Harre' on Piaget's Sociological Studies

Pia.-et's Sociological Studies is largely taken up with questions of sociol ogy, epistemology, moral, political and legal theory. Roughly, these are by -passed in Harre's (2000, this journal) interpretation of Piaget's social a ccount. Our critique is in two parts. In the first part, we explain the bas is of our disagreement with Harre's interpretation of six specific issues. These are Pia.-et's model of social exchange, sociology, concept of egocent rism, response to Wallon, psycho-social parallelism, distinction between th e concrete and the abstract. In the second part. we challenge two central t heses invoked in Harre's review, namely (A) all psychological activity is a joint activity, and (B) any society is based on irreducible differences in psychological activity, We have tried to set the record straight as far as Piaget's social account is concerned. Harre's review shows a general lack of acquaintance with Piaget's account and our aim has been to compensate fo r this. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.