Inference is a process by which appropriate belief states get connected. Belief states are biological states in the sense that they are reentrant loops (or loops which connect different stimulus); their intrinsic feature is recognition. In inference or reasoning the transition process between belief states is regulated by the rule of concept usage, involved in the belief state, in natural language. Like belief states experiential states are also biological states whose extrinsic feature is recognition, such that, one can have an, say, X-type experience without recognizing it as an experience of X. One can, however, also have an experience of an X; in the latter case, one not only has an X-type experience but also recognizes an X as an X. In some cases the transition from X-type experience to believing an X to be there instantiates a quasi-inferential pattern. In all such cases the transition process is regulated by the rule of X usage. In such quasi-inferential transition additional belief states are involved. Such states assert that there are no countervailing factors and there are additional factors conducive to the conclusion. Such belief states are expressed non-propositionally in the language of thought. Propositions are a necessary part of such quasi-inference for they give content to thoughts to which one can assign 'falsity' and defeasible reasoning requires us to assign 'falsity' to our thoughts. Propositions implicated in the quasi-inferences from experience types to belief states are the evidential reasons for the conclusion and they can only be accepted as provisionally true and have to be revised in the light of further information.

The author defines development, or growth, as the ethically desirable direction of change. Is there a principle which can express what all developmental changes have in common, and what makes them desirable? The orthogenetic principle defines development as change towards increasing integration with complementary differentiation of people with respect to their environment. Heinz Werner and Bernard Kaplan first articulated this idea. It characterizes the portrayal of development by Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and John Dewey. None of these authors, however, justify orthogenesis as an ethical definition of development across a global range of experience. The author attempts this here, giving educators a tool for criticizing or justifying education having development as its aim. The author analyzes integration and differentiation into three aspects: co-ordination of distinguished elements in the environment; autonomous choice from a de-centered or objective perspective; immunity from environmental vicissitudes alongside an opening of and openness to the environment. Advancing these qualities is justified as ethically desirable in two ways. It overcomes the problem of egocentrism and habit-attachment which gives meaning to the notion of development across human experience. It also meets formal ethical criteria of universalizability, universality, and prescriptivity. Educators can use the orthogenetic principle to examine assumptions about development within psychological theories to see how these might themselves influence development. This enables educators to make eclectic use of psychologies within an ethical framework. The principle is also used to generate guidelines for thorough and objective inquiry into what is most growthful for a particular person at a particular time. The author argues that the principle cannot prescribe any educational course in advance of such inquiry into unique situations.