When does the self emerge? Not before 24 months of life, says Mahler [1]; it is virtual in the pre-symbolic stage, says Kohut [2]; not before 18 months, say cognitive scientists. How does the self emerge? In dualist confusion, says Mahler; in solipsistic isolation, says Freud; largely inaccessibly within the body, assume cognitive neuros-cientists. None of these answers fits the evidence, argues Vasudevi Reddy in her book How Infants Know Minds [3], as she turns the classic models of the development of the self on their heads."Why does the self emerge?" she asks instead, and proposes that the self emerges through the first engagements with others. Based on 20 years of behavioural observations, experiments, and frame-by-frame analyses of the kinds of play that have scarcely been addressed by cognitive scientists - coyness, humour, teasing in infants - Reddy presents compelling evidence that young infants have self-conscious experiences long before any 'conceptualized self could enable their emergence. In this fascinating book, which builds on her earlier work [4], Reddy expands her account of the development of the dialogic infant mind.
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