Piaget on Schizophrenia*

In order to deal with our topic it is of interest to be reminded of the major scope of Piaget's theoretical postulates, observations, and concepts. Above all Piaget's is a theory of cognition, that is, Piaget is interested in the manner by which intellectual operations are constructed, how they form, are stabilized in the child's mind, and from where they derive. He is interested in that aspect of psychology because his main intent is also an epistemological one: the understanding of the construction of knowledge and the comparison of its ontogenetics with the history of science. Thus, if Piaget can be said to be mainly interested in cognition, it is because his intent is not, as has often been stressed, a psychological one, but a philosophical one. For him, to take an example, the study of the construction of geometrical concepts in the child is geared at its evaluation from the point of view of the history of geometry as it unfolded over the centuries. In this context, Piaget comes to simultaneously extract developmental data relevant to this area and to relate it with its phylogenesis. He finds, then, interesting parallels which shed light not only over the developmental foundations of this paradigm and area, but also with its epistemological grounds. Thus, Piaget's intent is twofold: On one hand he wants to understand how various concepts are constructed by the child, and, on the other hand, he analyzes their historical ramifications. In short, Piaget is a psychologist by derivation — by derivation because he has at the core of his enterprise the understanding of the nature of knowledge.

From this point of view it is not difficult to understand in what sense Piaget is related to psychoanalysis; the latter also presents a