Abstraction, Re-Presentation, and Reflection: An Interpretation of Experience and Piaget’s Approach

Abstract

One of the remarkable features of the Behaviorist era in American psychology is that so many leaders and followers of that creed could claim to be Empiricists, cite John Locke as their forefather, and get away with it. Had they read the first chapter of “Book II”³ of his major work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, they would have found, among many others, the following enlightening statements.

The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object. John Locke (1690)¹

As adults we are constantly deceiving ourselves in regard to the nature and genesis of our mental experiences. John Dewey (1895)²