Jean Piaget: Genetic Epistemology

1. Jean Piaget: Genetic Epistemology “The common postulate of various traditional epistemologies [theories of valid knowledge] is that knowledge is a fact and not a process and that if our various forms of knowledge are always incomplete and our various sciences still imperfect, that which is acquired is acquired and can therefore be studied statically. Hence the absolute position of the problems “What is knowledge?” or “How are the various types of knowledge possible?”...

2. “Under the converging influence of a series of factors, we are tending more and more today to regard knowledge as a process, more than a state... Any being (or object) that sciences attempt to hold fast dissolves once again in the current of development. It is the last analysis of this development, and of it alone, that we have the right to state “It is (a fact).” What we can and should then seek is the law of this process. (We are well aware, on the other hand, of the fine book by Kuhn on “scientific revolutions.”...

3. In fact, if all knowledge is always in a state of development and consists in proceeding from one state to a more complete and efficient one, evidently it is a question of knowing this development and analyzing it with the greatest possible accuracy.

4. This beginning does not unfold itself as a matter of chance, but forms a development, and since the cognitive domain has an absolute beginning [and is a] development, this domain itself is to be studied at the very stages known as formation.... The first aim of genetic epistemology is, therefore, if one can say so, to take psychology seriously and to furnish verifications to any question which each epistemology necessarily raises, yet replacing the generally unsatisfying speculative or implicit psychology with controllable analyses…”

5. Upon what does an individual base his judgements? What are his norms?How is it that these norms are validated? What is the interest of such norms for the philosophy of science in general? (How does the fact that children think differently affect our presumption of fact itself?)

6. Problems Number and space Time and speed Permanent objects, identity, and conservation Chance Moral concerns Play patterns and dreams Imitation of others

7. Developmental course The stage theory: equilibration adaptation: assimilation and accommodation (Kuhn): TRANSFORMATION “Whereas other animals cannot alter themselves except by changing their species, man can transform himself by transforming the world and can structure himself by constructing structures; and these structures are his own, for they are not eternally predestined either from within or from without.” “The organism adapts itself by materially constructing new forms to fit them into those of the universe, whereas intelligence extends this creation by constructing mental structures which can be applied to those of the environment.”