Ulrich Müller

“It is important to recall at the outset that by a cognitive equilibrium (which is analogous to the stability of a living organism) we mean something quite different from mechanical equilibrium (a state of rest resulting from a balance between antagonistic forces) or thermodynamic equilibrium (rest with destruction of structures). Cognitive equilibrium is more like what Glansdorff and Prigogine call ‘dynamic states’; these are stationary but are involved in exchanges that tend to ‘build and maintain functional and structural order in open systems’ far from the zone of thermodynamic equilibrium” (Piaget, 1977/2001, pp. 312–313).”
― Ulrich Müller, The Cambridge Companion to Piaget

“Intelligence exhibited by human beings originates and perpetuates itself “neither with knowledge of the self nor of things as such but with knowledge of their interaction, and it is by orienting itself simultaneously toward the two poles of that interaction that intelligence organizes the world by organizing itself” (CR, pp. 354–355).”
― Ulrich Müller, The Cambridge Companion to Piaget