Morphisms and Categories: Comparing and Transforming - Softcover

Piaget, Jean; Henriques, Gil; Ascher, Edgar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1138976458 ISBN 13: 9781138976450

Publisher: Psychology Press, 2016

Synopsis

Despite dissent in many quarters, Piaget's epistemology and the developmental psychology derived from it remain the most powerful theories in either field. From the beginning, Piaget's fundamental epistemological notion was that all knowledge is rooted in action, and for a long time, he identified action with transformation. What is known is that which remains constant under transformatory action. This book represents a fundamental reformulation of that point of view. Alongside transformatory schemes, Piaget now presents evidence that nontransformatory actions -- comparisons that create morphisms and categories among diverse situations constitute a necessary and complementary instrument of knowledge. This work aims to elucidate that insight experimentally and theoretically and to understand the developmental interaction of comparing and transforming as knowledge is constructed.

This first English translation of Piaget's work includes studies of children's understanding of geometric forms, machines, and abstract concepts. It contains a clear statement of his mature position on continuity with biology as well as with the history of ideas.

About this title

About the Author

Edited by Terrance Brown, Authors Jean Piaget; Gil Henriques; Edgar Ascher

Edition details

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1138976458
• ISBN 13: 9781138976450
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 252
• Editor: Brown Terrance