The concept of homeostasis has served as a major building block, if not the cornerstone, of family theory and family therapy. Designed to account for the perceived stability of systems (and symptoms), homeostasis is an epistemologically flawed concept that has repetitively been used in the service of dualistic, animistic, and vitalistic interpretations of systems. Accordingly, homeostasis has led to quirky clinical formulations and a great deal of fuzzy theorizing. This paper contends that the notion of homeostasis is fundamentally inconsistent with systemic epistemology and should be replaced with the more compatible concept of coherence. Whereas homeostasis is a heuristic concept that is not part of a more encompassing theory, the concept of coherence is inseparable from the epistemology in which it is embedded

This discussion of the concept of knowledge reports findings about learning, particularly learning styles and strategies, and explores the potentials and limits of new technologies in the library. The library’s role as a “convivial tool” which can enlarge the range of each person’s competence is noted. Thirty-four references are provided.

This training study investigated the Piagetian hypothesis of structural association between class inclusion and a form of role-taking. Ss were 72 Irish fiveand seven-year-old children and 72 French sixand seven-year-old children. Training was based on disequilibration. Role-taking training, successful only with seven-year-olds, significantly increased class inclusion scores at this age level: Successful class inclusion training did not augment role-taking scores significantly. It is concluded that class inclusion structures are embodied in this form of role-taking. Relevance: This paper was conceived when I worked with Charlie Smock and Ernst and it was designed to see how Piaget’s theory about the emergence of cognitive structures during the concrete operational period showed, or did not show, mutual influences of underlying structures. In other words, did development of classification structures help role-taking ability? I was anxious to show some mutual influence, whereas the data actually show a clear developmental sequence. (I think in retrospect if I had been anxious to disprove Piaget’s assertions I would have had an easier time publishing it in the best journals! That however, was politically incorrect as a post-doc with Charlie Smock and of course, Ernst was very pro-Piaget.

The nature of the blackness of a black box (when an observer does not know what is going on inside the black box) and its whiteness (when an observer believes that he knows what is going on inside the black box) is considered and is applied to a description that is built by an observer of that black box. It is shown that while whiteness may be believed to have been reached within a system, such a system, nevertheless, remains black on the outside. This understanding is considered because it sheds light not only on black boxes and knowledge, but also on certain very basic cybernetic and broad psychological concepts.

Key words: conceptual system, individual, behavior, black box, white box, cybernetics, feedback, input, output, Object, self-reproduction.

Key words: Jean Piaget, radical constructivism, philosophy