Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist and epistemologist best known for pioneering studies on cognitive development in children. Piaget is best known for his theory of cognitive development and for advancing the field of genetic epistemology, which he established. Piaget was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland on August 9th, 1896 to Arthur Piaget, a university professor, and Rebecca Jackson. Since young childhood, Piaget showed an aptitude for biology, particularly with his studies concerning mollusks which garnered professional attention. Additionally, Piaget was introduced to epistemology at a young age by his godfather, who stressed the importance of studying philosophy and logic. After completing high school, Piaget studied natural sciences and obtained a Ph.D. at the University at Neuchâtel. Subsequently, he spent a semester at the University of Zurich studying a branch of psychology called psychoanalysis before graduating and moving to Paris, France. It was after teaching in Paris that Piaget began to recognize consistencies in the mental development of children by noticing that children of a certain age would get a series of answers wrong, while children …show more content…
The terms which he used, accommodation, assimilation, and schemas made the theory considerably easy to understand and to make examples of. Although pretty extensive, the theory does not expand to include the social aspect of learning in which children are responsible for the development of others around them (this theory was studied more by Vygtosky). Additionally, it does not account for the origin of knowledge; yes, children are taught and grow cognitively through time, but where does that knowledge originate from? Who is the original thinker? Genetic epistemology fails to answer the key question of epistemology that is “Where does knowledge come