And incidentally, to know where he's coming from on this,

我想顺便提一下他为何会去研究儿童
he had a very dramatic and ambitious goal.

他有着一个宏伟且远大的目标
He didn't start off because he was interested in children.

他研究的初衷并不是出于对儿童的兴趣
He started off

而是出于
because he was interested in the emergence of knowledge in general.

他对认识产生的一般规律的兴趣
It was a discipline he described as genetic epistemology

皮亚杰主张发生认识论
the origins of knowledge.

即认识的起源
But he studied development of the individual child

但是由于他深信
because he was convinced

个体儿童的发展
that this development will tell him

能够表现出认识发展的一般规律
about the development of knowledge more generally.

所以他才选择去研究个体儿童的发展
There's a very snooty phrase that--

有一个听上去很傲慢的短语