Jean Piaget - Childs Conception of the World: Selected Works vol 1: the Childs Conception of the World (1929) Vol X

Jean Piaget: Selected Works

Volume 1

The Childs Conception of the World

Jean Piaget

Translated by

Joan and Andrew Tomlinson

English translation first published 1929

by Routledge

Reprinted 1997

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

This is a reprint of the 1929 edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN 0415168872

ISBN 0415168864 (Set)

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The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

STUDENTS AND FORMER STUDENTS OF THE J. J. ROUSSEAU INSTITUTE WHO COLLABORATED IN THIS WORK

Mlle A. BODOURIAN (Chap. ii, ix and x)

Mlle G. GUEX (Chap. i, iii, vii, viii and x)

Mlle R. HEBNER (Chap. viii)

Mlle H. KRAFFT (Chap. i, iii, v, vii and ix)

Mlle E. MARGAIRAZ (Chap. ix and x)

Mlle S. PERRET (Chap. i, iii, v and viii)

Mme V. J. PIAGET (Chap. i, iii, vii and ix)

Mlle M. RODRIGO (Chap. iii and ix)

Mlle M. ROND (Chap. ix)

Mlle N. SWETLOVA (Chap. ii, ix and x)

M. le Dr VERSTEEG (Chap. iii)

CONTENTS

THE subject of this investigationone of the most important but also one of the most difficult in child psychologyis as follows: What conceptions of the world does the child naturally form at the different stages of its development? There are two essential standpoints from which the problem must be studied. Firstly, what is the modality of child thought: in other words, what is the scheme of reality which prompts this thought? Does the child, in fact, believe, as we do, in a real world and does he distinguish the belief from the various fictions of play and of imagination? To what extent does he distinguish the external world from an internal or subjective world and what limits does he draw between his self and objective reality? These are the questions which make up the first problem, the childs notion of reality.

A second fundamental problem is bound up with that just stated; namely the significance of explanations put forward by the child. What use does he make of the notions of cause and of law? What is the nature of the causality he accepts? Explanation as exercised by savages or in the sciences has been studied, as also the various forms of philosophical explanation. Is the form of explanation presented by the child of a new type? These and like questions form the second problem, the childs notion of causality. These two questions of what reality and causality mean to the child are the subject of this book and of its sequel. There the problem was an analysis of the form and functioning of child thought; here it is an analysis of its content. The two questions though closely related are in their nature distinguishable. The form and functioning of thought are manifested every time the child comes into contact with other children or with an adult and constitute a form of social behaviour, observable from without. The content, on the contrary, may or may not be apparent and varies with the child and the things of which it is speaking. It is a system of intimate beliefs and it requires a special technique to bring them to the light of day. Above all it is a system of mental tendencies and predilections of which the child himself has never been consciously aware and of which he never speaks.

Hence it is not merely useful but essential, first to examine the methods to be employed in studying these beliefs. To judge of the logic of children it is often enough simply to talk with them or to observe them among themselves. To arrive at their beliefs requires a special method which, it must be confessed outright, is not only difficult and tedious, but demands also an outlook, the fruit of at least one or two full years training. Mental specialists, trained in clinical practice, will immediately appreciate the reason. In order to assess a childs statement at its true worth the most minute precautions are necessary. Some account of these precautions must now be given, since if the reader ignores them he is likely to falsify completely the meaning of the pages which follow and, moreover, to mismanage the experiments should he, as we hope, decide to check them by repeating them himself.

provoking the creation of a myth. Or in asking the question How does the sun move? one may be suggesting the idea of how perhaps also not previously present thus stimulating fresh myths such as, the sun moves by breathing, or because of the heat, or it rolls, etc. The only way to avoid such difficulties is to vary the questions, to make counter-suggestions, in short, to give up all idea of a fixed questionnaire.

The same is true in mental pathology. A case of dementia prcox may have a sufficient gleam of memory to state correctly who his father was, though habitually he believes himself to be of illustrious parentage. But the real problem is to know how he frames the question to himself or if he frames it at all. The skill of the practitioner consists not in making him answer questions but in making him talk freely and thus encouraging the flow of his spontaneous tendencies instead of diverting it into the artificial channels of set question and answer. It consists n placing every symptom in its mental context rather than in abstracting it from its context.

In short, the test method has its uses, but for the present problem it tends to falsify the perspective by diverting the child from his natural inclination. It tends to neglect the spontaneous interests and primitive reactions of the child as well as other essential problems.

The question of pure observation next arises. Observation must be at once the starting point of all research dealing with child thought and also the final control on the experiments it has inspired. In the case of the present research it is the observation of the spontaneous questions of children which furnishes data of the highest importance. The detailed study of the contents of these questions reveals the interests of children at different ages and reveals to us those questions which the child is revolving in its own mind and which might never have occurred to us, or which we should never have framed in such terms. Further, a study of the exact form of the questions indicates the childs implicit solutions, for almost every question contains its solution in the manner in which it is asked. For example, when a child asks who made the sun? it is clear he thinks of the sun as the product of an act Of creation. Or again, when a child asks why there are two Mount Salves, the big Salve and the little Salve, when there are not two Matterhoms, he evidently imagines mountains as arranged according to a plan which excludes all chance.

We may thus state the first rule of our method. When a particular group of explanations by children is to be investigated, the questions we shall ask them will be determined in matter and in form, by the spontaneous questions actually asked by children of the same age or younger. It is also important, before drawing conclusions from the results of an investigation, to seek corroboration in a study of the spontaneous questions of children. It can then be seen whether the notions ascribed to them do or do not correspond with the questions they themselves ask and the manner in which they ask them.