Piaget (Modern Masters S.) (2nd Edition) (Fontana Modern Masters) - Softcover

Margaret A. Boden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006863310 ISBN 13: 9780006863311

Publisher: Fontana Press, 1995

Synopsis

Jean Piaget is famous for his work on child psychology. However, recent discoveries in neuroscience and genetics have called many of his ideas into question. 15 years after writing her initial critical introduction to Piaget's work, Professor Boden sets out to evaluate the current standing and significance of Piaget's theories as the reader finds out more about the processes by which a child learns to create a self. The author also wrote "The Creative Mind".

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is world-famous for his work in child psychology. His detailed studies of the development of thinking from infancy to adolescence, on which he based his theory of intelligence as interiorized action and his vision of the mind as a system of self-regulating structures responsive to the subject's interaction with the environment, have not only influenced academic psychologists but have led to radical changes in school curricula and classroom organization. Yet Piaget regarded himself as a biologist and philosopher (a 'genetic epistemologist') first and a developmental psychologist only second.

In this clear critical account of Piaget's work, Margaret Boden discusses the biological and philosophical issues that influenced Piaget's psychology. She relates his theoretical identification of equilibration with cybernetic control to current work on artificial intelligence. And in this revised edition, she discusses recent evidence for epigenesis, new connectionist models of psychological development, dynamic systems theory and A-Life, and assesses the resilience of Piaget's standing as an intellectual force in psychology. While he may well have underestimated the abilities of infants, his depiction of mental development as ordered structural change still reigns unchallenged in the field, and his ideas remain the obligatory grounding for any student seeking to come to terms with the complex field of child psychology.

"A marvelous starting-point, easily the best available, for anyone setting out to understand Piaget."
PETER BRYANT, 'London Review of Books'.

"Much the best introduction to Piaget"
STEVEN ROSE, 'New Statesman'.

"A lucid and succinct account... Clear, balanced and well-informed, an admirable introduction to Piaget and his critics."
NEIL BOLTON, 'Times Higher Educational Supplement'.

"A delight to read: not only an excellent account of Piaget's work, but also it discusses with great insight his achievements, and the criticisms that have been made of them... Worth-wile reading for philosophers and psychologists alike, as well as for the mythological intelligent layman."
HANS EYSENCK, 'Spectator'.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fontana Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0006863310
• ISBN 13: 9780006863311
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 192