Paranoia as a Fixation of an Abstract System

Abstract

We begin with the classic observations of the development of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence due to Bärbel Inhelder and Jean Piaget.¹ We focus on the growth of the individual’s ability to consider alternative answers to a given question simultaneously and then test them. We also take for granted for a moment that this is scientific method as described by members of the hypothetico-deductivist school in the philosophy of sciences, especially Sir Karl Popper. Now B. Inhelder and J. Piaget have observed that children perform with varying degrees of success given tasks illustrative of the ability to employ scientific method. Infants think only about one alternative, and one which we can view as the concrete one; adults employ scientific method in ordinary circumstances naturally and with no difficulty, except that when alternatives multiply patience may run out. This gives the false impression that all we need to become scientists is more patience. In fact, however, science deals not with ordinary circumstances but with most unusual facts whose explanations require strong imagination and strong deductive powers.