Challenges And Significance Of Piaget's Theory To Traditional Epistemology

Based on traditional epistemology which is critically followed with empiricism and rationalism, and influenced by structuralism of Gestalt psychology and genetic ideas of behaviorism, Piaget studied some problems such as concept and operation of psychogenesis and created genetic epistemology.Its research mainly includes active theory that Piaget recognized thinking start from subject's motor or action and it comes to be knowledge premise and foundation, adaptation theory that Piaget recognized Intelligence is the highest shape of adaptation and biology adaptation is the premise of survival and intelligence adaptation is the premise of understanding, mutual construction theory that Piaget recognized subject and object in sense of epistemological is not existed when knowledge occurs and it make differentiation then it is constructed by subject's activity, and the theory of stages in cognitive development that Piaget divide the intelligence development of children into four stages and the order of every stage is not changed, it express the continuum in the function.Genetic Epistemology is different form other epistemology and it has four characters that it studied all kinds of understanding origin,it has quality which leap over majors, it is a kind of structure-construction epistemology, and it uses different level of research method.Such kind of epistemology composes challenges to traditional epistemology as follows: The object of traditional epistemology is on understanding occurrence and development for adult cognitive, and the object of genetic epistemology is on understanding for children and juvenile cognitive.Traditional epistemology suppose that object and subject existed in preformism when knowledge begin with, and genetic epistemology existed in constructivism that subject and object make differentiation and constructed by subject's activity. Traditional epistemology is a static analyzing system on synchrony study, and genetic epistemology is a dynamic analyzing system connected synchrony with diachronic.Piaget's theory has important epistemology value. With philosophy development especially, the viewpoint of development of the Philosophy of Science extremely approaches Piaget's thinking, it has justified his theory still be important significance.