ABSTRACT
Of all branches of scientific psychology, developmental psychology is the one most indebted to the French tradition. In the final analysis, the roots of the Francophone tradition may have much in common with the Anglophone, through developmental explanation based in evolutionary epistemology, yet their styles of explanation differ in important ways. The English empiricist tradition somehow elevates data over theory, whereas the strength of the Francophone tradition is that it demands more attention to the theoretical consequences of empirical enquiry. The French tradition, more synthetic and holistic, has regularly generated important and unexpected new discoveries, as chapters in this section attest.
