Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology & Cognitive Revolution: Sensorimotor Intelligence Jean Piaget & Genetic Epistemology
✔Genetic Epistemology – Integration of Development with Philosophy (Biology & Psychology) ✔How Do We Come to Know, In ✔Large Community of Collaborators Development and History? ✔An Epigenetic Framework ✔3 Key Concepts ✔Key Figure: Defining Issues for Action & Adaptation ✗ Field ✗ Logic: Source of Necessary Truth ✗ Stage & Epigenesis ✔Stages & Equilibration
Psychology 1202/H134 Kurt Fischer
Genetic Epistemology Piaget’s Talent at Observation
✔"Genetic" as in Genesis: Development ✔Amazing Number of Surprising Findings ✔"Epistemology": that Replicate! The Study of Knowledge ✔Example: Conservation
✔Link to Kant & Baldwin: Universals of Knowledge Come from Acting in World. ✗ Universals are not simply innate but constructed by people.
1 Method: Clinical Interview Method: Clinical Interview
✔Qualitative Method
✔Goal: Relating to Individual
✔Piaget as Master Interviewer
✔Early Theory: Social Foundations of Development in Perspective Taking
3 Key Concepts Adaptation: Hand Grasping Pencil
1. Action: importance of Adaptation controlled transformation in world of action to objects/events (or represented in mind)
adapted action
2 Adaptation in Knowing Person & World Are In Relationship.
generalizing (assimilation) generalizing (assimilation)
Person Person Using Object Using Object Scheme Scheme Scheme
particularizing (accommodation) particularizing (accommodation)
His Personal Background Personal Background: Religious Crisis
✔Born in 1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Logic replaces Religion. ✗ Distant Cousins Founded Famous Piaget Watch Company.
✔Died in 1980 in Geneva at age 84.
✔Over 60 years of research and theory on genetic epistemology.
3 Logic replaces Religion Building His System
as source of TRUTH ✔1. Biology & Philosophy
If P, then Q. ✔2. 5 early books: "Working Papers“ -The Child’s Conception of the World -The Moral Judgment of the Child 5 + 7 = 12 -The Child’s Conception of Number -The Origins of Intelligence in Children 12 - 7 = 5 -The Child’s Construction of Reality ✔3. Theory built later, starting with Origins of Intelligence
✔4. Wealth of Observations
Collaborations Key Concepts
2. Logic: ✔Good at Spotting Important Ideas, Discoveries a system that is internally consistent (& ✔Public Collaborators: reversible) & so avoids contradiction Inhelder, Sinclair, Bovet
✔Hidden: action: Valentine Piaget, Alina Szeminska 5 + 7 = 12 reversing 12 - 7 = 5 action:
4 Intelligence is Logic of the Mind Key Concepts
3. Stage descriptive slices of development 2 + 3 = 5 stage 4. formal-operational int. 5 - 2 = 3 stage 3. concrete-operational int. stage 2. preoperational intelligence consistency reversibility stage 1. sensorimotor intelligence
Epigenesis: or stronger meaning of Stage Major Transformation
major reorganizations— achieving a new Equilibrium arising from a new Logic
action: 5 + 7 = 12 reversing 12 - 7 = 5 action:
5 as in construction of a new skill:
1
t
n 2 e 4 periods
m p 3
lo (stages)
e
v
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Sensorimotor Intelligence
Based in Actions Action & Perceptions
Mammals & Birds Have S-M Intelligence.
6 Perception Preoperational Intelligence based in Representations "I see" (internalized actions & perceptions)
Representations Include Language, Pretend, Images (Internalized Imitations) Concrete Operational intelligence based in Operations “Pick up teddy.” ✔ (internalized reversible actions), ✔“See teddy.” ✔Child makes teddy walk, eat, talk. including arithmetic: ✔Child pictures or imitates teddy in his mind. action: 5 + 9 = 14 reversing 14 - 9 = 5 action:
7 example: example:
Multiplication of Classes Conservation (Multiplication of Triangles Squares Circles Relations/Amounts) Narrow Wide Red High = Not
Blue Low Not =
Yellow
One of Piaget’s Favorite Examples Formal Operational intelligence of Operations on Operations based in ✔All possible combinations: Operations on ✗ Operating on the obtained combinations (concrete operations) to figure out all possible ones. Operations ✗ Such as combining coins: penny, nickle, dime, quarter. Example: Variable X is an unknown ✗ You must go systematically through all possibilities: 1,2, 3, & 4 at a time. operation, such as adding a number to get ✗ If you do it by trial and error, like an 8-year- old, a sum. you leave out some. Algebra involves operating on X to determine values.
8 example: Equilibrium for Each Stage? Operation on Operation (proposition about proposition) ✔Logic Provides Strong Equlibrium: ✔Sensorimotor: Logic of Action
Yesterday, scientists found a 3-year ✔Preoperational: NO Logic, But Prototype of Non-logic (Illogic) old skull of an animal with 5 feet & ✔Concrete Operational: Logic of Experienced World, Concrete 2 heads that died 100 years ago. ✔Formal Operational: Logic of Hypothetical, Abstract, Formal
What's wrong with this statement?
Piaget: Action & Logic Dynamic Development – Equilibration: in Cognitive Development Person Acts to Coordinate & Regulate Many Factors & Attains Equilibrium. ✔Piaget & Genetic Epistemology ✔ Before, Many Scientists Found Concept Fuzzy & Ill ✗ Integrating Philosophy with Development (Biology Defined. & Psychology) Now Makes Sense in Terms of Dynamic Systems ✗ Building Collaborative Community ✔Cognition Based in Activity ✗ Van Geert (Psychological Review, 1991, 1998) • Formal Equilibration Model Produces Stages ✔Equilibration between Person & World ✔Basis of Intelligence in Logic & Mathematics ✗ Van der Maas & Molenaar (Psychological Review, 1992) ✔Epigenetic Stages • Stages as “Catastrophes” ✗ 4 Main Stages ✗ Equilibria of Logic
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