THE THEORY OF JEAN PIAGET by

The theory of learning advanced by Piaget is cognitive in nature and emphasizes the constructivist aspects of intellectual functioning. From Piaget's viewpoint, an organism's response is always constructed, in part, according to determinants that are intrinsic to its own structure. Development and evolution are seen as intrinsic Characteristics of the biologi-cal knowing process and not as external events. Knowledge is thus not static but dynamic; it is neither solely in the subject nor in a supposedly independent object, but is constructed by the subject in a subject-object relationship. For Piaget, an object is not an object of knowledge until the knowing organism interacts with it and constitutes it as an object. Intelligence Piaget offers several general definitions of intelligence, including: "the instance of bio-logical adaptation"; "the form of equilibrium toward which all cognitive structures tend"; and "a system of living and acting operations".l Piaget does not stress individual differences in intelligence; although he recognizes differences in intellectual ability, he is not interested in this analysis, but rather in a description of the general form of thought. Little emphasis is placed on emotion, although Piaget states that no act of intelligence is complete without emotion. Emotions represent the energetic or motivational aspect of intellectual activity. He further postulates that external reinforcement has little effect on real learning, and that much of the child's development involves self-regulation. Piaget's view concerning language is in strong contrast to Pavlov's second signal system. While not denying that language is an importnat human acquisition, Piaget feels that logical thinking derives from action and is primarily non-linguistic. Correspondingly, Piaget believe