> Bill, it is interesting to study the intersections between Piaget
> and Vygotsky, and I am doing this with my group of pos-graduation at
> the university. Don't you think that the idea that Piaget didn't pay
> attention to the social interaction was a mis-understanding made by
> Vygotsky?
uh...allow me jump in here and share a few thoughts....
I don'honestly think that any misunderstanding was involved...
it's just that Vygotsky had only read a couple of Piaget's books
(I guess the only books available at the time)... Vygotsky's main
objection to Piaget's work related to the nature of egocentric
speech...Vygotsky rejected Piaget's explanation and he pointed out
how it stems from Freudian principles....
it seems to me that the 'misunderstanding' is due to modern
scholars and recent accounts of Piagetian theory...
to give an example, as an undergraduate in the late 80s I had to
thoroughly study Piaget's 'theory',not from the original
texts though...because of the fact that Neo-piagetian and
Sociocultural theories were becoming very fashionable, Piaget's
theoretical framework was typically described as individualistic....
the Doise & Mugny experiments were used to point out where Piaget has
gone wrong with respect to the social aspects and of course
Vygotsky's theory about the social influences on the development of
the individual seemed to be very appealing... Piaget was described as
a cognitive psychologist(!?) and his theory as a cognitive theory,
while Piaget perceived of himself mostly as a biologist....
when, as a graduate, I had to study some of the original texts
myself, I was utterly amazed: the role of the social environment
WAS actually stressed by Piaget in his main works (e.g. grasp of
consciousness, principles of genetic epistemology)...perhaps the
most outright manifestation of the importance of the social
environment can be found in the book: conversations with J.Piaget...
in that interview-book Piaget briefly outlines his theory and ideas
and is indeed very explicit about the role of others in the
development of the self... of course this is nowhere near the
sociocultural approach, but it is nevertheless an acknowledgement of
the significance of the environment.... Piaget wrote more that 40
books and I've only read a few; it could be that in the rest of his
work he did not emphasize the importance of social factors in
development...
my current (mis?)understanding of Piaget's work is that he was
basically interested in the development of the epistemic subject...
his interest was in the development of knowledge of the individual
subject.... his approach was purely epistemological... he was
concerned with the mechanisms leading to knowledge growth and that's
why he proposed e.g. assimilation as such a mechanism... although he
acknowledged the influence of the physical & social environment as a
potential source of ideas/theories leading to disequelibrium he did
not consider whether, how or under what conditions this is taking
place... it simply did not interest him...
>Piaget survived Vygotsky in almost half a century and he
> improved his theory. He continued with his research and wrote a lot
> of articles and books where he thinks about the social interaction.
> We can't continue with the same perspective about Piaget like
> Vygotsky because we know the rest of the Theory. Vygotsky knew only
> the "young" Piaget. Thanks, maria judith lins
this is probably true.... Vygotsky only looked at those aspects of
Piagetian theory that were available to him... Piaget was aware of
Vygotsky's criticism and I think he had somehow responded....
It would be interesting to speculate on what Vygotsky would think of
Piaget's latest works though...
regards,
Ilias
_______________________________________________
Ilias Karasavvidis
Department of Curriculum Technology
Faculty of Educational Science and Technology
University of Twente, P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
Voice: +31534894473
Fax: +31534892895
Email: Karasavvidis who-is-at edte.utwente.nl
http://13.89.40.26/www
http://130.89.40.26/ilias
"The ancient Greeks did not know the main thing
about themselves, that they were ancient Greeks"
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin
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