The dynamic systems (DS) approach has emerged as an influential and potentially unifying metatheory for developmental science. Its central platform--the argument against design--suggests that structure spontaneously and without prescription emerges through self-organization. In one of the most prominent accounts of DS, Thelen and her colleagues…

Discusses two related problems generated by Piaget's psychology of decentered knowing. Subjectivity, consciousness, and self-consciousness are ruled out; the dynamic transformation of society through history is reduced to triviality. (Author/DB)

Consideration of present socioeconomic conditions affecting the discipline of psychology and the long-term consequences of such conditions in light of Karl Mannheim's theory of generations has led to the prediction that the future development of psychology as an academic discipline will be severely retarded. (JMB)

Five prototypic issues derived from a dialectical perspective are proposed: relationism, evolving reciprocity, probabilism, timing, and the nonequivalent temporal metric. It is argued that these issues, while not changing the scientific method, have implications for specific procedures. (Author)

This article discusses implications of dialectics for strengthening scientific inquiry. Three types of dialogic behavior are used as illustration: within the researcher, between the researcher and research participant, and between the researcher and the sociohistorical context. (Author/DB)

Suggests that conceptual and methodological approaches to the study of the family fundamentally reflect the sociohistorical context within which they are embedded. Argues for the development of a philosophical anthropology and comparative methodology appropriate to the study of humans as social beings. (Author)