Piaget’s Framework for a Scientific Study of Consciousness

While largely unacknowledged, Piaget’s views on the epistemology of consciousness presaged key positions now held by contemporary philosophers and psychologists. This paper examines Piaget’s views about two fundamental epistemological problems central to any theory of consciousness: (1) the general problem of the subject-object relationship in any type of knowing; and (2) the specific problem of the physical-mental relationship within the knowing subject. Piaget adopts a unique form of internal interactionism toward the first issue and a sophisticated form of parallelism toward the second; he aimed for an eventual integrative monism while providing compelling reasons why such a monism may always exist in name only. While his approach to these problems did not solve them, his examination of the problems – and his proposed coordination of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience – is an important path toward consilience in the scientific study and understanding of consciousness.