ABSTRACT
Hegel introduced the notion of dialectics to a constructivist view of human history. Gestalt psychology was classically constructivist in that the mind and its contents and products were not seen as either a copy of external associations or of innate knowledge, but rather as an agent that structures the “given” by creating new functional relations between its parts. A number of models suggest that the mind consists of a set of formal rules which, when applied to given premises or other preconditions, automatically produce an inference. The theory of cognitive development built by Jean Piaget over a period of several decades stands as a powerful exemplification of a constructivist approach, and remains the most detailed theory of cognitive development. The most basic constituents of intelligence are the coordinations that are revealed in actions, and which become represented in mental structures or operations.
