УМСТВЕННАЯ ОБСТАНОВКА (№ 4) — Пиаже и понятие обратимости

MENTAL FURNITURE #4 - Piaget and the Notion of Reversibility

Moshe Feldenkrais listed Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget as an author to read. Personally, until recently I had read only Piaget's more philosophical work. In looking over his work on childhood development I was struck by its many deep resonances with Moshe's work. Piaget had this to say on 'the biological problem of intelligence,' "Verbal or cogitative intelligence is based upon practical or sensorimotor intelligence which in turn depends on acquired and recombined habits and associations. These presuppose, furthermore, the system of reflexes whose connection with the organism's anatomical and morphological structure is apparent. A certain continuity exists, therefore, between intelligence and the purely biological processes of morphogenesis and adaptation to the environment. What does this mean?" (Origins of Intelligence in Children, pg. 1)

What indeed does this mean to us? Piaget correlates ontogeny, the historical path of changes formative of an individual, and phylogeny, the history of the evolution of the species in a way that clarifies Moshe's notion of organic learning. He focuses on the role of the organism, specifically the sensorimotor system, in learning. Piaget directs his inquiry away from the ontological, that is, explanations and descriptions of what things are and towards the ontogenetic, that is, explanations of how things come to be. Piaget might rephrase philosopher Martin Heidegger's, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" by asking, "How is there something rather than nothing?"

Piaget divides the whole time of childhood development into four stages, each with subdivisions. They are: (1) The period of sensorimotor intelligence from 0-2 years. (2) The period of pre-operational thought from 2-7 years. (3) The period of concrete operations form 7-11+ years. (4) The period of formal operations from 11 years onward.

Regardless of the stage or subdivision thereof, Piaget identifies three essential operations involved at every level of growth whether 'physical' or 'mental': assimilation, accommodation and adaptation (sometimes called equilibration or re-equilibration). Reflexes must be used for the organism to adapt. Piaget sees reflexes as organized schemata of actions delivered by the species to the infant ready for use. Accommodation occurs when contact with objects (in the general sense) modifies the action of the reflex. The consolidation and strengthening of reflex action by virtue of its functioning is assimilation. The progressive adaptation of reflex schemata presuppose their organization. Every reflex is directed towards the world. As it encounters its world its action is modified. The scheme whereby it continues to direct its searching actions and where the reflex comes progressively under the control of cortical activity is its organization. The organism's various organizations of reflex schemata are its means of assimilating novelty, first in the form of nourishment and later as data. Assimilation elaborates and extends reflexes, acquired reflexes and habits. It does so by distinguishing and differentiating: those objects that elicit the reflex; those that relate different objects to endogenous needs, e.g. hunger; those objects that generalize its capacity to recognize different objects. Objects of all kinds are assessed via tactile and kinesthetic interaction as sources of nourishment, excitation, or as cues to perpetuate action for its own sake. Those assessments are the pre-cursors of more formal processes of judging.