Genetic Epistemology - Types of Knowledge

Types of Knowledge

Piaget proposes three types of knowledge: physical, logical mathematical, and social knowledge.

Physical knowledge: It refers to knowledge related to objects in the world, which can be acquired through perceptual properties. The acquisition of physical knowledge has been equated with learning in Piaget's theory (Gruber and Voneche, 1995). In other words thought is fit directly to experience.

"Piaget also called his view constructivism, because he firmly believed that knowledge acquisition is a process of continuous self-construction. That is, Knowledge is not out there, external to the child and waiting to be discovered. But neither is it wholly performed within the child, ready to emerge as the child develops with the world surrounding her...Piaget believed that children actively approach their environments and acquire knowledge through their actions."

"Piaget distinguished among three types of knowledge that children acquire: Physical, logical-mathematical, and social knowledge. Physical knowledge, also called empirical knowledge, has to do with knowledge about objects in the world, which can be gained through their perceptual properties...Logical-Mathematical knowledge is abstract and must be invented, but through actions on objects that are fundamentally different from those actions enabling physical knowledge...Social Knowledge is culture-specific and can be learned only from other people within one's cultural group."

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