Exploring the rationale and basic tenets of Piaget's theory, the authors define physical-knowledge activities, consider reasons for their use and discuss principles of teaching rooted in theory-based objectives.

In the past knowledge was considered static, but epistemologists now take that as soon as an entity of knowledge crystallizes it must dissolve again in the current of new developments of understanding. Here Piaget brings scientific analysis, without philosophical presuppositions, to bear on the understanding of knowledge as a process. This approach to knowledge underlines the benefits of interdisciplinary studies; and Piaget puts forward specific proposals for cooperation between philosophy, linguistics, cybernetics, political economy, demography, logic, epistemology and experimental teaching methods. It is the contention of this great theoretician that such interdisciplinary work could lead to a whole "circle of sciences", in which wide-ranging disciplines would link hands in a general theory of knowledge. -- Back cover.

"Here is an overall, unified approach to Piaget's psychological theory of intelligence that includes his most recent research and concepts. No other book covers the main sources from which Piaget's work stems or offers such complete understanding. The concise summation provides a general introduction at a time when the growing popularity of Piaget's theories is not always proportionate with the understanding of some of his chief theoretical notions. His theory of biological intelligence, for example, is not referred to in other books in English dealing with theoretical aspects of learning or intelligence. This book examines and interprets all of Piaget and includes reading material, mostly from Piaget's writings, available in English for the first time. Diagrams of basic concepts are used by way of illustrations. Besides introductory and summary sections, the text focuses on the five major themes of operative, symbolic, and figurative knowing, biology, and equilibration. It is a challenging book which both informs and opens up new vistas. It encourages the reader to fit familiar notions about Piaget into an overall understanding of Piaget's system. A leading interpreter whose qualifications include a year at Piaget's International Center of Genetic Epistemology in Geneva, Dr. Furth explains Piaget's key concepts and theoretical notions of psychological intelligence. His analysis interprets Piaget's theory of intelligence and clarifies how superior levels of intelligence and scientific thinking evolve from elementary forms of behavior."-Publisher.

This volume marks the 20th Anniversary Symposium of the Jean Piaget Society. Some of the American contributors were among the first to introduce Piaget to developmental and educational psychology in the United States, while some of the international contributors worked with Piaget to develop his program of genetic epistemology and continue to make significant contributions to it. Within this volume the possibility of Piaget's paradigm is reviewed not only as the stuff of normal science, yielding fascinating empirical questions that linger within it, but also, and more importantly, as the stuff of revolutionary science, with continuing potential to comprehensively structure our thinking about developmental theory. The constructive contribution Piaget's theory has for developmental theory emerges as four central themes in the volume: understanding the intentional or semantic aspect of mental life without abandoning the Piagetian assumption that is rational and committed to truth testing; examining mental life and its development as a dialectical relation of function and structure--a relation Piaget introduced in his study of the developmental relation between procedural and operational knowledge; exploring new and interdisciplinary perspectives on equilibration as the driving force of constructive adaptive processes; understanding social and historical forces in individual and cultural development--not necessarily as forces antithetical to Piaget's perspective but as forces that take on new meaning within his framework which avoids erroneous dichotomies such as the distinction between subjective and objective knowledge.

Cognition and emotions in children.

This unusual volume presents an overview of Jean Piaget's work in psychology--from his earliest writings to posthumous publications. It also contains a glossary of the essential explanatory concepts found in this work. The focus is on Piaget's psychological studies and on the underlying epistemological theses. The book may be consulted in various ways depending on whether one is looking for an introduction to Piaget's theory, details about a particular concept, a survey of his body of work, or a historical perspective. Readers who are relatively unfamiliar with Piaget's ideas and seek access to them through this book will not necessarily proceed in the same way as those who are acquainted with Piaget's work and wish to refresh, synthesize, or complete their knowledge. The volume is divided into two major sections with several subdivisions as follows: * The Chronological Overview presents Piaget's early ideas and the most important sources of his inspiration, and reviews his research work dividing it into four main periods plus a transitional one. * The Glossary covers a number of explanatory concepts which are essential to Piaget's theory.