The earliest and best of the critics of Piaget was Vygotsky, the Soviet educationalist who, in the period 1924-34, worked out a consistent alternative to Piaget’s ideas. Tragically, Vygotsky’s ideas were only published in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin, and became known in the West in the 1950s and 60s, when they exercised a powerful influence on many, like Jerome Bruner. At the present time, they are widely accepted by educationalists.

Vygotsky was in advance of his time in explaining the important role of gestures in the development of language. This has been revived more recently by psycholinguists unravelling the origins of language. Bruner and others have pointed to the enormous impact of gestures on the later development of language in a child. Whereas Piaget placed more emphasis on the biological aspect of the development of the child, Vygotsky concentrated more on culture, as have people like Bruner. An important part in culture is played by tools, whether they are the sticks and stones of early hominids, or pencils, rubbers and books of today’s children.

Recent research has shown that babies are more capable at an earlier stage than Piaget thought. His ideas about very young babies seem to have been overtaken, but much of his research remains valid. Coming from a biological background, it was inevitable that he should place heavy stress on this aspect of the child’s development. Vygotsky approached the question from a different point of view, but nevertheless, there are common points. For example, in his study of the early years of childhood, he deals with “nonlinguistic thought” such as Piaget outlined in his account of “sensorimotor activity”, such as using a rake to reach another toy. Alongside this, we notice the incomprehensible sounds of the baby (“baby-talk”). When the two elements combine, there is an explosive development of language. For each new experience, the toddler wants to know the name. While Vygotsky took a different route, the trail was blazed by Piaget:

The process of growing up is not a linear progression from incompetence to competence: to survive, a newborn baby must be competent at being a newborn baby, not at being a tiny version of the adult it will later become. Development is not just a quantitative process but one in which there are transformations in quality – between suckling and chewing solid food, for instance, or between sensorimotor and cognitive behaviour.[64]

Only gradually, over a long period and by a difficult process of adjustment and learning, does the child cease to be a bundle of blind sensations and appetites, a helpless object, and become a conscious, self-directing free agent. It is this painful struggle to pass from the unconscious to the conscious, from utter dependence on the environment to the domination of the environment, which provides the striking parallel between the development of the individual infant and that of the human species. Of course, it would be wrong to imply that the parallel is a precise one. Every analogy holds good only within definite limits. But it is hard to resist the conclusion that in at least some aspects such parallels do, in fact, exist. From lower to higher; from simple to complex; from unconscious to conscious – such features recur constantly in the evolution of life.

The animals depend more than humans upon the senses, and have better hearing, eyesight and sense of smell. It is noticeable that keenness of eyesight reaches a high point in late childhood, and thereafter diminishes. On the other hand, the higher intellectual functions continue to develop through life, and well into old age. To trace the path whereby humans pass from the unconscious to the level of real consciousness is one of the most fascinating and important tasks in science.

At birth, the baby knows only reflexes. But this does not at all signify passivity. From the very first moment of its existence, the baby’s relation with its environment is active and practical. It does not think only with its head, but with its whole body. The development of the brain and consciousness is directly related to its practical activity. One of the first reflexes is sucking. Even here the process of learning from experience is present. Piaget points out that the baby suckles better after one or two weeks than at first. Later on comes a process of discrimination, where the child begins to recognise things. Later still, the child begins to draw its first generalisations, not only in thought but in action. It does not only suckle at the breast, but also sucks the air, and then his fingers. The Spanish have a saying: “I don’t suck my thumb,” meaning “I’m not stupid.” As a matter of fact, the ability to introduce a thumb into the mouth is quite a difficult task for a baby, which usually appears at about two months, and marks a significant step forward, denoting a certain level of co-ordination of hand and brain.

Immediately after birth the child has difficulty in focusing its attention on particular objects. Gradually, it becomes able to concentrate on specific objects, and anticipates where they are so that it can move its head in order to see them. This development, analysed by Bruner, takes place during the first two or three months, and involves not only the purely visual field, but also activity – the orientation of the eyes, head, and body towards the object of attention. At the same time, the mouth becomes the link between vision and manual movement. Gradually, it begins a process of visually guided reaching-grasping-retrieving, which always concludes by bringing the hand to the mouth.

For the newborn child, the world is first and foremost something to be sucked. Later, it is something to be looked at and listened to, and, when a sufficient level of co-ordination permits it, something to be manipulated. This is not yet what we could call consciousness, but it is the starting-point of consciousness. A very lengthy process of development is needed for these simple elements to become integrated into habits and organised perceptions. Later on, we get systematic thumb-sucking, the turning of the head to the direction of a sound, following a moving object with the eyes (indicating a level of generalisation and anticipation). After five weeks or more, the baby smiles, and recognises some people rather than others, although this cannot be taken to mean that the baby possesses a notion of a person, or even an object. This is the stage of the most elementary sense perception.

In its relations to the objective world, the baby has two possibilities: either to incorporate things (and people) into its activities, and thus to assimilate the material world, or to readjust its subjective wishes and impulses to the external world, i.e., to accommodate to reality. From a very early age, the baby tries to “assimilate” the world to itself, by introducing it into its mouth. Later, it learns to adjust to external reality, gradually begins to distinguish and perceive different objects, and remembers them. It acquires, through experience, the ability to carry out a number of operations, like reaching and grasping. Logical intelligence arises first from concrete operations, from practice, and only much later as abstract deductions.

Piaget identified six clearly defined “stages” in the development of the child. The stage of reflexes or hereditary functions includes primary instinctive tendencies such as nutrition. The need to obtain food is a powerful inborn impulse, controlling the reflexes of the newborn child. This is a common feature which humans share with all animals. The newborn child, lacking the elements of higher thought, is nonetheless a natural materialist, who expresses his firm belief in the existence of the physical world in exactly the same way as all animals – by eating it. It takes a great deal of intellectual refinement before clever philosophers succeed in convincing people that we cannot really say whether the material world is out there or not. This supposedly complicated and profound philosophical question is in fact resolved by a baby in the only possible way – through practice.

From the age of two, the child enters a period of symbolic thought and preconceptual representation. The child begins to use picture images as symbols to replace the real things. Parallel to this is the development of language. The next stage is conditional representation, recognising other points of reference in the world, and simultaneously is developed coherent language. This is followed by operational thinking from seven to twelve years of age. The child begins to recognise relationships between objects and to deal with more abstract conceptions.

It is precisely practice, and the interaction of inborn, genetically conditioned tendencies, which provide the key to the mental development of the child. Piaget’s second stage is that of primary motor habits, accompanied by the first “organised perceptions” and primary “differentiated feelings”. The third stage is that of “sensori-motor intelligence” or practice (which is prior to speech). Then comes the phase of “intuitive intelligence” involving spontaneous relations between individuals, especially submission to adults; the phase of “concrete intellectual operations” which includes the development of logic and moral and social feelings (from 7 to 11 or 12 years); and finally, a phase of abstract intellectual operations – the formation of personality and emotional and intellectual integration in adult society (adolescence).

Human progress is closely linked to the development of thought in general, and science and technology in particular. The capacity for rational, abstract thought does not come easily. Even now, the minds of most people rebel against thought that leaves behind the familiar world of the concrete. This ability appears quite late in the mental development of the child. We see this in children’s paintings, which depict what the child actually sees, not what they ought to see, according to the laws of perspective, and so on. Logic, ethics, morality, all appear late in the child’s intellectual development. In the first period, every action, every movement, every thought, is the product of necessity. The notion of “free will” has nothing whatever to do with the mental activities of the child. Hunger and fatigue lead to desire for food or sleep, even in the youngest baby.

The possession of a capacity for abstract thought, even on the most primitive level, makes the subject master of the most distant events, both in space and time. This is as true for the child as it was for early humans. Our earliest ancestors did not clearly distinguish themselves from other animals or inanimate nature. Indeed, they had not fully emerged from the animal kingdom, and were very much at the mercy of the forces of nature. The elements of self-awareness seem to exist in chimpanzees, our nearest relatives, though not in monkeys. But only in humans does the potential for abstract thought reach its full expression. This is closely related to language, one of the fundamental distinguishing features of humankind.

The neocortex, which makes up 80 per cent of the volume of the human brain, is the part responsible for relations with groups, and is related to thinking in general. There is a close connection between social life, thought and language. The self-centred nature of the newborn baby gradually gives way to a realisation that there is an external world, people and society, with its own laws, demands and restrictions. Quite late on, between three and six months, according to Piaget, the phase of grasping begins, involving first pressure, then manipulation. This is a decisive step, leading to a multiplication of the baby’s powers and the formation of new habits. After this, development becomes speeded up. The dialectical nature of the process is indicated by Piaget:

“The point of departure is always a reflex cycle, but a cycle the exercise of which, instead of repeating itself without more ado, incorporates new elements and constitutes with them still wider organised totalities, thanks to progressive differentiations.” Thus the development of the child is not a straight line or a closed circle, but a spiral, where long periods of slow change are interrupted by sudden leaps forward, and each stage involves a qualitative advance.

Piaget’s third stage is that of “practical intelligence” or the “sensorimotor stage as such”. The exact nature and delineation of these “stages” is, of course, debatable, but the general thrust remains valid. Intelligence is closely related to the manipulation of objects. The development of the brain is directly linked to the hand. As Piaget says:

But it is a question of an exclusively practical intelligence, which is applied to the manipulation of objects, and which, in place of words and concepts, only makes use of perceptions and organised movements in schemes of action.[65]

From this we see that the basis of all human knowledge is experience, activity and practice. The hands, in particular, play a decisive role.

  1. Rose, S. Leon J. Kamin and Richard Lewontin, Not In Our Genes, p. 96.

  2. Piaget, J. op. cit., p. 22.