Question:

The Prometheus Research Group is planning to publish a new edition of CR Hallpike¡¯s classic ¡®The Foundations of Primitive Thought¡¯. As this book was last issued in 1979, revising the text is likely to be a very substantial task. Could anyone on the list help with any of the following?

-More recent research papers that combine a Piagetian (or even a cognitive) perspective with anthropological data.

-Relevant conceptual issues that have emerged (in cognitive development or anthropology) in the last 25 years or so.

-Relevant literature searches on related topics.

-Anything else you think might be useful!

Answer 1:

A special issue of New Ideas in Psychology (2000) was devoted to serial reviews of Piaget's social model. 2000

Answer 2:

Smith, L. (2002). Reasoning by mathematical induction in children¡¯s arithmetic. Advances in Learning and Instruction series. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Brown, T. & Smith, L. (2003). Reductionism and the development of knowledge. Edited volume in the Jean Piaget Society series. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Smith, L. (2004). Developmental Epistemology and Education. In J. Carpendale & U. M¨¹ller (eds). Social interaction and the development of knowledge. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Smith, L. (2003). Teaching reasoning in a constructivist epistemology. Educational and Child Psychology, 20, 31-50

Smith, L. (2003). From epistemology to psychology in the development of knowledge. In T. Brown. & L. Smith (eds). Reductionism and the development of knowledge. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Smith, L. (2002). Piaget¡¯s model. In¡¡U. Goswami (ed) Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development. Oxford: Blackwell.

Question 2:

Some Questions about Piaget's social model:
1: How influential were the papers published by Piaget as Etudes Sociologiques [1st editon, 1965] and under the same title augmented [2nd edition 1977] on CRH's 1979 English text?

2: A special issue of New Ideas in Psychology (2000) was devoted to serial reviews of Piaget's social model. How does CRH's argument change conclusions drawn in these 2000 papers, and conversely?

Question 3

Some questions about Piaget's empirical-normative model
3: Nathan Isaacs in his British Journal of Psychology (1951) review of Piaget's (1949) text on logic characterised Piaget's model as a "psychology of normative facts". How well does this characterisation square with CRH's position?

4: In his first book Recherche (1918) can be found the basis of Isaac's characterisation, and so question [3] returns.

5: In the collection entitled De la Pedagogie (1998) which contains papers written by Piaget during 1930-70s, serial claims are made about anthropological and educational beliefs and practices. To what extent did any of these influence the main argument in CRH's work?

6: In my Children's Reasoning by Mathematical Induction [2002], I set out a unit of analysis in terms of "acts of judgment", thereby combining causality and normativity. How well does this unit of analysis fit CRH's argument?

7: Indeed, what exactly is CRH's position about the relations between [a] normative epistemology, [b] genetic or developmental epistemology, [c] developmental psychology, [d] cross cultural psychology?

Answer 1:

I don't know if you are at all familiar with Foundations of Primitive Thought (FPT), but its purpose was to review how the growing complexity of social systems from hunter-gatherer societies up through to the simplest states affected the level of cognitive development attained by their inhabitants. Hallpike's evidence and analysis is massive and (to me) overwhelmingly persuasive. After opening chapters devoted to Piaget's general theory, it is divided along the conventional Piagetian cognitive divisions - symbolism, classification, number, space, time, conceptual realism, and causality. That alone came to more than 500 pages, so I guess there wasn't much room for Piaget's social theories!

So, in response to your questions:

>>1: How influential were the papers published by Piaget as Etudes Sociologiques ...on CRH's 1979 English text?

For the reasons just given, they are not expressly referred to at all. In order to avoid expanding the next edition inordinately, I doubt that it will figure much in the new edition either. On the other hand, Hallpike has since completed his Evolution of Moral Understanding - an equally substantial tome that we at the Prometheus Research Group will be publishing in few weeks. This deals with all manner of social issues.

>>2: A special issue of New Ideas in Psychology (2000) was devoted to serial reviews of Piaget's social model. How does CRH's argument change conclusions drawn in these 2000 papers, and conversely?

I am not familiar with these papers.

>>3: Nathan Isaacs in his British Journal of Psychology (1951) review of Piaget's (1949) text on logic characterised Piaget's model as a "psychology of normative facts". How well does this characterisation square with CRH's position?

Hallpike makes this aspect of Piaget's model explicit.

>>4: In his first book Recherche (1918) can be found the basis of Isaac's characterisation, and so question [3] returns.

So does the answer!

>> 5: In the collection entitled De la Pedagogie (1998) which contains papers written by Piaget during 1930-70s, serial claims are made about anthropological and educational beliefs and practices. To what extent did any of these influence the main argument in CRH's work?

Although the effects of formal education on cognition are discussed (including the work of Cole, Luria, etc.), the specifically pedagogical aspects of Piaget's work are not really relevant to Hallpike FPT, which is more focused on social complexity, constraint, and so on. Apart from referring to the familiar 'Need and significance of cross-cultural studies in genetic psychology', Piaget's personal views on anthropology are not discussed at any length.

>> 6: In my Children's Reasoning by Mathematical Induction [2002], I set out a unit of analysis in terms of "acts of judgment", thereby combining causality and normativity. How well does this unit of analysis fit CRH's argument?

Given the relative dates, obviously Hallpike does not refer explicitly to your (or Frege's) 'acts of judgment'. However, he makes clear the importance of distinguishing between simple operating correctly and (to paraphrase that part of your paper <http://www.prometheus.org.uk/Publishing/Journal/Papers/SmithOnFrege/Main.htm>) an individual recognising something as true or false, realising that something is true or false, and acknowledging truth and falsity in reasoning. On the other hand, as the principle finding of FPT is that the norm in simpler societies is pre-operational and concrete operational reasoning, it is precisely the general absence of acts of judgment that comes out most often in FPT. Also, very little of the research in cognitive anthropology on which Hallpike relies is sophisticated enough to refer to such issues, however central it may be to Piagetians, so it tends to come up only when either Hallpike or Piaget-aware theorists such as Michael Cole make it explicit.

>>7: Indeed, what exactly is CRH's position about the relations between [a] normative epistemology, [b] genetic or developmental epistemology, [c] developmental psychology, [d] cross cultural psychology?

Much too big a question for me to answer on Professor Hallpike's behalf!

Incidentally, do you have an opinion either of Hallpike's work (or Radding or LePan or others who have tried to use Piaget in anthropological and historical contexts) or of the general proposition to which they all seem to come, namely that cognitive development a) is partially driven by social complexity and constraints, but also b) cognitive maturity can be an independent factor in history?

(Question 3 was answered by Richard Robinson)

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(This article is from email discussions through owner-piaget-list@interchange.ubc.ca)