This work consists in analyzing the processes of construction of scientific knowledge by taking into account various psychological currents that have been interested in education in general and in teaching-learning through problem-solving activities in particular. The behaviorist, cognitivist, connectionist and embodied dynamical systems paradigms were then discussed; the transitional currents marking the progressive passage from behaviorism to cognitivism were also illustrated. The various categories of knowledge were analyzed from a cognitivist point of view, in particular according to the information processing model. The didactics of problem solving in the teaching/learning system is discussed generally from a psychological point of view. The specificities of the didactics of physics and chemistry and the perspectives of problem solving in the teaching-learning system have been particularly analyzed.