Baldwin's four successive modes of consciousness embedded in the growth of logical thought¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Baldwin proposed four "modes of consciousness" embedded in the growth of logical thought: prelogical, quasi-logical, logical, and hyperlogical. A mode is defined as "the most basic level of making sense of the world in a given period of development." Logical validities of one mode do not hold in the next but are succeeded through successive reorganization of function, producing what Baldwin called a comparative logic of successive reinterpretations.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Modes are understood as developmental periods, each reorganizing the logical concepts of the previous mode

Constraints¶

• The paper presents the modes through Baldwin's own writings and Cahan's (1984) summary; it reports no empirical validation of the mode sequence

Target Learners¶

• developmental psychology scholars
• historians of psychology

Target Learning Objectives¶

• understanding stage-like reorganization of logical thought in development

Claims¶

Related Theories¶

• Baldwin's genetic logic as the elaboration of natural thought processes

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Simple Convergences? Piagetian Theory and Its Relationship to the Epistemology of James Mark Baldwin. (1989). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED334478