Eclecticism

Pepper seemed to be proposing that theoreticians and philosophers draw from the best available information from a variety of perspectives to get a better understanding of human development.

Explaining how this eclecticism would work, Goldhaber (2000) returns to the questions each philosophy asks to explore why humans are the way they are.

• Mechanism asks how people are different, answering the question "by looking at different schedules of reinforcement or different characteristics of the models we try to emulate or different gene frequencies or different short-term memory capacities" (p. 381).
• Organicism asks what makes people the same, answering the question by exploring "those qualities that we have in common by virtue of being members of the same species… ultimately the question of what it is that makes us human" (p. 381), distinct from any other species.
• Like the mechanists, contextualism starts by asking the question of what makes humans different, but focus on the content of people's lives to find answers in their experiences.

Asking which of these perspectives is most important for gaining an understanding of humans makes little sense. Each perspective provides important insights into human development. As Goldhaber (2000) says:

We recognize that we are different from one another and that the meaning of these differences is not necessarily either obvious or universal. To argue, however, that one question is ultimately more important than another… is like arguing that hydrogen is more important in the formation of water than oxygen (p. 382).

In other words, seeking answers to the questions answered by all three perspectives provides a fuller understanding of human development. However, each philosophy remains only reasonably accurate; "they need to be better integrated, in terms of both level and analysis and the questions each asks" (Goldhaber, p. 383). This integration seems to be emerging outside of academia in a form that not only combines the three perspectives, but that also attempts to acknowledge and apply the wisdom of humanity with science.

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