ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the background to the sensationism which has dominated developmental thinking. The philosophical traditions discussed represent only some of those which have exerted influence on the thinking of developmentalists. One of the most basic assumptions in developmental psychology has been that prototypical experience relates to things present to the senses, any other form of cognition being seen as "higher." The chapter outlines the ways in which a philosophical interest in the role of sensation and perception gave rise to some quite precise assumptions concerning cognition in childhood. The child has thus been seen as a prisoner of the senses, as a prisoner whose developmental liberation must be achieved piecemeal. The "child-centred" Pestalozzi-Froebel tradition also retained some adherence to J. Rousseau's cultural recapitulationism, arguing that the educational syllabus should be derived from the cultural history of "the race."
