Lucian CULDA

Taking into account the following scientific session topic: "Trends and tendencies in the social - human and behavioral sciences at the beginning of the XXIst century"[*], it is my intention to call your attention, and even to challenge you, intellectually speaking, to the results of the research work I began before 1980, and materialized so far into eight volumes still not critically analyzed in the specialized literature.

In the volume called People's Becoming within the Social Processuality, I outlined a research program focused on the human issue. The possibility to design the new program evinces that the explanation of the social existence has enough guidelines to accurately inquire the human being, the chances people stand to satisfactorily interpret their existence, as well as the circumstances under which they can enhance their existential possibilities. In the volumes comprised by the series Processual - Organic Investigation I maintain that by accomplishing effectively the research programs outlined, the conditions are created so that people become able to intervene in the social processuality and also in their own existence, without causing processes whose consequences are unpredictable and insecurity providing.

The research program I outlined in the aforementioned volume focuses on the people's condition within the social processuality. In the previous volumes, people's traits have been defined strictly to help explain the social existence as a processuality, but the resulting model has proved to open great opportunities to reconsider the human existence issue [1]. Prior to this, in the volume A Critical Overview of Psychology, I argued that it is possible to detach oneself from the theoretical investigation whose premise is the existence of the "psyche", and I outlined the processual-organic interpretation of this field, which needs to be inquired in order to make it possible to tailor the human being as a result and expression of some complicated biotic and social processes.

The open paradigm of processual - organic investigation causes the plausible reference area to shift from "man" to the-people-within-the-social-processuality. Inside the processual - organic paradigm, a person is the product and expression of the connections among the information bio-processors which maintain the body, and the homo-interpreters set up in the person's neocortex. Two aspects need to be underlined: by means of the bio-processors, the human being is integrated in the bio-organization, and by the homo-interpreters he inevitably belongs to certain social organizations that, in their turn, maintain the social processuality.

The radical alteration of the assumptions, as well as the location of the studies focused on the human being within a paradigm fostering the transdiscipline inquiry makes it mandatory for the author to be cautious: numerous specifications need to be made to explain both the need to abandon the already known investigation methods, and the approach I am promoting.

The critical approach to psychology has occasioned an overview of the main active trends in recent years, the co-existing ones related to the capabilities and limits of any type of approach included. The co-existence of several psychological theories, despite their incompatibilities noticed in the process, underlies the unsatisfactory stage of the studies whose premise is the existence of the "psyche". In fact, the human being centered studies have not succeeded yet in detaching from the empirical representations, which derive from the acceptance of the first symbolism on man dating back to Ancient Greece. The same happened in the case of those interested in inquiring conceptwise the abiotic (physical) existence and the biotic one: they also used initially verbal interpretations derived from some disparate information processing, meaning the information that can be encoded by the bio-processors and figurative interpreters; The developments in the sciences centered on the aspects adjacent to the two types of existence are illustrative of the further premise reconsideration as well as of the critical detachment from the primary information interpretations provided by the bio-processors.[2]

The stand I am promoting could be outlined only after serious reconsideration, which allowed for the successive detachment from erroneous interpretations. All this is analyzed in the volumes: Man, Values, Axiology (1982), Man, Knowledge, Gnoseology (1984), The Genesis and Evolution of Knowledge (1989), which certify my concern to identify the genuinely pertinent and sufficient premise helping explain the simultaneously biotic and social nature of man. Although at first I had intended to identify and use as many as possible of the already available hypotheses in the concurrent theories, in the process I came to realize the essential limits of the explanations based on the theoretical subject matters framework; it became thus possible to transcend the approaches depending on a certain theoretical matter and to outline the transdiscipline investigation premise.

Within this framework, I would like to draw attention on some methodological aspects as to the likelihood of the processual-organic anthropology. The processual-organic investigation of the human existence within the social was not meant at first to be an alternative to the investigations made by the sciences whose focus are disparate aspects of the vast and intricate issue of the human existence. When it materialized into the published models, it became obvious that an explanation was being designed, which was not compatible with the existing theoretical patterns, especially those resulting from various aspects of the alleged field called the human "psyche". As I became aware of this, I was very cautious; I was concerned with the identification of what could be turned into value out of the theories, especially the psychological ones, but from one inquiry stage to another, while setting up ever more clearly the processual-organic concept, I got more and more evidence of the clear-cut split from the existing explanations. The latter occurred when I could grasp the mega-processualities existence, as well as the need to investigate them in ways which might allow for the coherent explanations of the underlying information and energy-related processes.

The processual-organic investigation being focused on the unitary modeling of each mega-existence - which presupposes special attention to emergence, to the organizing consequences of the information and energy-related processes, the connections among the organizing and disorganizing processes inside the social processuality and the socio-organizations - two distinctions become possible and necessary: abandoning the studies which separately investigate energy-related processes ( in the way the sciences centered on physical, biotic or social existents proceed), and becoming aware that the investigation products resulting by the use of determinist-causal or systemic methods are not well grounded. One gets the awareness that by modeling in ways which induce altering simplifications and refer strictly to certain energy-related characteristics of the objects under study, one cannot explain the processes underlying a mega-existence. The above mentioned limits derive mainly from the disregard of the information and energy-related nature of existence, from the incapacity for modeling mega-existences as products and expressions of some intricate information and energy-related processes.
By bringing to the foreground the social information processing and the interrogative processing functions in reconstructing successively the interpretive capabilities, the resulting explanation makes possible the awareness of the limited ways in which people have so far inquired existence in general, and especially, their social existence. The symbolic and conceptual investigations performed in ways which do not benefit from the correct interpretation of the information processors cannot lead to satisfactory results. One thus inquires disparately what can be correctly interpreted only by means of a unitary approach; one uses investigation methods that provide access only to certain types of social processes, types that can be interpreted in ways which induce altering simplifications and hasty generalization.

Psychology, due to the premise adopted by the authors, cannot satisfactorily interpret the human being. Psychological constructs abound in interpretations which prove to detect aspects of the information processes functioning, but they are disparate and their explanatory capabilities are affected by the lack of distinction among bio-processors and interpreters, as well as the insufficient consideration of the social existence; they can turn to good account only within a framework that models unitarily the "possibles" of people as information processors inside the social existence and the bio-organization.

The critical approach I used in the second volume of the processual-organic investigation series [3] is illustrative. As an extension to it, and consistent with the premise that has made it possible, I am to pronounce on the solution emerged inside the social processuality investigation.

By accepting as a framework-interpretation the social information processing model, I have sketched an investigation program which might induce a genuinely unitary interpretation of the people's social situation, wherever the latter are located in the social space and time. The resulting research program, that, once carried out, constructs what I have called processual-organic anthropology, is the alternative to the methods in which nowadays investigations are being conducted inside many theoretical disciplines whose primary focus is on man and the latter's social existence.

As already suggested, the program derives from a premise by which I obviously stand apart from the investigations attempted at these last few years: no social fact, no social existence aspect can be correctly approached by ignoring the social information processing, its location in certain social organizations (within the spatial and temporal dimension they support) and the latter's location within the characteristic spatial and temporal dimension of the social processuality. I maintain an investigation can turn into a pertinent approach if properly designed into ways that allow us to identify the information processors involved, their location inside the encompassing socio-organizations and the latter's status within the social processuality.

In the sociological research program I have outlined I argue that social existence is an organization in a state far from an equilibrium, due to the organizing and disorganizing processes derived from the ways in which the social information processing capabilities are reproduced under the pressure exerted by their own outputs. Due to all this, the social processuality can be satisfactorily modeled only by combining four investigation types. I called them ontological (theoretically grounded), historiographic, future-related and praxiological investigations, the latter being - by nature - essentially applied.

The above statement needs further comment: the social processuality can be satisfactorily inquired if the ontological explanation may represent the framework-interpretation for the other three investigation types, correlated in ways derived from the former's features. If the ontological modeling pronounces on the "possibles" of any social existence, the other types of investigation can pronounce on the "reals" in their succession supporting a certain social processuality (historiographic interpretations), on the possible developments in the active interpretation areas, including the pathway opened by the processual-organic paradigm (future-related investigations), as well as on the strategies to intervene in socio-organizations that have reached certain particular states, and are located in a certain information area, by taking into account concrete situations people are being confronted with, and their needs, first those deriving from the people's social existence (praxiological investigations). One can notice that the praxiological investigation presupposes not only to use the ontological model as a framework -interpretation, but also the information provided by the historiographic investigation of the domain under study. Only by having the explanations provided by correlating the four investigation types can people satisfactorily interpret the social processualities in which they live, the future "possibles" and their capabilities of getting involved in the social existence.

The social existence can therefore be modeled satisfactorily only by means of the four concerted investigation types; together, they can help people find their correct place within the social processuality, assess correctly their present status and make decisions so that the social existence becomes favorable and providing security. This is the novelty value of this kind of studies, the bottom line by which the processual-organic investigation, as a transdiscipline one, stands apart from the stands derived from the confinement to the scientific subject matters limitations, from the narrow specialization which the latter induce and maintain.

As already stated [4], a coherent program has been designed by putting together the layouts of the four investigation types, together with the connections among them. Its accomplishment presupposes the collaboration among people and its results assessable information: if the framework model is erroneous or contains errors, the program should either prove unachievable or its results should not develop into the expected consequences.

One can maintain at the present stage the processual-organic social ontology is nuanced enough to outline not only a sociology representing the genuinely transdiscipline alternative to the many constituted areas in order to inquire disparate domains of the social sphere, but also a way of investigating people, likely to become the genuinely transdiscipline alternative to the investigations carried out so far inside several theoretical disciplines, with a view to explaining disparate aspects of the human existence.

The processual-organic ontology meets the methodological challenges to be a framework -interpretation for studies which unitarily approach the human being issues. As it will be further argued, it favors a strategy of turning into good account by which people can become able to approach coherently their social existence, to make the most comprehensive connections out of the ones possible so far, to intervene in the organizing and disorganizing processes, which affect the most people's social situation as long as the latter's actions exert contradictory pressures.

But the social ontology - modeling only the "possibles" of the social processuality - cannot reveal by itself either the social logic or the human logic; such types of logic can be revealed by the correlated investigations I mentioned. Not only do I maintain the need to correlate the four types of investigation, but I also support the possibility to correlate them if the processual-organic explanation of the human "possibles" within the social processuality is considered an ontological explanation and adopted as a framework-interpretation. I sustain nevertheless that the human ontology reveals the need to accomplish two types of applied studies: phylogenetic and ontogenetic ones. The phylogenetic reconstitution should precede the ontogenetic investigations in order to locate them correctly. The processual-organic anthropology will therefore result from two types of applied studies, each presupposing investigations of all the four above mentioned types.

According to the processual-organic interpretation, the four investigation types are considered stages and dimensions which set the way for decisions and can be performed in a unitary manner: dimensions as they make it possible to inquire in a unifying way the social processuality traits, that need to be separately analyzed; stages as the organic relationships among the areas which are the object of reference of the dimensions impose a certain investigation hierarchy. If one can make each dimension's issues clear, one can approach the next higher dimension.

In the volume called People's Becoming within the Social Processuality, I showed the results of the clarifying studies I made by observing the distinctions referred to.

In the first part I present the human investigation ontological dimension. By the ontological investigation of the human being, one can model the people's "possibles" in the social processualities, in any of the possible ones. I am referring to that area which I consider proper to investigate man's issues, by delimiting the new object under study and, using the new reference points, I sketch the first model, that comprises the most general hypotheses. I take over the explanation from the social processuality model, but the current objectives have determined me to systematize the information in a new way and to distinguish among nuances that allow for applied studies. I insist on the people's "possibles" in the main sequences that may derive from the social processuality. Methodological references to applied investigations are therefore made possible.

The second part comprises methodological aspects aimed at continuing the studies included in what I called The Processual Organic Anthropology.

In the first chapter I underline that the ontology outlined in chapters 1 through 27 contains reference points that allow for applied studies, centered on the human situation issue. I also draw the attention on the likelihood and opportunity to continue the ontological investigations.

In the second chapter I outline the core methodological principles related to the applied investigations that can be derived from ontology, if the latter is adopted as a framework-interpretation. I maintain that if not only the 'social existence", but also the people change successively their manifestation possibilities, if there are connections between the socio-organization traits and the people's organizations ones, the following hypothesis is justified: to pronounce on some real people's features, located in an active sequence of the social processuality, we need to have information which situate the latter in socio-organizations and reveal the social processuality previous sequences which contribute to the emergence and functionality of the active sequence. One may not therefore investigate concrete people, or refer to real people for various purposes, if one does not previously analyze the latter's precise location in the sequences which sustain the social processuality development, as well as the people's situation evolution within the social processuality. The mentioned aspects are sufficient to support the need to correlate the two applied investigation types: the phylogenetic and ontogenetic ones. As the ontogenetic studies can be located correctly only by having relevant information on people's contributions, throughout the generations, made at a certain development stage of the social information processing capability, to outlining the social organizations and the predominant interpretations of social morality, education, family, people's involvement in the management of communities, etc, the phylogenetic investigations must precede the ontogenetic ones, to supply them with framework-diagnoses of the future social "possibles" included.

The two applied investigation types are possible because the ontological explanation of the people's existence likelihood inside the social processuality reveals the connections among the changes that may occur in the social processes and in the social information processing, on the one hand, and the connections among the changes that may occur in the people's and the socio-organizations" interpretive capabilities, on the other.

I also maintain that both phylogenetic and ontogenetic investigations presuppose historiographic, future-related and praxiological analyses.

Consequently, in the second part I focus on the specific methodical aspects of the investigation types able to foster the processual-organic anthropology; the references are sufficient for the reader willing to inquire or to critically approach the suggested investigation methodology.

The paradigm I outlined is open to the unitary interpretation of the social processuality development and to the simulation of the "futures" made "possible" by the processual-organic paradigm, sociology and anthropology, as well as of the chances the people stand and the risks they run if they process information in this perspective.

In conclusion, we can maintain that the processual-organic ontology outlined so far makes possible a new framework-concept of inquiring the social existence and, within it, the human issue. By carrying out the investigation in the above manner, we stand chances to interpret the human being in a unitary way within the social processuality, to reveal the organizing and disorganizing processes that maintain the social existence in a state far from equilibrium and, according to this model, to evince the connections among the macrosocial actions and the actions done by people within the organizations, among the state of the social organizations and the status of the people.

The fact that the social ontology reveals the likelihood of phylogenetic and ontogenetic investigations, or of that type I called historiographic, future-related and praxiological, and of the connections that should be taken into account so that the four investigation types could be relevant, makes me righteously state: within the information perspective made possible by the processual-organic paradigm, anthropology gains an amount of consistence that covers the meaning of the term.

The studies certainly address those already specialized in one of the disciplines that focus on disparate aspects of the human being. I ask for their attention in the first place, so that I can benefit from their cooperation in the intricate assessment enterprise of the current results, as well as in turning into good account the windows of opportunity the studies are opening. To ease their approach, I made numerous references to chapters from my previous works containing relevant details for the research worker who wants to further analyze or perform assessment studies.

I also address the experts in other sciences who are now dividing and disputing over the socio-human issues; I hope the analytical attitude typical for the scientist may foster the critical approach of the already outlined model as a whole, starting from the volume called The Social Processuality. Beyond the processual-organic solution, I open the debate on the explanatory capability of the studies designed within the boundaries of the disciplines outlined throughout history, I deny the efficiency of the investigation methods deriving from the latter's acceptance, including the investigations considered transdiscipline.

The volume is also addressed to the students, to the youth wishing to understand the social processuality, as well as the human nature, to become able to get involved in educational or therapeutical processes, and also in some social processes adjustment, be they political, judicial, economic, etc. I offer them the opportunity to explore the processual-organic paradigm. I would certainly not recommend a non-critical adoption of this concept. All the volumes, starting from the one I published in 1982, comprise references to the methodical options and to the assessment attempts I have made; they facilitate both the understanding of the resulting explanatory models, and their critical approach.

I did my best to write all this in the most accessible way, so that it may be grasped even by the reader who, although not an expert in the area, is nevertheless interested in discerning man's status in this world as well as the chances mankind stands. If the processual-organic paradigm is the right one, the further studies will undoubtedly offer people ever better reference points to adopt a responsible and competent stand in managing the "citadel", no matter which, and also their own existence.

By the aspects put forward, I do not pretend to have produced a theory that already answers satisfactorily all the dilemmas the people's social existence has created throughout the centuries, in all cultures. I maintain the processual-organic paradigm has fostered an investigation dimension not only more comprehensive than the previous ones; this paradigm also offers the premise for investigations that might reveal the path to people's evolution into a social processuality which, in its turn and assisted by the processual-organic sociology, may become more humane and turn into the genuinely favorable social environment. As an extension of this paradigm and of the program called The processual-organic sociology, the anthropological project I outlined provides the ontological and methodological starting point to those willing to further inquire the human existence issue, by explicitly adopting the processual-organic stand; the latter can do it either to assess the new paradigm, the processual-organic sociology or anthropology, or to contribute to differentiating among them.

The ontological model I presented in the volume People's Becoming within the Social Processuality meets the applied studies main requirements; it may be found interesting by those who focus mainly on the concrete aspects of existence, for instance on improving performance by means of educational activities. The methodical suggestions I made in the last part of this volume may also meet such practical needs.

The processual-organic anthropology and sociology stakes are to transcend the insecurity providing social situations and to help people live inside social organizations deriving from the correct interpretation of the social processuality and of people's status in the social area. If the project is achievable, man's journey into being5 proves its likelihood, and thus people may actually accomplish what Constantin Noica called "an awareness of becoming which turns into deliberate becoming."

The model I already published argues that as long as people act within a social processuality which does not offer the satisfactory explanation of Existence in general, they cannot satisfactorily interpret their own existence and react according to partially erroneous interpretations; consequently, people's actions maintain insecurity providing states, far from equilibrium, of the social organizations and of the social processuality. By carrying out the two programs effectively, people can approach a new information dimension; they can benefit from a method of grasping their own existence which other theoretical constructs have not made possible.

REFERENCES:

* Scientific session organized by the " XXIst Century Romania" Foundation

1. Lucian Culda, A Critical Approach to Psychology, Licorna Press, Bucharest, 1995.

2. Al. Koyre, Galilei and Plato, in: The History of Science and its Conceptual Reconstruction, the Scientific and Encyclopedic Press, Bucharest, 1981.

3. Lucian Culda, A Critical Approach to Psychology: People's Possibles within the Social Processuality, Licorna Press, Bucharest, 1995.

4. Lucian Culda, The Processual-Organic Sociology, Licorna Press, Bucharest, 1996.

5. Constantin Noica, Man's Journey into Being, the Scientific and Encyclopedic Press, Bucharest, 1981.