Piaget's Achilles' Heel: a Safe Soft Spot?

A basic premise of Piagetian theory is that cognition is based developmentally on sensorimotor coordination, exemplified in circular reactions. It has been claimed that eye movements qualify as secondary circular reactions and would be adequate to promote cognitive development in an extreme case of congenital paralysis. In this theoretical note, I discuss why eye movements are not secondary circular reactions and so cannot account for cognitive development in such cases.