ABSTRACT
The idea of a process in the head, in a completely enclosed space, makes thinking something occult. "Thinking takes place in the head" really means only "the head is connected with thinking." Noam Chomsky arid Steven Pinker attribute political significance to their concept of innate linguistic and mental universals as a bulwark against the manipulation of personality and belief. The chapter is concerned with the very widespread belief in the possibility of a 'bottom-up' account of cognition and the fallacious pedagogical conclusions which may be drawn as a result. Jerry Fodor disputes not only J. Piaget's account of cognitive development by stages and its origin in sensorimotor intelligence, but any developmental account of cognition. Most of the studies cited by Harvey Siegel and Barbara Hodkin concern the central Piagetian idea of stages of increasing cognitive complexity.
