

“Do ‘adult developmental stages’ theories have any pre-theoretical motivation?” by Said Achmiz
(This is a comment that has been turned into a post.)
I have seen much talk on Less Wrong of “development stages” and “Kegan” and so forth. Naturally I am skeptical; so I do endorse any attempt to figure out if any of this stuff is worth anything. To aid in our efforts, I’d like to say a bit about what might convince me be a little less skeptical.
A theory should explain facts; and so the very first thing we’d have to do, as investigators, is figure out if there's anything to explain. Specifically: we would have to look at the world, observe people, examine their behavior, their patterns of thinking and interacting with other people, their professed beliefs and principles, etc., etc., and see if these fall into any sorts of patterns or clusters, such that they may be categorized according to some scheme, where [...]
The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.
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First published:
July 20th, 2025
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.