Abstract

WALCZAK, Paweł. Why piaget does not philosophize? Critical discussion of gareth b. Mathews with the piagetan concept of cognitive development. child.philo [online]. 2019, vol.15, e39320.  Epub Jan 02, 2019. ISSN 1984-5987.  https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2019.39320.

This article is devoted to criticizing the Piagetian theory of intellectual development made by Gareth B. Matthews (1929-2011). This American philosopher analyzes Piaget's (1896-1980) ideas from the perspective of the question about the meaning and the possibility of philosophizing with children. The discussion between Matthews and Piaget may also be interesting today because the theory of cognitive development has shaped modern education and can be seen as a factor preserving the skeptical approach to children's philosophy. In this paper have been reconstructed and interpreted Matthews' arguments, who consistently and systematically proves that Piaget misunderstood the phenomenon of children's philosophy. Speaking of child’s philosophizing, Matthews is referring to children's tendency to ask philosophically significant questions, the ability to problematize experience, the specific attitude of children towards the world, and to notice the problems that great philosophers have been dealing with for centuries. All these observable features of children's thinking were interpreted by Piaget as intellectual deficits. Matthews argues against this interpretation. The discussion concerns such issues as the problem of determining the criterion of intellectual maturity, the importance of creativity and fantasy in thinking, the development of concepts and language skills and the related differences between children's and adults' language use. The analysis of the criticism of the Piagetian theory of cognitive development leads to the conclusion that child psychology needs some openness to this aspect of children's thought that Piaget ignores. There is still an important task for psychologists and philosophers to better understand the child's philosophizing phenomenon.

Keywords : children's philosophy; cognitive development; piaget's theory; gareth b. matthews; philosophy of childhood.

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