to the fore
again under special internal or external conditions, for example, in
dream states, in pathological states, under intoxication by certain
drugs, or under various experimental conditions. They also, and char
acteristically, may come to the fore when the organism is confronted
with especially difficult and novel tasks: in such cases, one often finds
a partial return to more primitive modes of functioning before pro
gressing towards full-fledged higher operations; we may refer to this
tendency as a manifestation of the genetic principle of spirality.8
The general principle concerning the survival of lower levels of functioning
in the course of development has been perhaps no more succinctly expressed
than by Hegel in his Lectures on Philosophy of History (99, p. 98): “The life
of mind is a totality of levels, which on one hand exist side by side, but which
on the other, appear transitorily one after the other. The moments which
the mind seems to have left behind actually exist in it at the present time in
full depth.”
Let us now turn to a brief examination of the ways in which the
developmental principles intertwine with the organismic principles of
behavior discussed in the previous section.
Taking first the holistic assumption, that is, the principle pertain
ing to the determination of local, part processes by larger contexts
or wholes, one finds that with development—both in phylogenesis and
8 Werner (274); cf. GeselPs related “principle of interweaving” (77).
a SYMBOL FORMATION
in human ontogenesis—local activities become more and more inter
related and integrated, that is, come more and more under the control
of and the determination by the focal, goal-directed activities of the
organism. Concurrently, the nature of the organism-environment
transactions undergoes marked changes.
At phylogenetically earlier levels, the milieu impinges upon the or
ganism and to a great extent affects its behavior in the form of
physicochemical stimuli—as energies which evoke direct and relatively
stereotyped reactions from the organs or parts affected. At higher
levels, the environment defined earlier by physicochemical stimulation
and reactivity is converted through both species-specific instrumen
talities and individually learned patterns of response into a field or
fields of stimulus-signs or signals, instigating and guiding sensory-
motor, goal-directed actions upon things—actions serving predomi
nantly biological ends of maintaining the existence of individual, group,
and species. Finally—and most characteristically and elaborately at
the human level—the environment is not only reacted to and acted
upon but is cognized, or “known,” in the form of perceptualized and
conceptualized objects. Implied in this development, there is an in
creasing diversification of the milieus or Umwelten in which an organ
ism lives—with the lower levels of organism-environment transac
tions becoming, to an increasing degree, subordinated to and integrated
within the higher levels. We have sketched these major develop
mental transformations of organism-Umwelt relationships in the left-
hand column of Table 1-1.
Hand in hand with these developmental transformations in organ
ism-Umwelt relations, and indeed, ingredient in such transformations,
Table 1-1
Diagram of developmental transformations
Organism-Umwelt relationships Means-ends relationships
I, Tropistic-reflex reactions to Stimuli Biophysical and biochemical transmission culmi
nating in stereotyped reaction patterns of parts
of, or whole organism.
II. Goal-directed sensory- upon Signaled Species-specific behaviors and individually
motor action things learned patterns of response (“habits”); form
ation of signals (mammals); “natural” tool
usage (apes); all predominantly in the service
of biological ends.
III. Contemplative knowledge about Objects Construction of tools and formation of symbols in
the service of knowing about and manipulating
the environment.
The Organismic-Developmental Framework 9
are genetic changes in the ends to which organisms are directed and in
the relationships of means to the realization of ends. Whereas more
primitive organisms—again both phylogenetically and ontogenetically
—are directed predominantly toward the satisfaction of biological ends,
in higher organisms, ends of a quite different order come into play; in
man especially such novel, emergent functions are clearly manifested.
Among the novel ends immanent in the nature of the developing
human being—and most central in the context of the present discus
sion—is that of knowing about his world. This end plays an intrinsic
role in man’s transformation of his milieus into objects to be cognized
and conceptualized. Indeed this end is so strong in man that even in
the absence of certain normally employed instrumentalities of cogni
tion (for example, sight and hearing), man may use alternative, com
pensatory means for attaining knowledge.
As we have indicated, with the phylogenetically increasing range of
ends, and especially with the shifts in dominance towards the novel,
“higher” ends, there is a correlative change in the instrumentalities
by which the ends are striven for or attained (see Table 1-1, right-
hand column). Where the Umwelt is primarily constituted through
physical-chemical stimulation and reactivity the instrumentalities are
biophysical and biochemical processes culminating in relatively fixed,
stereotyped patterns of reaction, with part processes often reacting
directly to the impinging stimulations without being subjected to and
integrated into any more central organismic end.9
At higher levels of functioning, the sovereignty of the stimulus-
issuing environment is reduced to some extent, and the “directly
stimulus-determined patterns of behavior” (Maier and Schneirla, 161,
p. 75), found even among the higher invertebrates, give way to an in
creasing freedom of “action upon things” in the course of vertebrate
evolution. In this shift, there is a transformation, via organismic
apparatus, of the physicochemical stimuli into signals for biologically
relevant action, a production of signals through organismically initi
ated action,10 and occasionally the use of environmental properties as
momentary “tools” for the realization of momentary ends.11
Finally, at the post-neonatal human level, with the emergence of a
0 Cf. for instance, Viand (260), Maier and Schneirla (161), Herrick (104).
10 An example of signal building in mammals would be the urination of male
dogs; one of its functions, according to Uexkiill, is that of putting up a “flag” as
a signal of domination of the territory (256).
11 See K. Oakley (177), W. Kohler (136), P. Guillaume and I. Meyerson (89).
10 SYMBOL FORMATION
basic directiveness towards knowing, man’s hand and man’s brain
participate in the construction of tangible tools out of the properties
of the environment and the construction of cognitive objects (percepts
and concepts) which mediate between man and his physical milieu:
it is primarily toward these objects that man’s distinctive behavior is
oriented.12 It is in this context, as we shall attempt to show, that the
most significant of man’s instrumentalities, the symbol, is formed.
12 See Delaguna (54), Kahler (123).
The Organismic-Developmental Framework 11
chapter Z
The Organismic Basis of Symbol Formation
The Nature of Symbol Formation and Its Role in Cognition
Theoretical Considerations
THE KNOWING OF OBJECTS: SYMBOLS VERSUS SIGNS
The developmental transformation from animal to human existence
entails a radical change in the nature of the transactions between
the organism and its milieus: human beings are not merely, nor mainly,
organisms reacting to stimuli or responding to things-of-action. Man
forms his Umwelt by relating to his environments in a new manner:
he is directed toward knowing. The orientation toward, and the ca
pacity for, knowing are essential and irreducible characteristics of
man, characteristics that come clearly into relief when one compares
the nature of the adaptiveness of animals and men to their respective*
environments. In animals—particularly in lower animals—organism*
and environment are closely attuned to each other; one might say-
that both are elements in a comparatively closed system, within which
stimulation and response are tightly interlocked. With ascendence*
on the evolutionary scale, the closed system begins to open up: the*
relative rigidity of adaptive responses, the species-specific conformity
to environments, gives way increasingly to choice responses, to modi-
fiability and plasticity of behavior, and to an increasing trend to--
ward learning through individual experience.
12
