Developmental phenomenology: examples from social cognition
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Developmental phenomenology: examples from social cognition Stefano Vincini1,2 · Shaun Gallagher3,4 Accepted: 29 August 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract We explore relationships between phenomenology and developmental psychology through an in-depth analysis of a particular problem in social cognition: the most fundamental access to other minds. In the first part of the paper, we examine how developmental science can benefit phenomenology. We explicate the connection between cognitive psychology and developmental phenomenology as a form of constructive phenomenological psychology. Nativism in contemporary science constitutes a strong impulse to conceive of the possibility of an innate ability to perceive others’ mental states, an idea which also has a transcendental implication. In the second part, we consider how phenomenology can contribute to developmental science. Phenomenology can go beyond the necessary evaluation and reinterpretation of experimental results. Some phenomenological notions and theories can be put forward on a par with alternative cognitive-psychological models and compete with them on grounds of empirical adequacy. For example, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty’s notion of pairing can constitute a viable account of how infants access other minds. We outline a number of ways in which this account can be tested and can thus contribute to generating empirical knowledge. Keywords Phenomenological psychology · Social cognition · Infant development · Pairing · Direct social perception
* Stefano Vincini [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria
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Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Industries, Unità di Filosofia, Università di Parma, Via d’Azeglio 85, 43125 Parma, Italy
3
Department of Philosophy, The University of Memphis, 337 Clement Hall, Memphis, TN 38152, USA
4
School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Building 19, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
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S. Vincini, S. Gallagher
1 Introduction Numerous scholars have discussed the relationships between phenomenology and developmental science or made concrete use of such relations to support their own claims.1 Significant figures of the phenomenological tradition have often talked about infants and children, especially to exemplify the fundamental structures of the phenomena they were after.2 In this context, the term "fundamental" indicates a phenomenon that is presupposed by other phenomena of the same domain (higher order phenomena) but does not presuppose them in turn. For example, Husserl and Ricoeur reflect on infants to specify what the most primitive and minimal form of an action might be; so-called basic actions which make possible all other more complex and sophisticated forms of action that we carry out as children and adults.3 In this paper, we explore relationships between phenomenology and developmental science through the detailed discussion of a particular example: an in-depth analysi
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