ABSTRACT
The gradual emergence of cognitive capacities seems to be obvious from both a philogenetic and an ontogenetic point of view. However, such a gradual emergence is hard to describe in the absence of an adequate explanation of the connection between the mental (and in particular, the cognitive) system and other entities in the world. The prevalent Cartesian view of the mind lacks such an explanation and its advocates sometimes doubt the existence of cognitive developmental processes in the first place. The purpose of this article is to present a conceptual framework that can explain cognitive development and provide a better understanding of the mental realm. I begin by describing the prevalent Cartesian approach; then I suggest an alternative approach that provides a conceptual framework for describing cognitive development and learning. The popular conception of memory as a storehouse is also modified in the suggested view. The proposed view is similar in some important aspects to Fechner's view.
