Swiss psychologist, best known for his pioneering work on the
development
of intelligence in children. His studies have had a major impact
on the fields of psychology and education.
Piaget was born August 9, 1896, in Neuchâtel. He wrote and
published his first scientific paper, on the albino sparrow, at the
age of ten. He was educated at the University of Neuchâtel and
received his doctorate in biology at age 22.
Piaget became interested in psychology; he studied and carried out
research first in Zürich, Switzerland, and then at the Sorbonne
in Paris, where he began his studies on the development of cognitive
abilities. He taught at various European universities while he
continued his research and writing.
In 1955 he became director of the International Center for
Epistemology at the University of Geneva, and later he was codirector
of the International Bureau of Education. He died in Geneva, on
September 17, 1980.
In his work Piaget identified the child's four stages of mental growth.
In the sensorimotor stage, occurring from birth to age 2, the child is concerned with gaining motor control and learning about physical objects. In the preoperational stage, from ages 2 to 7, the child is preoccupied with verbal skills. At this point the child can name objects and reason intuitively.
In the concrete operational stage, from ages 7 to 12, the child begins to deal with abstract concepts such as numbers and relationships.
Finally, in the formal operational stage, ages 12 to 15, the child begins to reason logically and systematically.
Among Piaget's many books are
The Language and Thought of the Child (1926),
Judgment and Reasoning in the Child (1928),
The Origin of Intelligence in Children (1954),
The Early Growth of Logic in the Child (1964), and
Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child (1970).
American philosopher and psychologist, who developed the
philosophy of pragmatism.
James was born in New York City on January 11, 1842. His father,
Henry James, Sr., was a Swedenborgian theologian; one of his brothers
was the great novelist Henry James. William James attended private
schools in the U.S. and Europe, the Lawrence Scientific School at
Harvard University, and the Harvard Medical School, from which he
received a degree in 1869. Before finishing his medical studies, he
went on an exploring expedition in Brazil with the Swiss-American
naturalist Louis Agassiz and also studied physiology in Germany.
After three years of retirement due to illness, James became an
instructor in physiology at Harvard in 1872. After 1880 he taught
psychology and philosophy at Harvard; he left Harvard in 1907 and
gave highly successful lectures at Columbia University and the
University of Oxford. James died in Chocorua, New Hampshire, on
August 26, 1910.
Psychology
James's first book, the monumental Principles of Psychology
(1890), established him as one of the most influential thinkers of
his time. The work advanced the principle of functionalism in
psychology, thus removing psychology from its traditional place as a
branch of philosophy and establishing it among the laboratory
sciences based on experimental method.
In the next decade James applied his empirical methods of
investigation to philosophical and religious issues. He explored the
questions of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, free
will, and ethical values by referring to human religious and moral
experience as a direct source. His views on these subjects were
presented in the lectures and essays published in such books as The
Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897), Human
Immortality (1898), and The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).
The last-named work is a sympathetic psychological account of
religious and mystical experiences.
Pragmatism
Later lectures published as Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of
Thinking (1907) summed up James's original contributions to the
theory called pragmatism, a term first used by the American logician
C. S. Peirce. James generalized the pragmatic method, developing it
from a critique of the logical basis of the sciences into a basis for
the evaluation of all experience. He maintained that the meaning of
ideas is found only in terms of their possible consequences. If
consequences are lacking, ideas are meaningless. James contended that
this is the method used by scientists to define their terms and to
test their hypotheses, which, if meaningful, entail predictions. The
hypotheses can be considered true if the predicted events take place.
On the other hand, most metaphysical theories are meaningless,
because they entail no testable predictions. Meaningful theories,
James argued, are instruments for dealing with problems that arise in
experience.
According to James's pragmatism, then, truth is that which works. One
determines what works by testing propositions in experience. In so
doing, one finds that certain propositions become true. As James put
it, Truth is something that happens to an idea" in the process of its
verification; it is not a static property. This does not mean,
however, that anything can be true. The true is only the expedient in
the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in
the way of our behaving," James maintained. One cannot believe
whatever one wants to believe, because such self-centered beliefs
would not work out.
James was opposed to absolute metaphysical systems and argued against
monism, a doctrine that maintains that reality is a unified,
monolithic whole. In Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912), he
argued for a pluralistic universe, denying that the world can be
explained in terms of an absolute force or scheme that determines the
interrelations of things and events. He held that the interrelations,
whether they serve to hold things together or apart, are just as real
as the things themselves.
By the end of his life, James had become world-famous as a
philosopher and psychologist. In both fields, he functioned more as
an originator of new thought than as a founder of dogmatic schools.
His pragmatic philosophy was further developed by the American
philosopher John Dewey and others; later studies in physics by
Albert Einstein made the theories of interrelations advanced
by James appear prophetic.
American psychologist and educator, born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and educated at Williams College, Union Theological Seminary, and Harvard University. He taught philosophy and psychology at various colleges in the U.S. In 1889 Hall was named president of the newly founded Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Under his guidance considerable work was done in educational research at the university during its first 20 years. Hall was instrumental in the development of the new science of educational psychology. His work in that field shows the influence of the American philosopher William James, with whom he had studied at Harvard.
At The Johns Hopkins University (1882-88) Hall set up the first formal psychology laboratory in the United States. He founded several publications, including the American Journal of Psychology (1887), the first of its kind in the country. He was a founder and the first president (1892) of the American Psychological Association and first president of Clark University (1889-1919). In 1909, Hall invited Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung to speak at Clark, introducing psychoanalysis into the United States.
A founder of DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, Hall claimed that the individual passes through the same developmental stages as the species does. He published books on the thoughts of schoolchildren--such as Adolescence (1904)--and was one of the first to apply psychology to education.