The Competitiveness of Nations
in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy
Harry Hillman Chartrand
April 2002
Jean Piaget
MAIN TRENDS IN INTER-DISCIPLINARY
RESEARCH.
This essay was originally published as Chapter 7 in
Main Trends of Research in the Social and Human Sciences, Part 1,
Mouton/Unesco 1970. This book was
also published in Great Britain in 1973 by George Allen & Unwin
Ltd., Copyright © 1970 by Unesco. Harper Torchbooks, New York, N.Y., 1973.
Table of Contents
Page
I - POSITION OF THE PROBLEMS 9
1. Interdisciplinary collaboration in the 9
natural sciences
2. Convergence of problems within the human sciences 12
and their relative affinity with those of the life sciences
3. From problems to general processes: structures, 14
functions and meanings
4. Logic, law and signs 18
II - STRUCTURES AND RULES (OR NORMS) 21
5. Concepts of structures
216. Systems of Rules
267.
Examples of interferences in the field of 28logical structures
8.
Systems of non-deducible norms: sociology of law, 31etc.; customs and habit patterns
9. Diachronic and synchronic problems in the
field of norms 33
III - FUNCTIONING AND VALUES
35
10. Functioning and functions. Affectivity and praxeology 36
11. Classification of Values 40
12. Regulations and operations relative to valorizations
of finality 43
13. Cybernetic circuits and economic adjustments 46
14. Synchronic and diachronic problems in the sphere of
function and value 49
IV - MEANINGS AND THEIR SYSTEMS 52
AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES
Notes (bottom of each web page) 68