Cogitor Ergo Sum: The Origin of Self-awareness in Dyadic Interaction

I have argued the main points of the thesis, called the You-I account, in previous papers to which I'll be referring. Langfur (2013) focused on the first 3 months of life. A paper of 2014 followed the carer-infant relation through the first 3 years, pitting the account against Heidegger's analysis of Dasein. Another of 2016 explained time-consciousness in terms of the account, comparing the latter with Husserl's view. What then justifies a new treatment? There has been further thought, stimulated by readings in the work of Carey (2009), Csibra (2010), and Tomasello (2014). The result has been to strengthen the main pillar of the argument, namely, the claim that the human infant is born with the capacity to recognize a person as attending. Secondly, the decision to present the thesis directly, without comparisons, has provided me the scope to work out a number of topics more fully: the maintenance of self-awareness during the carer's absence; the effect of the carer's affect-attunements on the learning of psychological concepts in their twofold application (to self and others); and the power of the You-I account in explaining the developmental sequence of crawling, joint attention, and language acquisition. The article does not presuppose acquaintance with the earlier ones.

Because much of the material I'll be citing is based on studies of mother-infant behavior, to avoid confusion I'll use masculine pronouns for the infant and feminine for the caregiver.

The Murray-Trevarthen experiment is replicable only when the experimenter waits for lively interaction before switching on the replay condition. See Nadel et al. (1999); Reddy (2008:76). Also, Gergeley (2002) has claimed that the Murray-Trevarthen data can be explained on the basis of sheer contingency (like that between a baby and a mobile that is set in motion by a string tied to his foot) without supposing that the infant perceives a person interacting with him. However, the baby smiles only half as much when contingency is not accompanied by eye contact (Hains and Muir 1996b: 1949; also Markova and Legerstee 2006; Reddy 2008: 77–82).

Merleau-Ponty (2005: 106): "[T]he two hands are never simultaneously in the relationship of touched and touching to each other".

Familiarity comes quickly to newborns (and probably to third-trimester fetuses): They "form 'prototypes' in less than 1 minute" (Walton and Bower 1993). Quick familiarity can account for another finding that might also mislead us into positing innate self-awareness: When newborns hear a tape of their own crying, they do not cry or show distress, but they do in response to tapes of other newborns crying. According to Dondi et al. (1999), the ability to resist contagion from familiar ("own") crying is probably an evolutionary inheritance; without it there would be an ever-intensifying spiral of wails, which would damage the baby's health (Malatesta 1985), not to mention that of the parents.

Newborns adjust head positions according to optic flow (Jouen and Gapenne 1995). Could self-awareness arise on the basis of head adjustments alone? This seems unlikely. Referring to upper and lower pathways in the brain, Bertenthal and Rose write that the information from the optic flow in this case "is restricted to its visuomotor function and not accessible to the infant in the form of self-knowledge" (1995: 309). Nor could head movements create a form of self-awareness at 2–3 months that would include the body as a whole.

In a thought he left undeveloped (1989: 101, n. 1), Husserl suggests that, even without independent self-awareness, imitative vocalizations between carer and infant can serve as a bridge both joining and differentiating them. Such vocalizations can indeed explain the perception of the carer as animated, but not as attending. See Langfur (2016).

When the experimenter protrudes her tongue, the newborn is being attended to. Such a moment could create a fleeting self-awareness, although the newborn is not in sufficient control of his gaze to sustain perception of the adult's attending.

A fuller account appears in Langfur (2013).

There are more patterns of response to the Strange Situation than the two I have named. See Karen 1998: 147–155.

About the transcendental ego: writing of "the understanding and its original power of combining the manifold of intuition," Kant says that "its synthesis…is nothing but the unity of the act, of which, as an act, it is conscious to itself" (1970: B153). But the newborn first opens his eyes on a manifold that is largely combined already (Carey 2009: 10–12, 40–46, 61–63), and further syntheses depend on interaction with carers (Langfur 2014).