🤖 Synthesis
Let us start with an outline of the hierarchical complexity model and its relevance for adult ontological development, alongside how it integrates prior developmental theories.
Key Points:
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What is the Hierarchical Complexity Model?
The model, developed and refined by scholars such as Kurt Fischer, Theo Dawson, and Michael Commons, describes cognitive development as progressing through hierarchical stages of increasing complexity. These stages reflect how individuals organize and integrate information, moving from simple, concrete thinking to more abstract, systemic, and meta-systemic reasoning. Unlike stage theories focused only on children (e.g., Piaget), this model spans lifelong development, addressing how adults grow in cognitive and conceptual complexity. -
Origins and Context:
The model synthesizes insights from earlier developmental theories, particularly:- Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Stages (focused on children but foundational for understanding hierarchical complexity).
- Lawrence Kohlberg’s Moral Development Stages, which emphasize moral reasoning at increasing levels of sophistication.
- Neo-Piagetian Theories, which extend Piaget’s framework into adult development.
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The Map and Its Current Form:
The model identifies discrete stages (e.g., sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational, and beyond) and extends this into adulthood with post-formal stages like systematic, meta-systematic, and cross-paradigmatic thinking. These advanced stages are crucial for navigating complex, ambiguous, or systemic problems—particularly in modern contexts requiring integrative and adaptive skills. -
Integration of Previous Models:
A major contribution of Fischer, Dawson, and colleagues is the ability to subsume earlier stage models (e.g., Kohlberg) into a generalized framework of hierarchical complexity. The contention is that different models are often measuring the same underlying developmental process but in specific domains (e.g., moral reasoning, cognition). The model provides a unified language for describing how complexity grows across domains. -
Intellectual vs. Embodied Understanding:
A crucial distinction is made between intellectual articulation of complex reasoning and embodied integration of those stages. For instance:- A person may provide advanced moral reasoning responses (as in Kohlberg’s stages) but fail to embody those principles in their actions.
- Psychopaths, for example, might intellectually manipulate higher-stage reasoning without genuine emotional or moral integration.
Example Starting with Piaget:
Piaget’s stages, foundational for the model, describe transitions in children’s cognitive development but stop at formal operations (adolescence). The hierarchical complexity model extends this by:
- Identifying stages beyond formal operations, such as systematic reasoning (organizing multiple abstract systems) and meta-systematic reasoning (integrating across systems).
- Addressing how adults grapple with interdependence, paradox, and multiple perspectives, which Piaget’s framework did not explicitly consider.
In essence, this model gives us a unifying map of developmental progression, adaptable to multiple domains of human experience, and offers tools to measure and support adult growth. Shall we delve into specific examples of how this model is applied or how it integrates with broader ontological development frameworks?
Raw
So, let's start with perhaps the most well-studied and detailed example of ontological development that would go far beyond the child into adult development.
And this is the hierarchical-complexity, hierarchical-cognitive-complexity model that come out of the neo-piagetian synthesis, and find their most advanced synthesis and suppression in the work of Kurt Fischer, Theo Dawson, Michael Comons, and many others.
There are several points to make here. Let me try and enunciate them before I try and set them up.
- What is this idea?
- What did it come out of?
- What does the map of it look like?
(?) And what does the grasp of it look like, at this latest moment? And that, then there's also a comment about the fact that many of the previous models of stage theories, for example, Kohlberg's moral development, Fowler's stages of faith, and many others, can be integrated into generalised hierarchical-conceptual framework.
I should explain a bit about what I mean by that. But at least under the contention of Dawson and colleagues, I think that basically all these other things are either at least accessible with similar approach, and really kind of measuring the same thing. And I think this is also a different and quite an interesting point between intellectual understanding and embodied understanding. For example, there's an assumption in the moral framework of Kolberg a little bit, that if you are at a certain level of the moral, stage is, you are actually also embodying it. If you express ideas from that stage, then you're also embodying that thing. And that's much less obvious than we might think. We can easily imagine a psychopath giving very good answers to the Kolberg questionnaire about what Frank should do about the medicine for his wife, while actually in a completely self-interested way. So, yeah, there's some commentary there about this scenario, but at least are they all maybe measured by the same compass, or are they either the same? Now, I think that's a good outline, and I need to now set out an example, I think, of working through that, starting with Piaget and so on, about what hierarchical skills complexity model type is.