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Feeling good vibrations in dialogical relations

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Abstract

I engage phenomenological and empirical perspectives on dialogical relations in infancy in a mutually enlightening and challenging relation. On the one hand, the empirical contributions provide evidence for the primacy of first-to-second person interrelatedness in human sociality, as opposed to the claim of primary syncretism heralded by Merleau-Ponty, and also in distinction from the ego-alter ego model routinely used in phenomenology. On the other hand, phenomenological considerations regarding the lived affective experience of dialogical relatedness enrich and render intelligible the psychological accounts of dialogue in terms of observable behavior. Phenomenological and empirical perspectives on dialogical relatedness thus combine to offer an affectively charged and conversationally patterned notion of primary intersubjectivity in the I-you mode.

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Notes

  1. Merleau-Ponty (2000, p. 25).

  2. Ibid., 12.

  3. Gallagher (2003).

  4. Varela (1996).

  5. Dennett (1991). I discuss this point further in Stawarska (2003).

  6. For a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological account of intersubjectivity in a mutually constraining and enlightening relation to the empirical studies on neonate imitation in developmental psychology, cf. Stawarska “Merleau-Ponty in Dialogue with the Cognitive Sciences in Light of Recent Imitation Research,” op cit.

  7. Merleau-Ponty (1964).

  8. Guillaume (1973).

  9. Wallon (1993).

  10. Lacan (1982).

  11. Merleau-Ponty op cit., 220.

  12. Meltzoff and Moore (1977; 1989; 1994).

  13. Stawarska (2004).

  14. Merleau-Ponty (1962).

  15. Husserl (1970).

  16. I discuss this idea further in Stawarska (2007) and in a book manuscript under review.

  17. Trevarthen (1979, 1993).

  18. Bateson (1975).

  19. Lyons (1977, p. 637).

  20. Spitz (1963).

  21. Cf., e.g., Bateson. “Mother–infant Exchanges,” op cit.; Beebe (1979), Papousek and Papousek (1979), Stern (1974), Stern et al. (1977).

  22. Kaye and Wells (1980).

  23. Jaffe and Feldstein (1970).

  24. As presented in Jaffe et al. (2001). There may be slight differences in the parsing models used by the researchers in the field.

  25. Jaffe and Feldstein, The Rhythms of Dialogue, op cit., 45.

  26. Cassotta et al. (1967), quoted in Jaffe et al., Rhythms of Dialogue in Infancy, op cit., 42.

  27. Jaffe and Feldstein, The Rhythms of Dialogue, op cit.

  28. Feldstein and Welkowitz (1978).

  29. Bakeman and Brown (1977).

  30. Cf., e.g., Beebe, Stern and Jaffe, “The Kinesic Rhythm of Mother-infant Interactions,” op cit.; Beebe et al. (1985); Stern (1974) and Stern et al. “The Infant’s Stimulus World During Social Interaction,” op cit.

  31. Beebe et al. (1988).

  32. Jasnow and Feldstein (1986).

  33. Ibid., p. 757.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Beebe et al., “Vocal Congruence in Mother-infant Play,” op cit.; Beatrice Beebe et al., “Interpersonal Timing,” op cit.; Jasnow and Feldstein, “Adult-like Temporal Characteristics of Mother–infant Vocal Interactions,” op cit.

  36. Cf., e.g., Rochat (1999).

  37. My thanks to Brady Heiner for raising the question about the evidence for bidirectional matching, and the need to consider infant–infant interaction to settle the question of dialogical primacy.

  38. Daniel Stern et al., “The Infant’s Stimulus World During Social Interaction,” op cit.

  39. Trevarthen (1993).

  40. Jaffe et al., Rhythms of Dialogue in Infancy, op cit.

  41. Rochat, “Dialogical Nature of Cognition,” in Jaffe et al., Rhythms of Dialogue in Infancy, op cit.

  42. Crown (1991).

  43. Feldstein and Welkowitz, “A Chronography of Conversation,” op cit.

  44. Jaffe et al., Rhythms of Dialogue in Infancy, op cit.

  45. Tanz (1980, p. 163).

  46. Gallagher (2001).

  47. Rochat, “Dialogical Nature of Cognition,” op cit., 140.

  48. Vygotsky (1978).

  49. Jaffe and Anderson (1979).

  50. Beebe et al., “Interpersonal Timing,” op cit.; Stern, “Mother and Infant at Play,” op cit.; Stern et al., “The Infant’s Stimulus World During Social Interaction,” op cit.

  51. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, op cit., 225.

  52. Ibid., p. 217.

  53. The idea that gesture and speech are inextricably interrelated has recently received substantial reinforcement from the leading researcher in the field. Cf., for example, McNeill (2005).

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the editor of this issue, Brady Heiner, and the anonymous reviewers, for helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this essay.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA

    Beata Stawarska

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Stawarska, B. Feeling good vibrations in dialogical relations. Cont Philos Rev 41, 217–236 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-008-9079-4

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