Jean Piaget: Impact and actuality of his ideas

Abstract

This article deals with Jean Piaget’s research program, who has been one of the most important thinkers of 20^th century. His motivation was the interest to understand and to explain how human accede to knowledge, by means of a scientific approach, that means an approach based on observation and experimentation. He wanted to know how the basic categories of rational thinking are constructed, presented and developed, because these ones are the basis of higher forms of human knowledge. The characteristics of his program are exposed throughout this article and also the personal context that led him to develop that studies. The genetic psychology became one of the most influencing theories in the fields of psychology of development and intelligence, as well as many ideas were adopted by other areas of psychology. Finally, Piaget’s ideas are analyzed in the actual context and it can be observed that lots of his ideas still remain nowadays.