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Growth Logical Thinking Pap
Routledge is now re-issuing this prestigious series of 204 volumes originally published between 1910 and 1965. The titles include works by key figures such asC.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Otto Rank, James Hillman, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Susan Isaacs. Each volume is available on its own, as part of a themed mini-set, or as part of a specially-priced 204-volume set. A brochure listing each title in the International Library of Psychology series is available upon request.
- GenresPsychology
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1958
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About the author
Bärbel Inhelder
38 books1 followerBärbel Elisabeth Inhelder was a Swiss psychologist most known for her work under psychologist and epistemologist Jean Piaget and their contributions toward child development.
Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Inhelder initially showed interest in education. While attending high school she became interested in Sigmund Freud's writing and information on adolescents. She then moved to Geneva where she studied at the University of Geneva Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau earning her bachelor's and doctoral degrees both in psychology. Inhelder continued her work at the University of Geneva up until her retirement. During her time at Geneva, she worked alongside Jean Piaget collaborating on experimental work targeted toward child development. Their collaboration began with her dissertation on children's conservation and continued for 50 years. Inhelder's work was significant in the discovery of the formal operational stage of child development occurring during the transition between childhood and adolescence. Inhelder and Piaget were joint on many publications of their research. Inhelder's contributions to developmental psychology resulted in her being elected as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bärbel Inhelder died in 1997 of natural causes and her work is still used in developmental psychology today.
Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Inhelder initially showed interest in education. While attending high school she became interested in Sigmund Freud's writing and information on adolescents. She then moved to Geneva where she studied at the University of Geneva Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau earning her bachelor's and doctoral degrees both in psychology. Inhelder continued her work at the University of Geneva up until her retirement. During her time at Geneva, she worked alongside Jean Piaget collaborating on experimental work targeted toward child development. Their collaboration began with her dissertation on children's conservation and continued for 50 years. Inhelder's work was significant in the discovery of the formal operational stage of child development occurring during the transition between childhood and adolescence. Inhelder and Piaget were joint on many publications of their research. Inhelder's contributions to developmental psychology resulted in her being elected as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bärbel Inhelder died in 1997 of natural causes and her work is still used in developmental psychology today.
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October 25, 2025
A COLLABORATION BETWEEN TWO DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGISTS
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as "genetic epistemology." Bärbel Inhelder (1913-1997) was also a Swiss psychologist, known for her work with Piaget.
The Translator’s Introduction to this 1958 book explains, “As the authors state in the preface, this is a collaborative work based on an after-the-fact convergence. Professor Inhelder is primarily an experimental child psychologist and … Professor Piaget … is an interdisciplinary thinker… Prof. Piaget’s logical analysis provided the appropriate structural model for the data on adolescent reasoning collected by Prof. Inhelder.” (Pg.viii)
They continue, “the work of the Piaget school has had little significant influence on this side of the Atlantic. The failure of the concepts to spread can be explained partially from the fact that, both theoretically and methodologically, Piaget occupies a sort of midway point between the main currents in American psychology. His direct plunge into complex human functioning and his leglet of tables of statistical significance or systematic response variation in favor of running commentary on selected protocols in the presentation of data have separated him from those groups which most emphasize methodological rigor. But his work is equidistant from that of the clinically-oriented psychologists and those currents which touch on sociology, social psychology, or anthropology, since he has no grounding in motivation theory … Moreover, since both sides of the American psychological world tend to divorce themselves from any philosophical tradition, his rationalist framework and ventures into philosophy have not been easily assimilated into either.” (Pg. ix)
Inhelder and Piaget state, “In sum, the discovery of the equality of the angles is the result of the reciprocal implication between the corresponding inclinations postulated from the start and not the inverse; this reciprocal implication differs from simple concrete correspondence by the fact that it results from a calculation of possibilities and nor merely from an account of the empirical situation.” (Pg. 19)
They assert, “We have constantly seen that the formation of propositional logic, which itself marks the appearance of formal thought, depends on the establishment of a combinatorial system. The structured whole depends on this combinatorial system which is manifested in the subjects’ potential ability to link a set of base associations or correspondences with each other in all possible ways so as to draw from them the relationships of implication, disjunction, exclusion, etc.” (Pg. 107)
They ask, “Psychologically speaking, does the idea of compensation lead to the development of proportions, or is it the other way around? Or, as a third possibility, are they interdependent from the start?” (Pg. 219)
They explain, “There is no doubt that the most distinctive feature of formal thought stems from the role played by statements about possibility relative to statements about empirical reality. Thus, compared to concrete thought, formal thought constitutes a new equilibrium, one that can now be analyzed from the two perspectives just outlined: the extension of the cognitive field that it entails, and the coordinating instruments operative in its functioning.” (Pg. 245)
They argue, “Thus it is not as logic (for logic has no more place in psychology than psychology does in logic), but as a calculus or an algebra that we are here using symbolic logic. Considered in this perspective, symbolic logic is badly needed at this point as an analytic tool for at least two reasons. First, such an analytic instrument is generally the only possible one for determining the exact extent of possible operations… But especially… using symbolic logic as a means of analysis makes it possible to show that these sets of operations do not consist of simple series of juxtaposed elements; on the contrary, these collections of elements have structures as wholes.” (Pg. 269-270)
They continue, “Throughout, the question is a psychological one; the calculus of symbolic logic is brought in as an analytical instrument insofar as it is a more general algebra than the elementary algebra founded on numerical operations…. As for the discipline which deals with constructing a theory of mental operations by means of symbolic calculus, its relationship to experimental psychology would be comparable to the present day relationship between laboratory and mathematical physics. It would remain a branch of psychology, as mathematical physics is a branch not of mathematics but of physics. But it would utilize the algebra of symbolic logic as an analytic instrument in the same way that mathematical physics now makes use of the techniques and notation of mathematics.” (Pg. 271)
They note, “the question which arises next is: is the subject aware of the fact that the system of propositional operations exists as a system? If we mean, by ‘aware,’ does he think about the system as a system, it is obvious that he is not, because a conscious logic never existed prior to the work of logicians. However… logic is like literary criticism, which codifies the laws of poetry which has already been written but is not present at its creation. In the realm of the adolescent’s active logic, which as yet has nothing to do with the formulated logic of the logician, we can only mean by ‘awareness of the system’ that a motivated attempt to look for relationships between the possible operations within the set is made for its own sake.” (Pg. 303-304)
They lament, “It is surprising that in spite of the large number of excellent works which have been published on the affective and social life of the adolescent… so little work has appeared on the adolescent’s THINKING.” (Pg. 334)
They summarize, “far from being a source of fully elaborated ‘innate ideas,’ the maturation of the nervous system can do no more than determine the totality of possibilities and impossibilities at a given stage. A particular social environment remains indispensable for the realization of these possibilities. It follows that their realization can be accelerated or retarded as a function of cultural and educational conditions. This is why the growth of formal thinking as well as the age at which adolescence itself occurs---i.e., the age at which the individual starts to assume adult roles—remain dependent on social as much as and more than on neurological factors.” (Pg. 337
This book will interest those studying Piaget and Inhelder.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as "genetic epistemology." Bärbel Inhelder (1913-1997) was also a Swiss psychologist, known for her work with Piaget.
The Translator’s Introduction to this 1958 book explains, “As the authors state in the preface, this is a collaborative work based on an after-the-fact convergence. Professor Inhelder is primarily an experimental child psychologist and … Professor Piaget … is an interdisciplinary thinker… Prof. Piaget’s logical analysis provided the appropriate structural model for the data on adolescent reasoning collected by Prof. Inhelder.” (Pg.viii)
They continue, “the work of the Piaget school has had little significant influence on this side of the Atlantic. The failure of the concepts to spread can be explained partially from the fact that, both theoretically and methodologically, Piaget occupies a sort of midway point between the main currents in American psychology. His direct plunge into complex human functioning and his leglet of tables of statistical significance or systematic response variation in favor of running commentary on selected protocols in the presentation of data have separated him from those groups which most emphasize methodological rigor. But his work is equidistant from that of the clinically-oriented psychologists and those currents which touch on sociology, social psychology, or anthropology, since he has no grounding in motivation theory … Moreover, since both sides of the American psychological world tend to divorce themselves from any philosophical tradition, his rationalist framework and ventures into philosophy have not been easily assimilated into either.” (Pg. ix)
Inhelder and Piaget state, “In sum, the discovery of the equality of the angles is the result of the reciprocal implication between the corresponding inclinations postulated from the start and not the inverse; this reciprocal implication differs from simple concrete correspondence by the fact that it results from a calculation of possibilities and nor merely from an account of the empirical situation.” (Pg. 19)
They assert, “We have constantly seen that the formation of propositional logic, which itself marks the appearance of formal thought, depends on the establishment of a combinatorial system. The structured whole depends on this combinatorial system which is manifested in the subjects’ potential ability to link a set of base associations or correspondences with each other in all possible ways so as to draw from them the relationships of implication, disjunction, exclusion, etc.” (Pg. 107)
They ask, “Psychologically speaking, does the idea of compensation lead to the development of proportions, or is it the other way around? Or, as a third possibility, are they interdependent from the start?” (Pg. 219)
They explain, “There is no doubt that the most distinctive feature of formal thought stems from the role played by statements about possibility relative to statements about empirical reality. Thus, compared to concrete thought, formal thought constitutes a new equilibrium, one that can now be analyzed from the two perspectives just outlined: the extension of the cognitive field that it entails, and the coordinating instruments operative in its functioning.” (Pg. 245)
They argue, “Thus it is not as logic (for logic has no more place in psychology than psychology does in logic), but as a calculus or an algebra that we are here using symbolic logic. Considered in this perspective, symbolic logic is badly needed at this point as an analytic tool for at least two reasons. First, such an analytic instrument is generally the only possible one for determining the exact extent of possible operations… But especially… using symbolic logic as a means of analysis makes it possible to show that these sets of operations do not consist of simple series of juxtaposed elements; on the contrary, these collections of elements have structures as wholes.” (Pg. 269-270)
They continue, “Throughout, the question is a psychological one; the calculus of symbolic logic is brought in as an analytical instrument insofar as it is a more general algebra than the elementary algebra founded on numerical operations…. As for the discipline which deals with constructing a theory of mental operations by means of symbolic calculus, its relationship to experimental psychology would be comparable to the present day relationship between laboratory and mathematical physics. It would remain a branch of psychology, as mathematical physics is a branch not of mathematics but of physics. But it would utilize the algebra of symbolic logic as an analytic instrument in the same way that mathematical physics now makes use of the techniques and notation of mathematics.” (Pg. 271)
They note, “the question which arises next is: is the subject aware of the fact that the system of propositional operations exists as a system? If we mean, by ‘aware,’ does he think about the system as a system, it is obvious that he is not, because a conscious logic never existed prior to the work of logicians. However… logic is like literary criticism, which codifies the laws of poetry which has already been written but is not present at its creation. In the realm of the adolescent’s active logic, which as yet has nothing to do with the formulated logic of the logician, we can only mean by ‘awareness of the system’ that a motivated attempt to look for relationships between the possible operations within the set is made for its own sake.” (Pg. 303-304)
They lament, “It is surprising that in spite of the large number of excellent works which have been published on the affective and social life of the adolescent… so little work has appeared on the adolescent’s THINKING.” (Pg. 334)
They summarize, “far from being a source of fully elaborated ‘innate ideas,’ the maturation of the nervous system can do no more than determine the totality of possibilities and impossibilities at a given stage. A particular social environment remains indispensable for the realization of these possibilities. It follows that their realization can be accelerated or retarded as a function of cultural and educational conditions. This is why the growth of formal thinking as well as the age at which adolescence itself occurs---i.e., the age at which the individual starts to assume adult roles—remain dependent on social as much as and more than on neurological factors.” (Pg. 337
This book will interest those studying Piaget and Inhelder.
August 20, 2008
perhaps i am wrong but i think it is preposterous to use math as a tool for observing brain development in children. it does showcase levels of 'brain unlocking' but it is a very blunt instrument. the observations and where they lead however is crazily dynamic. read after genetic epistemology
March 5, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews