Piaget presented the theory that children develop cognitive ability in four distinct stages. In the first stage, babies are fascinated by the outside world. They explore everything around them and make sense of their environment through touch, taste, smell, sound, sight, and movement – the sensorimotor stage. In the second stage, children begin to understand how things work. They put together simple puzzles like building blocks, learning how to grasp and manipulate objects, and understanding cause and effect – the pre-operational stage. Third, children start to build models of themselves and others. For example, they may learn how their own thoughts and feelings influence their behavior – the concrete operational stage where they are fully equipped to reason. Finally, in the fourth stage, children become aware of abstract concepts, think logically, and can use verbal reasoning and imagination – the formal operational stage.
Mind and brain
In many cultures around this world, there is the view that humans have a soul that exists independently of the physical body. For Greek philosophers, the soul was also viewed as the seat of our reasoning abilities - what we would call our minds today. While Aristotle...
