Dificuldade na noção lógica de conservação de quantidade no estágio pré-operatório

Abstract

This article discusses the child's difficulty with the logical notion of conservation of quantity at preoperational stage, with the aid of Piaget and Szeminska's investigation on the matter. Based on Frege's approach to sense and reference (1892), we can observe a close relationship between said approach and Piaget and Szeminska's analysis, and consider that the child with access to the logical notion of conservation is under the rule of the reference. In addition, we argue that Lacan (1971), based on Frege's approach, claims that the reference is phallic and, in this sense, we can think that when children learn to conserve they are under the rule of the phallic reference, which is closely related to the operability of the paternal role. As a result, we propose that Lacan's argument contributes to the understanding of this difficulty detected by Piaget.