ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters, in describing Jean Piaget’s school and university studies, give us a good sense of the official intellectual structures and the general context in which Piaget grew up. There remain, however, a few grey areas related to the genesis and subsequent growth of Piaget’s interest in psychology. One might wonder, for instance, whether certain outside influences induced Piaget to turn from malacology to the study of human cognitive processes – without necessarily rejecting the idea that Piaget also went through a personal moral crisis. 2 Such questions tempt one to take a closer look at the relations Piaget had with the Faculty of Arts, the only place in Neuchâtel that gave regular upper-level courses in psychology at this time. Understanding the relations between Piaget and the university, however, presupposes knowing something about that newly created institution. For this reason we begin with a brief history of the Arts Faculty during its youth and then move on to an analysis of the precise role the Arts Faculty played in Jean Piaget’s intellectual development.
