SummaryThe present paper attemps to demonstrate an analogy between the metascientific, i. e. epistemological, concepts of Niels Bohr and Jean Piaget. To make such a comparison possible a general model of an open circular process of acquiring knowledge is proposed including the following stages: generalization of a successful theory, origin of implicit assumptions, counter‐examples, disclosure of implicit and tacit assumptions ; attempts to eliminate counter‐examples, cul‐de‐sac, emergence of competing theories, explication of fundamental notions, distinction between narrower and broader theories. Parallelly, (...) historical exemplifications on each stage are given. Finally, the argument is advanced that scientific epistemology is only possible at the expense of re‐defining ≫science≪ in such a way that it would cease to be science in its strict classical sense on which the claim to this name has been based so far. (shrink)

D W Hamlyn; The Concept of Development, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 9, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 26–39, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.197.

Nous nous proposons, dans cet article, d'examiner l'aspect philosophique de la pensée de Piaget sur la causalité, ainsi que sa critique des conceptions de Hume et de Kant. Mais une étape préalable s'jmpose d'abord, soit l'analyse des fondements empiriques de la pensée piagétienne. Nous ferons cette analyse en faisant un usage le plus discret possible du vocabulaire plutôt technique de Piaget.

Depuis Plus de deux millénaries, comme chacun sait, le besoin de connaître s'est imposé comme l'un des besoins les plus fondamentaux des hommes et des sociétés humaines. Et comme dès Socrate, il se trouvait tourné résolument non plus vers le seul monde ambiant mais vers l'homme lui-même et ses moindres mouvements intérieurs, il n'en fallait pas plus pour que prenne racine le projet, circulaire mais légitime, de faire de ce besoin de connaître l'objet, à son tour, d'une connaissance nouvelle. Une (...) certaine gnoséologie était née si l'on choisit de désigner par ce terme les tentatives les plus diverses pour rendre compte d'un objet aussi singulier. Mieux encore, il allait suffire de préciser, parmi les questions portant sur le phénomène cognitif comme tel, celles portant sur son fondement, c'est-à-dire sur son bien-fondé ou plus exactement sur ses « conditions de possibilité » pour que prenne à peu près forme l'enquêate plus proprement épistémologique sur la connaissance, enquête qui fut entrevue il y a fort longtemps sans doute, mais dont le type classique nous fut fourni par Kant. (shrink)

Merleau-ponty's phenomenology of the intentional arc uniting body and world is viewed as grounded in the meaningfulness and materiality of both. the genetic constitution of the interrelated meaning and physicality of body and world is sketched in a phenomenological interpretation of jean piaget's ``the origin of intelligence in children''. from this sketch emerges an assertion of the priority of action over perception in prepredicative experience.

Jean Piaget describes the development of reasoning ability in terms of the child’s progress through a series of stages. When a new stage is reached, the child is able to solve problems which he could not solve previously. Piaget presents the equilibration account to explain how the transition from one stage to the next is made. The problem of this paper is: To what extent does equilibration explain stage transition?

system reflected in Saussure's linguistic theory, and so influential in the great progress linguistic theory has made in this century. Indeed, Granger sees linguistic theory as expressing a paradigm for scientific theorizing, which research in other social sciences should adopt. But 'structuralism' as a method in science does not, in Granger's view, begin with Saussure and the linguists. It is nothing less than the strategy of all the sciences, both natural and social, since their beginnings. Now, 'structuralism' is a 'trendy' (...) term no less in Anglophone methodology than in Francophone philosophy. But Granger's employment of the term is not to be assimilated to this trend, nor to the fashionable excesses for which this expression has been a watch word (he explicitly separates himself from this movement in the preface to the second edition). The exact nature of what Granger calls 'structuralist' methods is the subject of a large part of this work, and I will not dwell on it much further in this introduction. Suffice it to say that Granger's demand for structuralist description is nothing less than the recognition that the successful pursuit of science requires that its terms and predicates pick out what we may call 'natural kinds'; that is, describe classes of items that bear uniform nomolog ical relations to one another. A science whose descriptive terms do not meet this condition will never produce any laws that reflect such nomological connections. (shrink)

SummaryThis paper sets the developmental view of Piaget and the structural perspective of Lonergan in juxtaposition for the purpose of allowing their complementary approaches on objectivity to jointly illuminate their common epistemological theme of the constitutive role of the creative and constructive knowing subject at the heart of the cognitive process, as well as to highlight what I argue is their commonly shared and fundamental epistemological thesis of self‐transcending subjectivity: the radical identity of genuine objectivity and authentic subjectivity — that (...) subjectivity is objective insofar as it transcends itself.RésuméCet article met la vue génétique de Piaget en parallèle avec la perspective structurale de Lonergan. Leurs approches complémentaires de l'objectivitééclairent leur thème épistémologique commun, c'est‐à‐dire le rôle du sujet connaissant créateur et constructeur au cœur du processus de connaissance. L'auteur souligne leur thèse épistémologique commune qu'il appelle subjectivité auto‐transcendante: l'identité radicale de la véritable objectivité et de l'authentique subjectivité, car cette subjectivité est objective dans la mesure où elle se transcende elle‐même.ZusammenfassungEs wird der genetische Standpunkt Piagets mit dem strukturalen von Lonergan verglichen, um zu zeigen, wie ihre komplementären Betrachtungsweisen der Objektivität den gemeinsamen erkenntnistheoretischen Gegenstand ihrer Untersuchung, nämlich die konstitutive Rolle des schöpferischen und konstruierenden Erkenntnissubjekts im Erkenntnisprozess, beleuchten. Es geht um die gemeinsame, fundamental These der sich selbst transzendierenden Subjektivität: die radikale Identität der wahren Objektivität und der echten Subjektivität. Das Subjektive kann nur, sofern es sich selbst trans‐zendiert, objektiv werden. (shrink)

Genetic epistemology analyzes the growth of knowledge both in the individual person (genetic psychology) and in the socio-historical realm (the history of science). But what the relationship is between the history of science and genetic psychology remains unclear. The biogenetic law that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny is inadequate as a characterization of the relation. A critical examination of Piaget's Introduction à l'Épistémologie Généntique indicates these are several examples of what I call stage laws common to both areas. Furthermore, there is at (...) least one example of a paradoxical inverse relation between the two — geometry. Both similarities and differences between the two domains require an explanation, a developmental explanation. Although such an explanation seems to be psychological in nature, it is not merely empirical but also normative (since psychology is both factual and normative according to Piaget). Hence genetic epistemology need not be reduced to psychology (narrowly conceived), but rather should be seen as being both empirical and normative and thus similar to certain types of contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

Although the theory of Jean Piaget is correctly characterized as genetic epistemology, its nature and scope remain unclear and controversial. An examination of Piaget's Introduction a l'epistemologie genetique indicates that Piaget relies heavily upon a model of comparative anatomy and, consequently, that genetic epistemology is about both the history of science and individual development. This biological model seems to be the basis for Piaget's view that the history of science can be seen as a (Kantian) history of scientific concepts whereas (...) psychogenetic development is a history of these very same concepts on the individual level. Finally, although there are passages indicating a different interpretation of the scope of genetic epistemology, I give several reasons for preferring the more liberal interpretation. (shrink)

David E Cooper; Experience and the Growth of Understanding, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 97–103, https://doi.org/1.

Piaget's social psychology is not widely discussed among psychologists, partly because much of it is still contained in untranslated French works. In this article I summarize the main lines of Piaget's social psychology and briefly indicate its relation to current theories in social psychology. Rejecting both Durkheim's sociological holism and Tarde's individualism, Piaget advances a sociological relativism in which all social facts are reducible to social relations and these, in turn, are reducible to rules, values and signs. Piaget's theory of (...) social values takes the form of a social exchange theory characterized in an abstract logical way. Piaget claims social exchange requires normative principles of reciprocity and that individual social development results in such an equilibrium because rationality itself is social and based upon social cooperation. These views, in turn, derive from Piaget's orthogenetic views concerning the course of evolution: development can be characterized as an increase in equilibrium manifested both in individual action and in social interaction. (shrink)

L'essai de Piaget est de ceux qu'on ne peut négliger, car il pose en termes lucides et incisifs l'un des problèmes essentiels de la philosophie. Ses conclusions sont nettes, et il faudra bien que l'on prenne position à leur égard. Il nous semble pourtant que l'on pourrait discerner dans ses propos deux conclusions distinctes, et qu'il ne serait dès lors pas impossible d'en accepter l'une sans pour autant souscrire à l'autre. La séparation des deux thèmes devrait en tout cas clarifier (...) le problème, et permettre une assimilation plus aisée du contenu complexe et tourmenté de cette œuvre profondément engagée. (shrink)

v. 1. Piaget's genetic epistemology, 1965-1980.--v. 2. Critique of Piaget's genetic epistemology, 1965-1980.

D W Hamlyn; The Concept of Development, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 9, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 26–39, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.197.

In characterizing cognitive activity as a creative synthesis of the imagination, Kant places the epistemological subject at the center of the cognitive process. This is wholly revolutionary in the history of epistemology. Yet, for all its revolutionary character, the concept of the creative synthesis falls short of providing an adequate context for an explication of the ways in which individual human knowers, as organic creatures, create the products we call knowledge. Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology, on the other hand, with its (...) acknowledged roots in, and avowed allegiance to, Kantian philosophy, goes much further toward a recognition of the importance of the person as knowing subject. For this reason, I shall argue, it offers a route toward a fuller, and better, understanding of the epistemological significance of the knower as person, while retaining and building upon what is best in Kant’s epistemological insights. (shrink)

Foundations of Dialectical Psychology is a compilation of the writings of Klaus F. Riegel on dialectical psychology. The book presents chapters discussing such topics as the dialectics of human development; history of dialectical psychology; temporal organization of dialogues; and the analysis of the concept of crisis and its underlying philosophical model and ideology. Psychologists and students will find the book invaluable.