Self-consciousness in infancy

Abstract

Following the empirical data of the mirror self-recognition test newborns have some innate conceptual before they are even able to recognize themselves in the mirror; they are not born in a state of fusion. Another reason for believing in a primitive self-consciousness is the fact that advanced self-consciousness ends in circularity, not explainable and origin-less. Mirror self-perception can’t be a sufficient ground for self-consciousness; moreover it is that only when one is conscious of one’s own properties, i.e. have bodily consciousness, that one can actually recognize oneself in the mirror and imitate facial gestures. If bodily consciousness is a form of self-consciousness, and if infants have bodily consciousness, then infants are self-conscious by the time they imitate and recognize themselves in mirrors. Even if bodily consciousness can so far only be described negatively as pre-reflective, non-observational, identification-free, non-perceptual and non-intentional, it shows that on the ground of sharing these characteristics with self-consciousness, that bodily consciousness can be seen as a form of self-consciousness in a minimal and primitive sense.