Piaget and Binet

1 Piaget’s Intelligence Test
Piaget’s Different Intelligence Test:

From IQ Tests to Operatory Intelligence
Richard F. Kitchener
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
For Collins, Colorado
USA
Running Head: Piaget’s Intelligence Test
Richard F Kitchener
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Eddy Hall
Fort Collins, Colorado USA 80525
Telephone: 970 988 9438
E-mail: rkitch@colostate.edu
Word count: 8606
Keywords: Piaget, Binet, Burt, IQ Testing, Operatory Intelligence
Abstract
A signature event in the history of psychology occurred in 1919 when Jean Piaget was asked to
standardize Cyril Burt’s tests of intelligence on Parisian children. Impressed by the errors
students made, Piaget studied the underlying reasoning process of these children. This led to
Piaget ‘s new méthode clinique for studying the intelligence of children and its development.
But why was there a need for such standardization? How did Burt’s intelligence test differ from
Binet’s version? How did Burt’s version pave the way for Piaget’s very different kind of
intelligence test—from I.Q. tests to tests of operatory intelligence?
I examine the history of this series of events pointing out the difference between Binet’s version
and Burt’s version, how they differed from Piaget’s similar questions and how the
standardization of Burt’s intelligence tests paved the way for Piaget’s different type of
intelligence test, a test of operatory intelligence.

Introduction
Contemporary Piaget scholars have emphasized several crucial events in the intellectual life of
the well-known developmental psychologist and genetic epistemologist Jean Piaget: his
empirical work in naturalistic biology; his early philosophical career devoted to issues in
science, religion, and ethics; his encounter with the philosophical views of individuals such as
Henri Bergson, and so forth. In his autobiography (Piaget, forthcoming), Piaget mentions
another such signature event: his early empirical research with the intelligence testing movement
associated with Alfred Binet and Cyril Burt.
Sensing a need to learn more about psychology since it was to provide the link between biology
and epistemology, Piaget left for Zurich in 1919 to study psychology and psychoanalysis. After
a brief but unsatisfying period, Piaget then went to Paris to study logic, philosophy of science,
and more psychology (at the Sorbonne). While there, he was recommended to Theodore Simon
who was in charge of Alfred Binet’s laboratory at a local grade school. Dr. Simon, Piaget says,
“suggested that I should standardize Burt’s reasoning tests on the Parisian children.” Piaget
noted that although Burt’s tests had their diagnostic value, they were “based on the number of
successes and failures,” but he found “it was much more interesting to try to find the reasons for
the failures.” “Thus I engaged my subjects in conversations patterned after psychiatric
questioning, with the aim of discovering something about the reasoning process underlying their
right, but especially their wrong answers.” This was to become his famous méthode clinique.
What was remarkable to Piaget was that even the simplest tasks involving part-whole relations,
the coordination of relations, or the multiplication of classes proved to be difficult for children up
to 11 or 12.
Piaget reports an incident with Théodore Simon which is not generally known. (This has been
questioned by Harris, 1997.) He was invited by Simon to give a lecture to the Société Alfred
Binet on “psychoanalysis and its relations with child psychology.” Psychoanalysis was not well-
known among pedagogues at that time and Simon’s invitation was accepted by Piaget. But
according to Piaget (1975), Simon “took revenge because of my independence” in doing
research on children instead of the assigned task of intelligence test standardization. Piaget’s
lecture was booed by the audience while Simon wore an imperturbable and continuous smile
(1975, p. 109). After a while, however, Simon rescued him from the crowd. This lecture was
one of the first publications coming out of his sojourn in Paris (Piaget, 1920).1
For two years (1919-1921), Piaget analyzed the verbal reasoning of children in response to a set
of intelligence test questions, publishing them in professional journals. “At last,” he concludes,
“I had found my field of research” and his career as a developmental psychologist was launched.
He was on his way to becoming the most celebrated developmental psychologist of the 20th
century.
Piaget had been searching for an area of empirical research that would allow him to pursue
answers to philosophical—notably epistemological—questions. Psychology was the right field,
he concluded, but how should he proceed to study the relevant psychological questions; indeed
what were they? Now he had an answer: he would study “the reasoning processes of children”—
their logic—and with this he would be studying the very development of reason. This would
involve the creation of a genetic (developmental) epistemology, not a traditional philosophical
epistemology, but one rooted in empirical scientific evidence.
1
Piaget wrote at least two other early articles on psychoanalysis, one in 1923 and one in 1933.
If we take Piaget at his word, this was a monumental event, a turning point in his career. But
how did it really differ from what had gone before him in the earlier work of Alfred Binet and
Cyril Burt? For that matter did Burt’s version differ from Binet’s in important respects? Both of
the intelligence testing procedures of Binet and Burt involved some cognitive activity similar
to what Piaget was to study. Was there really a difference between them? Why did Simon even
want Piaget to standardized Burt’s intelligence test questions on French students since he and
Binet had already spent years working out and refining their intelligence test—what would
become the famous Stanford-Binet intelligence test? What would be the point of standardizing
Burt’s apparently different intelligence test? For that matter, how did the format of the Binet-
Simon intelligence test differ from that of Burt’s intelligence test and how did both differ from
Piaget’s, which employed his méthode clinique? These are the questions I want to explore in the
present essay in part because I have not found a satisfactory answer to them.
Alfred Binet Intelligence Testing2
Alfred Binet’s intelligence test—the Binet-Simon Test—has a history that does not summarize
easily. The first installment was introduced in 1905 in the journal L’Année Psychologique:
“Upon the necessity of establishing a scientific diagnosis of inferior states of intelligence” (Binet
& Simon, 1905a). This was closely followed in the same year by “New methods for the
diagnosis of the intellectual level of subnormals” (Binet & Simon, 1905b) and “Application of
the new methods to the diagnosis of the intellectual level among normal and subnormal children
in institutions and in the primary school” (Binet & Simon, 1905c). These three were followed in
1908 by the normalizing scale for this intelligence test, ”The development of intelligence in
2
For discussion of the relevant views of Binet as they relate to Piaget, see Ducret, J.-J. (1984), Harris (1997), Huteau
(2006) , Wesley (1989). For Piaget’s views about Binet, see Piaget (1973, 1975)
the child”(Binet & Simon, 1908), with a slight revision, correction and application in 1911: in
“New investigations on the measurement of the intellectual level among school children”.
The first three 1905 essays are usually known as their test and the 1908 as the scale, which was
superseded by a somewhat different one in 1911 (Binet, 1911a). All five of these articles were
collected together and translated in 1916 as: The development of intelligence in children (the
Binet-Simon Scale (Binet & Simon, 1916).
A slightly different version of this 1911 scale was also published in the Bulletin de la société
libre pour l étude psychologie de l’enfant and also published in book form in 1911 (1911b),
which was translated into English and published as A method of measuring the development of
the intelligence of young children (1913). For English readers, therefore, there are two major
publications of the Binet-Simon intelligence test: 1913 and 1916 . But there are important
differences: the 1913 version is a kind of manual whereas the 1916 version contains a richer
theoretical presentation and justification.
Background
The immediate context surrounding the development of the Binet-Simon intelligence test
involved several factors. (For a historical overview of mental testing in this period, see e.g.,
Tuddenham, 1962; Young, 1923). In the first place, there was at a widespread interest in
understanding intelligence. To mention just two: Hyppolyte Taine wrote an entire book On
Intelligence (1870/1871), which was very influential and in England Charles Spearman’s (1904)
theory of intelligence, a hybrid account of general intelligence together with particular faculties
of intelligence, originally rivaled that of Binet’s as the most influential approach to studying
general intelligence for years.

Of course this was not new since individuals had been philosophizing about intelligence and the
intellect since ancient times. “Intelligence” and “intellect” both derive from the Latin
“intelligere”, which is a translation of the Greek “noein” (to cognize), the activity of Nous—the
“Understanding.” Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and others wrote about noesis, a special form of
cognition or “intellection,” and its relation to knowledge (episteme). In the modern period,
John Locke wrote about “ An essay on human understanding,” Baruch Spinoza’s entitled his
unfinished work: Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione translated as: On the Improvement of the
Intellect, and Gottfried Leibniz was after “the intellect itself” (intellectus ipse).
Although Taine did not distinguish intelligence from intellect, this began to occur as a result of
the Darwinian Revolution, which led to a re-evaluation of the question of intelligence in animals
(although reserving the notion of intellect for the alleged human form of intelligence). For these
thinkers, intelligence was located more in the interspace between organisms and their
environment, a notion stressed by individuals such as George Romanes in his book on Animal
Intelligence (1882). Pragmatists and functionalists such as Henri Bergson, John Dewey and
William James saw intelligence (at least partly) as a tool for coping with this world.
As a result there gradually emerged a distinction between intelligence and intellect, classically
expressed by Roback (1922), although how the two differ remains to be delineated even today.
This raised the question of what the then-current intelligence tests were testing intelligence,
intellect or both. At least one individual claimed: “…most of the modern mental tests are really
intellect tests, that is, tests of intellectual intelligence as distinguished from the motor or still
intelligence tests which are applied to animals.” As we will see Cyril Burt in his push for more
tests of higher reasoning seems to be advocating questions about intellect as distinguished from
general intelligence; one might make the same claim with respect to Piaget’s creation of his own
early version of intelligence tests—tests of intellect even though intellect is rooted in earlier
forms of intelligence.
Secondly, as a result of the movement of mandating public education for all its citizens, several
countries saw the need to identify those children whose native intelligence was such that they
were not benefitting from their education and hence required special classes. Consequently,
there was a pressing need to identify these “retarded” children by means of scientific testing
procedures. Recognized tests included a heterogeneous variety—sensory tests, behavioral tests,
physical measures (cephalic index, body type, graphology), etc. All of these indices were put to
work in the design of tests of intelligence. The result was a heterogeneous and by no means
coherent set of tests which, it was hoped, would enable scientists and educators to identify those
individuals requiring special education. In the process, individuals came to use such tests to
identify normal individuals and even those with superior intelligence.
Constructing such intelligence tests was thus originally designed to single out children of
significantly lower intelligence commonly designated by physicians at that time as idiots,
imbeciles, and morons (debilité).3 But such tests of abnormality presupposed some conception of
normal intelligence—what it was and how it developed from birth to adulthood. Such normal
intellectual development was clearly rooted in the child’s underlying biological nature displayed
over time and marked by their chronological ages. Hence for many individuals these new
3
Sometimes translated “feeble-minded.” Terms such as “retarded,” “feeble-minded,” along with the grades of
“idiot,” “imbecile,” and “moron” were employed to characterize these individuals until fairly recently. However,
becoming aware of the derogatory nature of these labels and given a changing theoretical conception of this malady,
professional organizations such as The American Psychiatric Association (in 2013) and the American Association
of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (in 2008) no longer use those terms and now employ the less
offensive one of “intellectual disability” or “intellectual and developmental disability.” As the AAIDD expresses it
“Intellectual disability is a disability characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in
adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills.” For a discussion of the reasons
for this change see Schalock, et al (2007). When I use these older and outmoded terms, it should be understood that
there is an implicitly understood “according to these thinkers” or “so-called.” I will use different terms to denote
this psychological syndrome.
intelligence tests of Binet and Burt constituted a way to measure not only debilitated
development but also normal and super-normal development. The intelligence tests in the hands
of Binet, Burt, Spearman, and others was thus the path to charting the entire trajectory of the
development of intelligence.
What do Intelligence Tests Measure?
Following the general assumptions of that period, Binet and Simon’s initial 1905 version of their
test consisted of a variety of quite heterogeneous items including tests of motor skill, perception,
memory, general knowledge, and several other items: personal cleanliness, speech, knowledge
of the body, ideas of place and time, reading and writing skills, etc. In their later 1908 and 1911
revisions, many of these same items were retained but items of a more “logical” nature were
added (See Table 1): explaining absurdities (e.g., “I have three brothers, Paul, Ernest and
myself”—one which Piaget used), giving abstract definitions (e.g., “charity,” “justice,”
“goodness”), rhyming, interpreting pictures (e.g., of an old couple on a park bench), giving the
meaning of facts involving “good sense,” and so forth. Clearly, the ability to answer such test
questions required different mental processes, processes of a more intellectual nature: to interpret
the meaning of a picture or an event—which involves what Binet called “good sense”—or to
explain what is absurd about myself being one of my brothers, to be able to distinguish the
difference between idleness and laziness, or to define “justice” seem still different abilities.
These tests of intellectual competence (s) seem different from tests involving a syllogism or a
quite different kind of test involving the conservation of liquid or a pendulum test.
Insert Table 1 about here

So even though Binet incorporated more intellectual type test questions, it remained an
open question whether these were tests of intellect or whether other type test questions were
needed, tests of a more logical nature. Indeed this motivated Cyril Burt to make substantial
revisions and/or additions to Binet’s intelligence test questions by adding tests of more
traditional logical reasoning.
The issue of the connection between intelligence and intellect (or rationality) and how
these relate to IQ tests were present from the very beginning and remains so today: Is
intelligence or intellect a unitary, global property of the mind, is it just the simple collection of
more particular cognitive faculties, or is it itself a particular discrete faculty? Etc. These are
questions about the nature of intelligence, questions Binet could hardly avoid.
Binet’s Theory of Intelligence
It is a widespread opinion that Binet had no clearly worked out theory of intelligence, that his
views about intelligence changed over the years and that he was groping towards a more
adequate account of intelligence (see e.g., Varson, 1936). Intelligence has two faces: one
involving a multiplicity of faculties, the other an underlying unity. Such a view can be found
perhaps in his most explicit view about intelligence appearing in one of his last books (1909)
where he wrote:
I have recently proposed with Dr. Simon. . . a synthetic theory of the functioning of the
mind, which…will show clearly that the mind is one, despite the multiplicity of its
Faculties; that it has one essential function to which all the others are subordinated. . .
In our opinion, intelligence, considered independently of phenomena of
sensibility, emotion , and will, is above all a faculty of knowing [connaissance], which is
directed toward the external world, and which labors to reconstruct it as a whole, by
means of the small fragments of it which are given to us. What we perceive of it is
element a, and all the very complicated work of our intelligence consists in uniting with
this first element a second element, the element b. All knowing [connaissance] is thus
essentially an addition, a continuation, a synthesis, whether the addition takes place
automatically as in external perception. . . or after a conscious search. . . But note well
that in this addition to the element a, there is already a host of faculties at work:
comprehension, memory, imagination, judgment, and above all, speech. Let us retain
only the most essential, and, since all this culminates in the invention of an element b, let
us call the operation an invention, which is executed after a comprehension. The
operation cannot be performed without our knowing what the question is, without our
adopting a certain line, from which we do not deviate, thus a direction is necessary . . The
ideas must be judged as fast as they ae produced and rejected if they do not fit the end
pursued; there must, thus be a censorship. Comprehension, invention, direction, and
censorship; intelligence is contained in these four words (1909, pp. 117-118; translation
from Varon, 1936, pp 46-47 modified)
A particular key faculty here is the notion of comprehension about which he wrote (1895) the
following:
There exists in us a faculty of comprehension, of grasping the meaning of a fact, object,
or idea, of a chain of reasoning. There are different names for the variants of this
complex faculty: it is the talent of observation thanks to which we distinguish reality

from appearances in what we perceive, the essential from the accessory, by means of
which we seize the relation of cause and effect—we analyze, synthesize, in a word we
comprehend. It is the espirit of finesse, intuitive rather than reasoned, thanks to which we
grasp puns or an intention, the imperceptible nuances of language or we give an account
of the motive of an action, of the character of an individual; it is the coup d’oeil, common
sense, judgment, the pragmatic sense which indicates the probable series of events, a
likely situation, the best solution, etc. One devises tests for these different aspects of
comprehension: thus, observation may be tested by asking for an explanation of the
movement of the parts of a machine which the subject observes in motion;
comprehension may be tested by definitions, differences between synonyms, criticisms of
inexact or incorrect sentences (p. 447).
Needless to say the relation of the faculty of comprehension to intelligence is opaque, for many
would say the faculty of comprehension is the faculty of intelligence. But Binet did say that he
had no (final) theory about the nature of intelligence and that he was more concerned with the
empirical tests for it. Subsequent thinks such as Spearman, Burt, and Piaget, who were equally
concerned with the question of the empirical tests of intelligence gave not only different accounts
of the nature of intelligence but also proposed quite different methods by means of which to test
it.
Cyril Burt’s Tests of Noetic Intelligence
Although Cyril Burt’s name is immersed in controversy, his contribution to intelligence testing,
although substantial, is less appreciated,4 and his influence on Piaget was significant (Riberio &
de Souza, 2020).
4
Burt (1914) is still among the best discussions of the conceptual problems surrounding intelligence testing.
Burt began creating his own distinctive kind of intelligence test around 1908, utilizing the work
of earlier psychologists such as Spearman and Galton (although not Binet). This early program
was committed to the new correlational approach of British statisticians and psychologists
(Galton, Pearson, Spearman), later employing factor-analysis instead of what Burt called the
age-scale of Binet. Such an approach, with a variety of tests both similar to and different from
Binet, required standardization.
Burt’s intelligence testing did not center on mentally challenged students, as Binet’s tests did,
but on normal and gifted individuals (Burt, 1911, 1919), 5 although his most widely known work
(Burt, 1921) incorporated both kinds of tests. He incorporated items from the Binet-Simon tests
into his widely cited general work, this too required standardization on English students. Burt
was in communication with Binet (early on) and Simon, both of whom made suggestions for the
improvement of Burt’s tests. But Burt’s tests would need to be standardized not only on British
students but also on students from other countries, including French students.
Burt was especially concerned with the higher, more rational processes of children for several
reasons including identifying not only normal children but also super-normal, “gifted” subjects.
Becoming aware of Binet’s tests, he applied them, criticized them, and revised them. This
occurred over several years apparently with numerous interchanges with Binet and Simon, both
written and in person.
Unlike Binet, Burt’s fascination with the new statistical theories coming out of England led him
to argue for a factor-analytic approach to developmental cognition, opposing Binet’s more
eclectic and functional approach. His critical evaluation of Binet’s work was noted by Binet and
5
For example, he tested children in prep school at Oxford and Liverpool. The children there can hardly be taken as
average students. The same applies to the Isaacs who later tested children in the day care schools of Cambridge
(Kitchener, forthcoming).
appreciated somewhat, but this did not seem to result in any substantial changes in Binet’s
overall research program.
Like other psychologists of the period, was interested in general intelligence—an “inborn, all-
around mental efficiency,” “a single fundamental capacity,” “the higher, more rational, and
more complex mental processes”—what some call intellect. The current IQ tests, including
Binet’s, although perhaps adequate for measuring the intelligence of debilitated students were
not adequate to measure the general intelligence of the brighter students. Tests of reasoning
were therefore needed to test this “higher intelligence” and this would occur by studying their
correlation.
The main issue of the present essay centers not on Burt’s devotion to the new statistics coming
out of England but with the question of how Burt’s work on intelligence testing bears on
Piaget’s reported life-changing experience.6 Burt’s technical concern was with what he saw as
the less than adequate set of questions by Binet.
To create tests adequate for measuring this higher mental cognitive capacity Burt initially
(1911) used 14 tests but after running their correlations with intelligence, he concluded that only
5 had adequate correlations (the highest correlations were in the .70s). Although completion of
analogies was on the list, tests involving simple syllogisms were not—having the lowest
correlations of all—around .5. Still, he concluded that: “Of all the tests proposed, those
involving higher mental processes, such as Reasoning, vary most closely with Intelligence
(1911, p. 112). The main problem was the relation of tests of reasoning to intelligence. He
identified two types of cognitive activity belonging to this higher cognitive realm: logical
6
Burt (1919) and not Burt (1921) was the work Piaget explicitly addressed. As far as I can tell, Piaget was not
acquainted with his more hybrid account (Burt,1921). For this reason I will focus on Burt (1919). This is also the
sole reference to Burt in Inhelder’s work (1963/1968) on intelligence testing.
inference (reasoning) and what he termed apperception, “which depends upon a complex
synthetic activity, comparable to . . . intuition—the activity whereby we implicitly comprehend
the essential meaning or character of the whole, without explicitly analyzing it into its
component parts, or distinctly formulating their relations (1911, p. 103). This he labelled the
power of understanding— what the Greeks noesis—a concept to be found both in Spearman
(1905) and G. F. Stout, both of whom influenced Burt.
According to Stout (1909) for example:
By noetic synthesis I mean that union of presentational elements which is involved in
their reference to a single object; or, in other words, in their combination as specifying
constituents of the same thought. It is by noetic synthesis that those complex psychical
units come into being which we call percepts, ideas, and concepts. All these words imply
something which is perceived or conceived, or of which we have an idea; and it is this
objective reference which constitutes each of them a unit in mental process.” (p. 1).
Employing this notion, Burt concludes by saying: “. . . the development of reasoning appears to
consist essentially in an increase in the number, variety, originality, and compactness of the
relations which his mind can perceive and integrate into a coherent” (1914, p. 127). A view
similar to this was championed by Piaget reflecting the crucial role of relationalism in his
thinking.
In a subsequent work (1919), the center piece for our study about Piaget, Burt subjected
his earlier remarks to further empirical testing. He introduced “graded reasoning” where levels
of test difficulty—which might be thought to involve different mental levels—mapped onto ages
7 to 14. All of the test questions were questions of logic or logical reasoning in a broad sense.
They included analogies, deductive logic, inductive logic, informal fallacies and absurdities.7
The deductive logic questions, for example, involved classical Aristotelian logic involving
categorical, disjunctive, and hypothetical syllogisms. Although the correlations between answers
to syllogism tests and judgments of intelligence were not very impressive, often wavering around
.5, Burt continued to claim they were the best tests of intelligence.
Here are examples of some of the important test questions of Burt which Piaget’s found
particularly useful in studying higher intelligence.:
(7 Years) Jean says to his sister: “Part of [une partie de] my flowers are yellow.” Then
he asks them the color of his bouquet. Marie says: “All the flowers are yellow.” Simon
says: “Some of [quelques-unes de] of your flowers are yellow.” And Rose says:” “None
of your flowers are yellow” Which of them is right? (Piaget, 1921b, p. 438).
Another famous one extensively discussed by Piaget in several works (e.g., Piaget, 1924a) is:
(8 Years) Edith is fairer than Olive: but she is darker than Lily. Who is darker--Olive or
Lil.?
Finally:
(9 Years) If I have more than a shilling, I shall either go by taxi or by train If it rains I
shall either go by train or by bus. It is raining and I have half-a-crown. How do you think
I shall go?
7
Piaget did little explicit work on inductive logic, something his co-author Barbel Inhelder explicitly undertook.
Although is unclear what Piaget and Inhelder meant by induction and inductive logic, they assimilated it to the
hypothetico-deductive method and abductive inference, which are only two kinds of inductive logic (see Kitchener,
1999).
(12 Years) If the train is late he will miss his appointment: if the rain is not late he will
miss the rain. We do not know whether the train was late or not. Can we tell whether he
kept his appointment.
Burt calculated average test scores for each age thereby suggesting norms for each level and
proposing a developmental account of reasoning and intelligence (the correlation of reasoning
test scores and intelligence being 64 to .78).
Several points should be noted. First, Burt did not simply record the correct answers but asked
subjects why they gave the answer they did: the child gives his/her answer to the question “and
the child is asked to give his reason” (1919, p. 71). Burt stresses the importance of this: “In the
cross-examination lies the most valuable part of the test” (1919, p. 71), thus anticipating Piaget’s
major interest and his clinical method. But subjects’ protocols are not given by Burt. Instead an
additional numerical score is given to the correctness or adequacy of the reasons. There is no
real conversation between students and examiners, no Socratic dialogue occurring, a feature
Piaget and Inhelder stressed as crucial in their clinical method.
Secondly, Burt’s account of this process of the development of logical reasoning explicitly
rejects any notion of stages or qualitative structural change over time. “In the development of
the child’s capacity for formal reasoning no such distinct stages are discernible” (1919, p. 126).
Since the youngest age groups (7 years) can solve some syllogisms, this underlying logical
ability does not change over time although there is an increase in complexity of reasoning due to
subsequent acquisition of content obtained from the external world. “Logical form, therefore, is
of far less importance than either the amount or the kind of subject-matter” (1969,p. 126), which
presumably the child learns.

Over the years Burt tested numerous British subjects on these questions. But obviously further
standardization was needed on children in other cultures, something both Binet and Simon were
aware of. But who could do this since Simon was absent from the laboratory school much of
the time. Voila! Jean Piaget was in need of psychological work. And so Piaget was given the
task of translating and standardizing Burt’s I.Q test questions.
Piaget’s Response
The Problem of Relations
Prior to Piaget’s first book, Le langage et la pensée chez l’enfant (1923), he reported several
experiments—both by himself working alone in Binet’s laboratory and then later in collaboration
of co-workers at the J. J. Rousseau institute in Geneva (Piaget, 1921a, 1921b, 1922a; Piaget &
Rossello, 1922b).8 These studies were the first ones issuing from Piaget’s prise de conscience
concerning his future field of research—the psychological processes underlying logical
operations and the possibility of a genetic epistemology. Several of these studies involved the
use of Burt’s tests or similar ones crafted by Piaget.
A central theme running throughout much of Piaget’s intellectual career was the logic of
relations. Early on as a youth he was concerned with holism, with the question of the nature of a
whole in relation to its parts (Kitchener, 1982, 1985). The parts of a whole and the whole itself
stand in a certain set of what we can call constituting relations. So to understand it you have to
understand three things: individual members (the parts of a whole), the whole itself, and their
constituting relations. A whole is more than a mere mathematical summation of its parts, but it
8
His very first article (Piaget, 1920) concerned his notorious lecture on psychoanalysis mentioned above. In
addition, a study of images (Piaget & Roselli, 1922), although different from the earlier studies, seem to be inspired
by several test items involving pictures. It was in this article that Piaget first explicitly introduced the notion of la
mèthode clinique (although without explication or elaboration). He explained this more fully in Piaget (1926). See
also Inhelder (1963/1968) who elaborated this notion.
is this collection plus all of the constituting relations. For example, society—a whole—is not
reducible to a collection of its individual members since it is the relations between members of
this society that makes it a society.
Piaget introduced an important distinction here between membership and other kinds of
relations. The individual parts of a whole can be members of the whole if they stand in a certain
kind of relation to it, e.g., I am a member of the human race. This is the part-whole connection
used in set theory and classical logic.
In addition, the parts of the whole can stand in a different kind of relation to each other, e.g., if I
have a brother, then there is a particular kind of relation between me and my brother: being the
brother of, which is a symmetrical relation.9 This is a part-part relation.
The central issue here concerned the nature of relations and the child’s becoming cognizant of
them. This is the source of the consequent problems children have in answering questions
about them. Piaget’s studies showed that young children lacked the ability to understand both
part-part relations and membership notions, a problem mastered by them only later. The
change from an earlier inept stage to a later competent stage came as a result of their
psychological construction of a set of structural relation, forming a logic of relations.
There were two types of questions about logical reasoning—reasoning involving relations—
emerging from Burt’s (1919) intelligence tests that Piaget addressed. First, there were 10
explicit test questions about part-whole relations Piaget took from Burt’s test questions. The
yellow bouquet question (see above) is one such example. Many 9–10-year-olds did not answer
9
Other important relations include transitivity and reflexivity. In formal group theory, a group consists of several
different relations, e.g., the INRC group of Inhelder and Piaget (1955/1958) .
the question correctly. They did not understand the relation between “part of ” and “some”—a
part-whole issue. They were still at a lower stage of cognitive reasoning.
Second, there were explicit questions about logical reasoning involving syllogisms, for example:
If this animal has long ears, it is a mule or an ass. If this animal has a big tail, it is a
horse or a mule. Now this animal has long ears and a big tail. What is it?
Here we have a logical problem involving relations—the intersection of classes—or logical
multiplication. Some children could understand logical addition (simple summation) but failed
to understand the class or set membership relation involved in logical multiplication. Only at a
later stage did they understand this. Both types of reasoning questions had their source in Burt’s
paper.
Piaget’s used the results of these studies to suggest why children made errors in answering
these questions, e.g., why they were inept at reasoning involving contradictions: they failed to
understand a contradiction because they were unable to hold two thoughts together at the same
time and to see their relationship. Psychological development could thus explain logical
ineptitude. In addition, children could not entertain the hypothetical nature of premises assumed
to be true—something necessary in logical reasoning. Here, then, was the beginning of Piaget’s
concern with the very nature of logical reasoning and its psychological underpinning.
All of this was tied to a developmental perspective involving stages or stage-like features and all
of this would become an important part of his genetic epistemology since in studying the
reasons children gave for their answers, they had to justify them during the course of their
conversation with the experimenters. So unlike studying children’s thinking as involving

answers plus their reasons, Piaget studied thinking as involving answers plus reasons together
with their justification of these reasons—a three-pronged approach.10
Genetic Epistemology
“When I arrived in Paris. . .” Piaget says, “ I already had the idea of doing epistemology, of
studying the formation of knowledge beginning with the psychology of the child” (Piaget,
forthcoming). In Binet’s laboratory, Piaget would discover how particular psychological
processes in the child would satisfy this epistemological interest—the intelligence tests of Burt
(and Binet)—and he would be able to set forth a more detailed conception of this new genetic
epistemology. This would necessitate an account not only of the psychogenesis of knowledge
but also of the nature of this developmental knowledge and the connection between the
psychology of the child and the development of knowledge. Prior to this he had the germinal
notion of such a genetic epistemology but what was needed was a more detailed and refined
account. This began to be sketched in the ‘20s with his studies of Leon Brunschwicg and
Arnold Reymond (1925), resulting in two early sketches of his genetic epistemology (Piaget,
1924b, 1925).11
As a result of the publication of his early experimental articles, Piaget was offered a position at
Geneva and while there he continued investigating the reasoning of the child, publishing the
ground-breaking works contained in Le langage et la pensée chez l’enfant (1923) and Le
jugement et le raisonnement chez l’enfant (1924a). These two works constituted an essential part
10
The introduction of the clinical method with its dialectical nature allowed one to study the child’s knowledge but
in addition it opened the way to studying the child’s incipient theory of this knowledge: from genetic knowledge of
the child to the genetic theory of knowledge of the child. Piaget never pursued this latter course in any systematic
way.
11
The first reference to genetic epistemology that I have found occurs in Piaget (1924b).
(along with other projected works) of what Piaget’s called “ Studies in Child Logic. “ This was
never completed. Piaget’s intellectual career subsequently changed in part as the result of what
can be called “the Isaacs Affair” (Kitchener, forthcoming)—his personal and scholarly
interchange with Susan Isaacs and Nathan Isaacs with a year spent in England. This was another
monumental event in the early life of Piaget. Although some individuals have noted this crucial
set of events, it remains a story yet to be told.
Operatory Intelligence
Although Piaget wrote little on intelligence testing after this period, he did explicitly write about
Binet at least twice; he wrote virtually nothing about Burt. He saw some value in the Binet-
Simon tests but the results of this I.Q. testing dealt only with the surface of things—the external
behavioral result—whereas he wanted to probe the underlying cognitive processes giving rise to
these results, namely, what he called operatory intelligence.
Intelligence, according to Piaget, consists of the ability to adapt to the environment via the
processes of assimilation-accommodation with the degree of adaptation being marked by varying
states of equilibrium characterized formally as a “groupings.” As he put it: “…the act of
intelligence consists essentially of ‘grouping’ operations according to certain definite structures. .
.intelligence is thus conceived as the form of equilibrium towards which all cognitive processes
tend… (Piaget, 1947/1950, p. v).
The central theoretical construct here is that of an operation. “We will call operations the
interiorized (or interiorizable), reversible actions … coordinated in structures, known as
operatory, which present laws of composition characterizing the structure in its totality as a
system” (1960/1973, p. 76). Operatory intelligence thus involves operations and an operatory
structure. Piaget’s alternative tests of intelligence involving the clinical method were thus
designed not to measure observable behavior but to get at this underlying operatory
intelligence.12
Conclusion
We are now ready to answer the questions originally posed. As we have seen, Burt’s intelligence
tests were sufficiently different from Binet’s that they needed standardization on French
children. The particular tests of Burt (1919) were ones in which the questions were aimed at
the “higher reasoning” of normal subjects not disabled individuals using syllogisms, analogies,
and fallacies—the heart of traditional logic. These were not the focus of the Binet-Simon tests
even though their tests contained questions requiring some abstract logical reasoning abilities or
general intelligence or intellect. When Piaget tested normal children on these Burt-type
questions, they made systematic errors in reasoning thus suggesting that since they were not
“retarded,” hence another explanation of their errors was needed. Piaget was acquainted with the
stage theory of individuals such as Pierre Janet, and perhaps Binet’s distinction between mental
ages and mental levels led him to suggest that these students were operating at a lower mental
level. His earlier thoughts about holism and the problem of relations led him to select test
questions concerning part-whole relations (and later symmetrical relations), set-theoretical
notions such as logical multiplication and logical addition, problems of classification, and the
development of formal reasoning. Being at a lower level, children did not understand such
12
Piaget’s research program was continued by Bärbel Inhelder and applied to diagnosing the mentally deficient by
means of conservation tests of weight, volume, etc. (1963/1968). The resulting alternative tests of mental
deficiency (and indirectly of normal intelligence) again employed the clinical method together with hands-on
activity involving problem-solving tasks with physical objects. According to Piaget, this was “the discovery of a
new criterion of mental deficiency” (Piaget, 1943/191963/1968, p. 11). Unfortunately it remains unclear how
Inhelder’s work can be used to diagnose mental disability. This work by Piaget and Inhelder has, however, been
used by subsequent researchers as indicators of mental deficiency of various kinds. (For reviews, see Dougherty &
Moran, 1983; Klein & Safford, 1977; Paour, 2011.)
concepts involving classes and relations; this required subsequent holistic construction in group-
like structures requiring passage to a later intellectual stage. This no doubt encouraged Piaget to
expand his stage-like thinking. These conceptions provided many of the details needed for his
life-long project of a genetic epistemology. Psychogenesis was the necessary link between his
biological theory and epistemology. Such an epistemology contained two aspects: the
historical development of knowledge in the sciences and the psychological development of
knowledge in the individual (Kitchener, 1986). His future path would thus involve empirical
work on the psychogenesis of logical operations coupled with his to be developed genetic
epistemology (Piaget, 1950). His life-long program of a genetic epistemology was thus launched.
Acknowledgement
Special thanks to Anne Machin for reading and commenting on an earlier version of this paper.
Statement of Ethics
Not applicable
Conflict of Interest
Not applicable
Funding Sources
Not applicable
Author Contributions
Not applicable
Data Availability Statement
Not applicable
References
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Table 1
Chronological Tests
Six years
Distinguish morning and evening.
Define by use
Copy diamond
Count 13 pennies
Compare 2 pictures esthetically
Seven years
Right hand, left ear
Describe a picture .
Execute 3 commissions
Count 3 single and 3 double sous
Name 4 colors
Eight years
Compare 2 objects from memory
Count from 20 to 0
Indicate omission in pictures
Give the date
Repeat 5 digits
Nine years
Give change out of 20 coins
Definitions superior to use
Recognize the value of 9 pieces of
money
Name the months
Comprehend easy questions
Ten years
Copy a design from memory
Criticize absurd statements
Comprehend difficult questions
Place 3 words in 2 sentences
Twelve years
Resist the suggestion of lines
Place 3 words in 1 sentence
Give more than 60 words in 3 min
utes
Define 3 abstract words
Comprehend a disarranged sentence

Place 5 weights in order
Fifteen years
Repeat 7 figures
Find 3 rhymes
Repeat a sentence of 26 syllables
Interpret a picture
Solve a problem composed of several
facts
Adults
Comprehend a cut in a folded paper
Reverse a triangle
Answer the question about the Pres
ident
Distinguish abstract words
Give the sense of the quotation from
Hervieu

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1 Piaget’s Intelligence Test

Piaget’s Different Intelligence Test:

Running Head: Piaget’s Intelligence Test

intelligence test—from I.Q. tests to tests of operatory intelligence?

intelligence test, a test of operatory intelligence.

associated with Alfred Binet and Cyril Burt.

the failures.” “Thus I engaged my subjects in conversations patterned after psychiatric

according to Piaget (1975), Simon “took revenge because of my independence” in doing

answers to philosophical—notably epistemological—questions. Psychology was the right field,

involve the creation of a genetic (developmental) epistemology, not a traditional philosophical

epistemology, but one rooted in empirical scientific evidence.

Alfred Binet Intelligence Testing2

Binet-Simon Scale (Binet & Simon, 1916).

theoretical presentation and justification.

general intelligence for years.

procedures. Recognized tests included a heterogeneous variety—sensory tests, behavioral tests,

identify normal individuals and even those with superior intelligence.

significantly lower intelligence commonly designated by physicians at that time as idiots,

What do Intelligence Tests Measure?

Insert Table 1 about here

traditional logical reasoning.

Binet’s Theory of Intelligence

In our opinion, intelligence, considered independently of phenomena of

essentially an addition, a continuation, a synthesis, whether the addition takes place

automatically as in external perception. . . or after a conscious search. . . But note well

us call the operation an invention, which is executed after a comprehension. The

pursued; there must, thus be a censorship. Comprehension, invention, direction, and

from Varon, 1936, pp 46-47 modified)

There exists in us a faculty of comprehension, of grasping the meaning of a fact, object,

complex faculty: it is the talent of observation thanks to which we distinguish reality

grasp puns or an intention, the imperceptible nuances of language or we give an account

comprehension: thus, observation may be tested by asking for an explanation of the

movement of the parts of a machine which the subject observes in motion;

comprehension may be tested by definitions, differences between synonyms, criticisms of

inexact or incorrect sentences (p. 447).

Cyril Burt’s Tests of Noetic Intelligence

Binet, required standardization.

written and in person.

to argue for a factor-analytic approach to developmental cognition, opposing Binet’s more

overall research program.

the less than adequate set of questions by Binet.

synthetic activity, comparable to . . . intuition—the activity whereby we implicitly comprehend

(1905) and G. F. Stout, both of whom influenced Burt.

According to Stout (1909) for example:

By noetic synthesis I mean that union of presentational elements which is involved in

something which is perceived or conceived, or of which we have an idea; and it is this

particularly useful in studying higher intelligence.:

kept his appointment.

proposing a developmental account of reasoning and intelligence (the correlation of reasoning

test scores and intelligence being 64 to .78).

Piaget and Inhelder stressed as crucial in their clinical method.

presumably the child learns.

task of translating and standardizing Burt’s I.Q test questions.

The Problem of Relations

concerning his future field of research—the psychological processes underlying logical

use of Burt’s tests or similar ones crafted by Piaget.

this society that makes it a society.

used in set theory and classical logic.

brother of, which is a symmetrical relation.9 This is a part-part relation.

psychological construction of a set of structural relation, forming a logic of relations.

part-whole issue. They were still at a lower stage of cognitive reasoning.

Here we have a logical problem involving relations—the intersection of classes—or logical

conversation with the experimenters. So unlike studying children’s thinking as involving

with their justification of these reasons—a three-pronged approach.10