ABSTRACT
Cognitive-developmental analyses of ontogenetic processes characteristically stress the 'psychic unity' of humankind, in contrast to both empiricists' tabula rasa views and those nativist accounts which emphasize genetically specified individual differences. In avoiding the extremes of biological and environmental determinism, Piagetian 'genetic epistemology' has considerable appeal-so long as it can succeed in showing that self-constructed mental systems do control human action, and develop through dialectically creative interactions between the environment and an actively adapting human agent seeking to make sense of experience (e.g., Piaget, 1972).
