ABSTRACT
[p. 240] There is hardly a more complex subject or one more liable to misunderstanding than that whose discussion la Semaine de synthèse, 1931, 1 has entrusted to a simple child psychologist. Mastering such a problem requires combining a knowledge 2 of sociology and psychology with a detailed understanding 3 of the history of science and of epistemology. Now the author is a specialist in neither sociology nor in the philosophy of science, and, as far as individual psychology is concerned, his competence ends around the age of 12 or 13. Nevertheless, once having noted these limitations, it is perhaps not entirely meaningless to try to project the few rays of light that an analysis of children provides on to the sociological history of reason. August Comte stated correctly that the most important phenomenon of social life was the mutual pressure each generation exerts on the others. Now, one of the principal aims of child psychology is precisely the study of this phenomenon. So, the observation of children is not such a bad method when deciding the extent to which rationality is a matter of individual development and to what extent it is something social. We will limit ourselves here to fulfilling this task, leaving to others the problem of situating this particular perspective within the set of possible perspectives.
