Conceptual Prerequisites for an Understanding of Stability-Change and Continuity-Discontinuity

Abstract

Divergent understandings of the nature of development result from incompatible philosophical assumptions or world views. One perspective maintains that reality is best represented as stable and fixed, and as a consequence development or change is understood as a function of antecedent causes. A second perspective maintains that reality is best represented as active and changing, and as a consequence the course of development does not permit antecedent causal explanation. Implications for the investigation and explanation of development are discussed. A major implication of the determining influence of the two world views involves the continuity-discontinuity issue, i.e., the issue of the appearance of novelty during the course of development and the explanation of novelty. The stability perspective asserts a strict continuity in that it allows for no gaps in antecedent-consequent causal sequences. The activity and change perspective permits discontinuity.

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