Merleau-Ponty, Mirror Neurons and ‘Me’ The process of ‘becoming’, in The Child’s Relations with Others

Abstract

Implicit in such descriptions as ‘low self-esteem’, ‘lack of self- confidence’, etc. is the concept of ‘self’, but what can we mean by our ‘self’ when according to existentialist ideas there is no such ‘thing’? In ‘The Child’s Relations with Others’ (1964), Merleau-Ponty portrays the development of ‘self’ as an inherently relational process. In exploring the ‘process’ as he portrays it, this paper suggests that recent findings in neuroscience, psychobiology and infant observation not only corroborate his ideas but can elucidate and extend our understanding of them. However, implicit in all this deterministic evidence is a view of human development and of the development of our sense of ‘self’, which is at odds with the existential view of human freedom. Contrary evidence is provided by the case of ‘Dibs’ who portrays the individual as capable of transcending biological processes, endorsing Merleau-Ponty’s claim that ‘[the child] is the one who structures his surroundings after all.’ (ibid:108)