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ABSTRACT: Five points are made: (1) Psychology is consciousness, and this indeed happened to certain
the science not only of the individual but also of hu- extremists. However, the problem of consciousness
mans in general. For example, mathematics and physics has come back to the forefront of psychology, with
have been created by human beings, and this creation the work of psychoneurologists on "vigilance," or
can be understood only in terms of human intelligence attention, and with the study of development.
in its totality. (2) Psychology is a natural science, and,
Everybody pays attention to it today, including
like every other science, it is built not only with what
comes from the object but also with the structures con-
Russian psychologists, regardless of their philos-
structed by the subject. (3) Psychology occupies a key ophy.
position among the sciences because it explains the no- I have five remarks to make about psychology.
tions and operations used in the development of all the The first is perhaps obvious, but not to every-
sciences. (4) It is impossible to dissociate psychology body. It is that psychology is the science not only
from epistemology. (5) Psychology, like all other sci- of the individual but also of humans in general and
ences, can thrive only on interdisciplinary cooperation. notably of "the subject" in a universal sense.
Surely, applied psychology can in certain situations
I am very honored by the confidence you have be interested in individual cases, and the empirical
shown in awarding me the Edward Lee Thorndike or theoretical study of individual cases represents
Award for 1977. I am also moved by the excep- an interesting chapter called "differential psychol-
tion you have made in allowing me to designate ogy" [or the psychology of individual differences].
someone else to deliver this address, as traveling But even in applied psychology the subject in gen-
from Europe has become more and more difficult eral necessarily intervenes. For example, to reform
for me. My principal merit is to have been sur- the teaching of mathematics or physics, we cannot
rounded by first-rate collaborators. The books I consider only the retardation or difficulties of par-
have written over the years have also been signed ticular individual pupils. The problem consists
by others who have contributed to their essence, first of situating the knowledge of mathematics,
beginning with B. Inhelder. physics, and every other science in the totality of
the process of intelligence and its development.
If I gave a broad title to today's address, it is
partly because the public does not fully realize the And this is a problem of human intelligence in its
extraordinary developments that have occurred in totality, which is related to general problems of
psychology since the beginning of this century. The knowledge to which I shall return shortly.
18th International Congress of Psychology, which My second point requires more comment. Psy-
was held in Moscow in 1966 with 6,000 participants,
ended its work with an address by Paul Fraisse, the This article was an address by Jean Piaget translated and
then-new President of the International Union of delivered by Constance Kamii at the annual convention of
Scientific Psychology. In this address, Fraisse sum- the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, Au-
gust 29, 1977. Division 15 (Educational Psychology)
marized his impressions with the striking sentence, awarded the author the 1977 Edward Lee Thorndike
"Psychology no longer knows any taboo subject." Award for Distinguished Psychological Contribution to
To cite only one example [of what he meant], ever Education.
Material in brackets, throughout the article, has been
since psychology understood that it was a science of added by the translator.
1
conduct and not only one of consciousness ("con- [The French words conduite and comportement are
duct" referring to behavior, but behavior that in- usually both translated into English as behavior, perhaps
because conduct has a moral connotation. As can be seen
cludes the act of "becoming aware" of what we in this context, the term conduct does not necessarily have
1
do), we could have worried that it would neglect any moral connotation.]