Page 123 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

100 Communication and Evolution of Society

can be analyzed in terms of the capability for cognition, speech,
and action. These three aspects of cognitive, linguistic, and inter-
active development can be brought under one unifying idea of
ego development—the ego is formed in a system of demarca-
tions. The subjectivity of internal nature demarcates itself in
relation to the objectivity of a perceptible external nature, in
relation to the normativity of society, and in relation to the
intersubjectivity of language. In accomplishing these demarca-
tions, the ego knows itself not only as subjectivity but as some-
thing that has “always already’ transcended the bounds of sub-
jectivity in cognition, speech, and interaction simultaneously. The
ego can identify with itself precisely in distinguishing the merely
subjective from the nonsubjective. From Hegel through Freud to
Piaget, the idea has developed that subject and object are re-
ciprocally constituted, that the subject can grasp hold of itself
only in relation to and by way of the construction of an objective
world. This nonsubjective is, on the one hand, an “object’’ in
Piaget’s sense—a cognitively objectified and manipulable reality;
on the other hand, it is an “object” in Freud’s sense—a domain
of interaction opened up by communication and secured through
identification. The environment is differentiated into these two
regions: external nature and society. It is supplemented by
reflections of the two domains of reality in each other (e.g.,
nature as ‘‘fraternal,”” cared for on an analogy to society; or
society as a strategic game, as a system, and so forth). In addi-
tion, language detaches itself from the domains of objects as a
region unto itself.
Psychoanalytic and cognitive developmental psychology have
assembled evidence for the hypothesis that ego development
takes place in stages. I should like—very tentatively—to dis-
tinguish among (a) the symbiotic, (b) the egocentric, (c) the
sociocentric-objectivistic, and (d) the universalistic stages of
development.
a. During the first year of life we can find no clear indicators
for a subjective separation between subject and object. Appar-
ently in this phase the child cannot perceive its own corporeal
substance as a body, as a boundary-maintaining system. The
symbiosis between child, reference person, and physical environ-