ABSTRACT
One of Piaget's central problems has been the temporal construction of atemporal knowledge, a principal instance of which is necessary knowledge. With respect to knowledge of the actual world, any defining property is always co-instantiated with some set of non-defining properties, whose dissociation is necessary for intellectual growth. An illustrative review of the problems of knowledge and necessity, which have been the preoccupation of philosophers from Plato to Kant, is presented. The psychological question is primarily directed on children and their necessary knowledge, unlike the question in genetic epistemology which concerns necessary knowledge under construction during childhood. Microgenesis is an attempt to explain human conduct through its function, expressed as the goals to be attained and the concomitant procedural knowledge leading to their attainment. In fact, microgenesis easily extends into the third grouping, empirical epistemology, directed on questions in both cognitive science and Piagetian epistemology.
