ABSTRACT
Piaget was a great psychologist and his ideas have constructed the foundations of traditional education systems. His early research led him to the surprising conclusion that young infants do not even have the idea that a ball or a toy is a “permanent object.” He tried to chart cognitive development in children and concluded that there is first a “sensorimotor stage”, then a “preoperational stage”, then a stage of merely “concrete operations”, and then, finally, a stage of “formal operations”. One serious trouble with this developmental story is that it makes no room for philosophical thinking in children, at least in children under 12 years of age. Developmental psychologists today reject many of the specific claims that Piaget made. But, by the nature of their discipline, they continue to focus on concepts and capacities that can be seen to develop toward an adult norm.
