Relational Developmental Systems

Cartesian Split Mechanistic (CSM) Paradigm

The RDS metatheory derives from the process-relational (PR) scientific paradigm or worldview. Paradigms and metatheories provide ontological and epistemological foundations for specific scientific theories. Ontology refers to claims about the nature of reality, and epistemology involves claims about how we come to know that reality. Theories contain directly testable claims, but metatheories and paradigms do not; they derive their explanatory power and utility indirectly [Page 1829]from the confirmation or disconfirmation of the theories they inform.

The PR paradigm is best understood by contrasting it with the CSM paradigm, whose ascendancy in natural and social science precedes that of the PR paradigm. Within the CSM paradigm, reality is understood to be composed of independent, self-contained, elementary parts along with the efficient forces that act on these parts in a thoroughly deterministic, additive manner to produce more complex entities. The prevailing CSM metaphor is that of reality as a complex machine. The Newtonian model of the universe in which complexity arises from the operation of the laws of motion and gravity on uniform elementary particles is a classic example of the CSM paradigm within the physical sciences.

From within the CSM perspective, we come to know reality by way of a thorough reductionism. Proper explanation in science is held to involve the analysis of phenomena into their most basic components, coupled with a fully deterministic account of the behavior of these components when subjected to various external forces. Reductionism entails two additional principles—splitting and foundationalism. In any reduction, a split is imposed between a thing’s appearance and its underlying reality such that each becomes mutually exclusive of the other. Reduction is assumed to yield the reality underlying appearance. In this way, that which is taken to be reality is construed to be the basis for—and is privileged over—that which is taken to be appearance. The appearance–reality split takes many forms within the CSM paradigm including subject–object, mind–body, and nature–nurture. In each case, the dichotomy represents two incompatible bases for conducting a reduction, with one being favored as the more real. Taking the subject–object split as an example, the CSM tradition within philosophy inspired enduring debates between empiricists, who view knowledge as deriving primarily from the object of knowing, and idealists, who view knowledge as deriving from the act (subject) of knowing.

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