General Conclusions

Abstract

From these as yet very fragmentary facts, it seems that we may draw a number of conclusions which may not serve for the purposes of establishing an epistemological theory of functions, but rather as an ‘Introduction’ to such a theory. To go further we should need to pursue these studies within the framework of a more generalized study of the forms of explanation and of causality as is currently being undertaken in our Center. In fact, functions appear more and more to be the common source of operations and of causality. But, while the development of operations is becoming clearer, that of causality is still full of mystery. However, it does appear to be an attribution of actions and then of operations to objects. At any rate, a certain parallelism (although perhaps only a partial one whose significance is difficult to specify at this point) will undoubtedly end up by imposing itself between them. It is therefore only in this context of exchanges between operatory and causal structures that the notion of function will find a stable epistemological status. In the meantime, however, we can draw some conclusions from the preceding experiments.

By Jean Piaget.