Irreversibility of Time and the Construction of Historical Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology has failed to emphasize the historical nature of the phenomena of development. Hence it continues to face a major conceptual problem: the timeframe of developmental phenomena is irreversible, whereas our accounts of development assume repetitiveness of different kinds of developmental events across places and times. This problem was addressed by Henri Bergson in his philosophy of time and constructive evolution. Bergson's thinking was the major source of intellectual influence upon the major developmental scientists of this century (e.g., J. Piaget, L. Vygotsky, H. Wallon), and was in its turn based on the psychological, evolutionary and sociogenetic thinking of the turn of the century (J. M. Baldwin, P. fanet, W. fames). Despiteits later development in the intuitivist direction, Bergson's thinking about the dynamics of life processes deserves careful analysis in a number of specific domains (e.g., concept of time, role of semiotic mediation in the regulation of the stream of consciousness, constructive focus on development, etc). Many of Bergson's ideas are relevant to the construction of historical psychology, and might lead to a radical reorganization of methodology. It is in the latter realm that contemporary socio-cultural perspectives need a substantial breakthrough.