CONCEPTUAL SYSTEMS FORMATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THINKING: IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL EDUCATION

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the elements that support the process of conceptual system formation, and consequently the development of theoretical thinking, in order to establish relationships between this process and school education. For this, at first, based on the studies of the historical-dialectical materialist philosophy of knowledge, presents a study of the process of formation of conceptual systems from a logical-historical point of view. For this referential, concepts are forms of movement of thought that capture the object in the system of relations that holds it. Then, it presents the analysis of studies of historical-cultural psychology that explain the development of the process of formation of conceptual systems linked to the development of the meaning of words and the generalization structures, which occur in dependence on the appropriation of knowledge. This study indicates that the verbalization or description of the concept can not be taken as an expression of the formation of conceptual systems, because to form concepts implies to go beyond, that is, it implies in the accomplishment of an adequate activity that reproduces in the subject of the essential traits of objects to be appropriate and then to orient and sustain the relation of the subject to reality. Given the above, it is concluded that theoretical thinking, which is organized around a conceptual system, is formed in individuals from the appropriation of theoretical knowledge, so that the analysis of the process of formation of conceptual systems is not done from the analysis of the contents and forms of education.