From the logic of the child to a natural logic

perspectives as knowledge

Alaric Köhler

pp. 97-111

in: Human Arenas 1 (1), 2018.

Abstract

The notion of perspective is often used in Human Sciences, and some authors such as Bruner (1996) refers explicitly to a perspectivist epistemology. Yet, the general idea of such epistemology is to consider that several perspectives on the same object or phenomena can produce more relevant knowledge than one only. Yet, such epistemology is rarely theorized, which raises interesting questions: What is a perspective? Can we describe a particular perspective on something? Answering such question requires more than a philosophical standpoint or credo, none less than an empirical epistemology. Piaget and his team approached such questions empirically in Genetic Epistemology, starting from the study of actual thinking. However, formal logic of his time was not fitted for providing description of the construction of meaning. Grize later theorized and extended unconventional uses of logic within a logic of action representing the thinking of actors within irreversible time without abstracting it from particular situations and contents. Grize's logic is about singularity—a concrete operational logic—and yet about semiotics, about meaning making. In this sense, Natural Logic may provide researchers studying knowledge with an instrument for including perspectives and points of view. As such, it can contribute to a theory of knowledge taking into account the diversity of points of view and the process of meaning making, based on a perspectivist epistemology.