OpenMind & Philosophythrough ~2035 (the next decade)
45–60%
Most likely outcome
Curated canon (continuity)
Jean Piaget — genetic epistemology and the faith that shaped it
Read the full research →01The Outcomes — 4 scenarios, priced by the research
Curated canon (continuity)45–60%
Piaget remains the founding ancestor everyone cites and few follow: his empirics live inside neo-Piagetian, core-knowledge, and dynamic-systems work; genetic epistemology is taught as history, not practiced; the Vidal biographical line is settled. The modal future, anchored by the base rate for superseded-but-foundational theorists.
Drivers
- base rate for foundational theorists
- Geneva archive + Jean Piaget Society durability
- constructivism now presupposed (cited but optional)
- pedagogical inertia of the four stages
Signals to watch
- steady citation with declining primary engagement
- new editions framed as historical recovery
- Piaget confined to 'ancestor' literature-review paragraphs
Horizon · already underway; dominant through 2035 absent a shock
Partial revival via new biology / 4E / predictive processing25–35%
Agential/developmental evolutionary biology (EES), 4E/enactive cognition, and predictive processing/active inference claim Piaget as a precursor - equilibration recognized as an early prediction-error-and-update self-regulation story - producing a modest program-level revival reuniting development, evolution, and epistemology.
Drivers
- structural rhyme between equilibration and active inference
- EES need for historical legitimacy
- enactivist appetite for action-based forebears
- cheap rediscovery via the digitized corpus
Signals to watch
- predictive-processing papers citing equilibration as precursor
- EES/agential-biology work building on Walsh 2023
- enactivist reclamation of the sensorimotor Piaget
Horizon · early signals visible now; recognizable revival in the back half of the decade
Fade to intellectual history15–25%
Piaget recedes further: the empirics survive but the name drops out as core-knowledge, Bayesian/computational, and dynamic-systems paradigms become self-sufficient. He becomes the Wundt of developmental psychology - indispensable, unread.
Drivers
- maturation of rival paradigms into independence
- generational turnover
- drift away from grand developmental theory
Signals to watch
- falling primary citations in textbooks
- four-stage scaffold dropped from intro teaching
- no new translations/editions
Horizon · slow drift, most visible by decade's end
The parallelism is actually put to the test5–15%
A team finally characterizes the history-of-science and the childhood conceptual sequences INDEPENDENTLY and checks for the claimed isomorphism - the first genuine test of the program's boldest claim, which would either resurrect it (clean match) or close it (clear mismatch). Low probability, very high information value.
Drivers
- computational history-of-science maturity
- large developmental datasets
- motivation to settle the circularity objection
Signals to watch
- any pre-registered/computational independent-series comparison
Horizon · could happen any time; more likely late, if at all
Probabilities are the research's own scenario bands, priced as outcomes. The full argument — history, current state, drivers, and sources — lives in the corpus: read the Future Trajectory chapter.
