Development, methodology, and recurrence of unsolved problems: On the modernity of "old" ideas

Contemporary developmental psychology may be in a historical phase of attempting to eliminate development from its focus. Such paradoxical state may be an example of a recurrent state of non-developmentalism in the tension that exists between non-developmental and developmental perspectives within psychology. The major contribution of Piaget and Vygotsky was the effort to maintain an explicit, processes-oriented developmental perspective on psychological phenomena. That perspective is in line with other directions of theoretical thought in developmental biology, and fits the axiomatic basis of development - its open-systemic nature. The latter sets up strict criteria for empirical research methodology, which is oriented towards the description of emergent processes.