The Nature and Ontogenesis of Meaning

Throughout its evolution, Piaget's theory has placed meaning at the center of all attempts to understand the nature and development of knowing. For Piaget, all knowing - whether sensorimotor, representational, or reasoned, and whether directed toward successful problem solutions or toward general understanding - is necessarily a construction which arises out of meaning making activity. It was in this context that the editors of this volume, originally published in 1994, approached the board of directors of the Jean Piaget Society with a proposal to organize a recent annual symposium around the topic of the nature and development of meaning. In forming this symposium and in moving from symposium to integrated text, the editors wanted to insure both a breadth and depth to the analysis of the topic. Addressing philosophical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives, this issue-oriented volume provides an integrated exploration of the current understanding of the nature and development of meaning. Contemporary issues that frame alternative understandings of the nature of meaning - nativist vs. constructivist positions, and computational vs. embodied mind contexts - are examined as they impact on the investigation of meaning. Comparative, cognitive, and linguistic developmental dimensions of meaning are described and discussed.

Willis F. Overton and David S. Palermo

List of Contributors. Preface. 1. Contexts of Meaning: The Computational and the Embodied Mind Willis F. Overton 2. The Communal Creation of Meaning Kenneth J. Gergen 3. What Is a Conceptual System? George Lakoff 4. Design for a Theory of Meaning Mark Turner 5. A Developmental Analysis of Cognitive Semantics: What Is the Role of Metaphor in the Construction of Knowledge and Reasoning? Ellin Kofsky Scholnick and Kelly Cookson 6. Word Meaning and What It Takes to Learn Them: Reflections on the Piaget-Chomsky Debate Ray Jackendoff 7. The Foundations of Logic and the Foundations of Cognition John Macnamara 8. Affective Dimensions of Meaning Terrance Brown 9. From Acting to Understanding: The Comparative Development of Meaning Jonas Langer 10. Meaning and Expression Lois Bloom 11. Constructivist Explanations for Language Acquisition May Be Insufficient: The Case for Language-Specific Principles Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Lauretta Reeves 12. Plot, Plight, and Dramatism: Interpretation at Three Ages Carol Feldman, Jerome Bruner, David Kalmar and Bobbi Renderer 13. Semantic Naturalism: The Problem of Meaning and Naturalistic Psychology Richard F. Kitchener. Author Index. Subject Index.