A “second-person neuroscience” avoids elements of dualism in psychological theories. For interactionist approaches in social and developmental psychology this is particularly welcome. It also makes possible a Wittgensteinian neuroscience. Here, I focus on its compatibility with Wittgenstein's philosophy and Vygotsky's (Reference Vygotsky1978) developmental psychology.
Wittgenstein's thought (Wittgenstein Reference Wittgenstein, Anscombe and Anscombe1953; Reference Wittgenstein, Paul, Anscombe, Anscombe and von Wright1969) has influenced several interactionist approaches in psychology, including social constructionist and discursive theories (e.g., Edwards & Potter Reference Edwards and Potter1992). Like Schilbach et al.'s focus on emotional engagement and social interaction, these approaches also emphasize interest-based, emotionally (and morally) loaded social interaction.
Few would argue that an aim of Wittgenstein's philosophy was to show that a dualist interpretation of psychological terms was mistaken and confused. Echoing a similar aim, Schilbach et al. correctly identify the continuing “methodological dualism of behavior and mind” (sect. 1.1, para. 4, their emphasis) in psychology and how a second-person neuroscience can avoid it.
More fully, Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein, Anscombe and Anscombe1953) argued that psychological concepts gain meaning by how they are used in the “forms of life” and “language-games” that characterize meaningful action (“meaning as use”). Their meaning is not reliant on ontologically private states and events occurring in a world of individual experience.
In this light, Wittgenstein's so-called private language argument is an argument for the conceptual priority of the activities and interactions that ground language, and therefore thought, over supposedly private phenomena. Further, and analogous to Schilbach et al.'s focus on real time, ecologically valid social interactions, Wittgenstein leaned heavily upon considerations of ordinary, everyday uses of language for his analysis.
Conceptual compatibility goes further than a shared focus on everyday interactions. Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein, Paul, Anscombe, Anscombe and von Wright1969), for example, stated that human action is grounded not on an “ungrounded presupposition” but on an “ungrounded way of acting” (p. 17e, O.C. 110). From a Wittgensteinian perspective, first-person (e.g., simulationist) and third-person (e.g., Theory Theory) approaches in social neuroscience – as characterized by Schilbach et al. – incorrectly assume that social cognition is grounded on “ungrounded presuppositions” (i.e., various spectatorial representations of, or inferences about, others' minds). By contrast, a second-person approach highlights processes of emotional engagement and interaction. These ground action in the immediacy of action itself. In Wittgenstein's terms, social cognition occurs within, and is motivated by, “ungrounded ways of acting.” By implication, a “Wittgensteinian” second-person neuroscience then must explain how first- and third-person perspectives arise out of ontogenetically and conceptually prior second-person engagement. This is presumably one reason why Schilbach et al. (sect. 4.2) are interested in how implicit social cognition is transformed into explicit cognition (sect. 4.2).
On this last question, Vygotskyan developmental psychology can provide insights for ontogenetic neuroscientific research. For Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky1978), development involves organizing maturing functions into “higher” processes, largely through social interaction. Maturing functions are co-opted and restructured to subserve the higher psychological processes specified by the cultural environment.
Using a simple example, Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky1978) explained how an adult might complete an infant's unsuccessful grasping movement. This completion psychologically reconstructs the infant's grasping movement as a pointing gesture, once perceptual and attentional processes have matured. As Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky1978, p. 56) put it, there is “a change in that movement's function: from an object-oriented movement it becomes a movement aimed at another person, a means of establishing relations.”
Schilbach et al. (sect. 2.2.1, para. 2) note how the emotional power of attention directed towards newborns grounds second-person engagement. They later hypothesize that “the second-person approach suggests that acts of mentality should be meaningful to infants depending on the infant's ability to respond to them when they receive them, regardless of whether the infants can do the actions themselves” (sect. 4.2.1, para. 4, emphasis added). This suggestion aligns well with a Vygotskyan account of the origins of how infants participate in socially meaningful activity and is supported by Tomasello and colleagues' work on the early development of joint attention, shared intentionality, and cooperative activity (see Tomasello Reference Tomasello2009).
In Vygotsky's view this fundamental interaction involves a tension between psychological development (“maturing” functions) and learning and instruction. Given this tension, the process could neither begin nor be maintained without the natural responsiveness of infants to “acts of mentality” (target article, sect. 4.2.1, para. 4). Emotional engagement and circuits delivering reward signals draw infants into the process by which learning and development are coordinated. A second-person neuroscience could investigate the neural correlates supporting this integration of learning and development and, along the way, test and refine Vygotsky's developmental theory. Reciprocally, Vygotsky's framework could guide that neuroscientific investigation.
As mentioned, Schilbach et al. also highlight the question of how implicit processes become available for explicit social cognition. They mention Anderson's (Reference Anderson2010) theory of the reuse of brain areas during ontogeny and suggest that cognitive circuitry developed in early interactions may be reused, and re-described, to develop explicit social cognition. Neural reuse of this type is straightforwardly translatable into a Vygotskyan framework based on the social reconstruction of maturing functions. Further, reuse of implicit processes for explicit social cognition corresponds with a central process in Vygotsky's approach – internalization.
For Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky1978) all functions appear twice: “first between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological)” (p. 57, emphasis in original). The incorporation of speech into practical action mediates this shift, as Schilbach et al. also argue. Initially, speech is provoked and determined by activity. It is descriptive, emotionally expressive, and communicative (e.g., to describe a situation or ask for help). Through social interaction – and via egocentric speech – it develops a “planning function” that precedes and dominates activity. From a role in controlling the external world it turns inward and exerts control over the self, setting the scene for the emergence of first- and third-person social orientations.
Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein, Anscombe and Anscombe1953, p. 232e) wrote of the “confusion and barrenness of psychology,” stating that “in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion.” Schilbach et al.'s proposal in the target article helps avoid the dualist confusion Wittgenstein identified. It therefore could harness experimental and other methods to solve “the problems which trouble us” in social psychology.
A “second-person neuroscience” avoids elements of dualism in psychological theories. For interactionist approaches in social and developmental psychology this is particularly welcome. It also makes possible a Wittgensteinian neuroscience. Here, I focus on its compatibility with Wittgenstein's philosophy and Vygotsky's (Reference Vygotsky1978) developmental psychology.
Wittgenstein's thought (Wittgenstein Reference Wittgenstein, Anscombe and Anscombe1953; Reference Wittgenstein, Paul, Anscombe, Anscombe and von Wright1969) has influenced several interactionist approaches in psychology, including social constructionist and discursive theories (e.g., Edwards & Potter Reference Edwards and Potter1992). Like Schilbach et al.'s focus on emotional engagement and social interaction, these approaches also emphasize interest-based, emotionally (and morally) loaded social interaction.
Few would argue that an aim of Wittgenstein's philosophy was to show that a dualist interpretation of psychological terms was mistaken and confused. Echoing a similar aim, Schilbach et al. correctly identify the continuing “methodological dualism of behavior and mind” (sect. 1.1, para. 4, their emphasis) in psychology and how a second-person neuroscience can avoid it.
More fully, Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein, Anscombe and Anscombe1953) argued that psychological concepts gain meaning by how they are used in the “forms of life” and “language-games” that characterize meaningful action (“meaning as use”). Their meaning is not reliant on ontologically private states and events occurring in a world of individual experience.
In this light, Wittgenstein's so-called private language argument is an argument for the conceptual priority of the activities and interactions that ground language, and therefore thought, over supposedly private phenomena. Further, and analogous to Schilbach et al.'s focus on real time, ecologically valid social interactions, Wittgenstein leaned heavily upon considerations of ordinary, everyday uses of language for his analysis.
Conceptual compatibility goes further than a shared focus on everyday interactions. Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein, Paul, Anscombe, Anscombe and von Wright1969), for example, stated that human action is grounded not on an “ungrounded presupposition” but on an “ungrounded way of acting” (p. 17e, O.C. 110). From a Wittgensteinian perspective, first-person (e.g., simulationist) and third-person (e.g., Theory Theory) approaches in social neuroscience – as characterized by Schilbach et al. – incorrectly assume that social cognition is grounded on “ungrounded presuppositions” (i.e., various spectatorial representations of, or inferences about, others' minds). By contrast, a second-person approach highlights processes of emotional engagement and interaction. These ground action in the immediacy of action itself. In Wittgenstein's terms, social cognition occurs within, and is motivated by, “ungrounded ways of acting.” By implication, a “Wittgensteinian” second-person neuroscience then must explain how first- and third-person perspectives arise out of ontogenetically and conceptually prior second-person engagement. This is presumably one reason why Schilbach et al. (sect. 4.2) are interested in how implicit social cognition is transformed into explicit cognition (sect. 4.2).
On this last question, Vygotskyan developmental psychology can provide insights for ontogenetic neuroscientific research. For Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky1978), development involves organizing maturing functions into “higher” processes, largely through social interaction. Maturing functions are co-opted and restructured to subserve the higher psychological processes specified by the cultural environment.
Using a simple example, Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky1978) explained how an adult might complete an infant's unsuccessful grasping movement. This completion psychologically reconstructs the infant's grasping movement as a pointing gesture, once perceptual and attentional processes have matured. As Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky1978, p. 56) put it, there is “a change in that movement's function: from an object-oriented movement it becomes a movement aimed at another person, a means of establishing relations.”
Schilbach et al. (sect. 2.2.1, para. 2) note how the emotional power of attention directed towards newborns grounds second-person engagement. They later hypothesize that “the second-person approach suggests that acts of mentality should be meaningful to infants depending on the infant's ability to respond to them when they receive them, regardless of whether the infants can do the actions themselves” (sect. 4.2.1, para. 4, emphasis added). This suggestion aligns well with a Vygotskyan account of the origins of how infants participate in socially meaningful activity and is supported by Tomasello and colleagues' work on the early development of joint attention, shared intentionality, and cooperative activity (see Tomasello Reference Tomasello2009).
In Vygotsky's view this fundamental interaction involves a tension between psychological development (“maturing” functions) and learning and instruction. Given this tension, the process could neither begin nor be maintained without the natural responsiveness of infants to “acts of mentality” (target article, sect. 4.2.1, para. 4). Emotional engagement and circuits delivering reward signals draw infants into the process by which learning and development are coordinated. A second-person neuroscience could investigate the neural correlates supporting this integration of learning and development and, along the way, test and refine Vygotsky's developmental theory. Reciprocally, Vygotsky's framework could guide that neuroscientific investigation.
As mentioned, Schilbach et al. also highlight the question of how implicit processes become available for explicit social cognition. They mention Anderson's (Reference Anderson2010) theory of the reuse of brain areas during ontogeny and suggest that cognitive circuitry developed in early interactions may be reused, and re-described, to develop explicit social cognition. Neural reuse of this type is straightforwardly translatable into a Vygotskyan framework based on the social reconstruction of maturing functions. Further, reuse of implicit processes for explicit social cognition corresponds with a central process in Vygotsky's approach – internalization.
For Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky1978) all functions appear twice: “first between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological)” (p. 57, emphasis in original). The incorporation of speech into practical action mediates this shift, as Schilbach et al. also argue. Initially, speech is provoked and determined by activity. It is descriptive, emotionally expressive, and communicative (e.g., to describe a situation or ask for help). Through social interaction – and via egocentric speech – it develops a “planning function” that precedes and dominates activity. From a role in controlling the external world it turns inward and exerts control over the self, setting the scene for the emergence of first- and third-person social orientations.
Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein, Anscombe and Anscombe1953, p. 232e) wrote of the “confusion and barrenness of psychology,” stating that “in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion.” Schilbach et al.'s proposal in the target article helps avoid the dualist confusion Wittgenstein identified. It therefore could harness experimental and other methods to solve “the problems which trouble us” in social psychology.