baldwin’s two developmental resolutions of the mind–body problem

Baldwin�s two developmental resolutionsof the mind–body problem

Michel Ferrari*

Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology,

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West,

9th Floor, Toronto, Ont., Canada M5S 1V6

Received 10 December 2001; revised 13 May 2002

Abstract

Baldwin was a seminal thinker at the turn of the century and a giant in the intel-

lectual landscape of his day. Bill Kessen made a detailed study of a 1905 paper in

which Baldwin proposes two developmental solutions to the mind–body problem.

Baldwin�s approach to the mind–body problem presages the ideas of developmental

theorists like Piaget and Karmiloff-Smith, and of philosophers like Dennett and Fou-

cault, which may explain Kessen�s careful attention to his ideas. Baldwin proposed

that our current scientific ideas about mind and body are themselves the product

of historical distinctions that were developed in the history of Western culture and

within each individual over the course of development. Baldwin�s ‘‘outer’’ solutionproposed resembles that of Dennett, in that Baldwin proposes an evolutionary, psy-

chophysical, reconciliation of first and third person accounts of the mind–body rela-

tion. Baldwin�s second solution issues from an idealist or ‘‘experiential’’ perspective

and involves the contemplation of beauty as a way to personally reconcile fact and

value that presages Foucault discussion of the historical development of ‘‘technolo-

gies of self’’ by which individuals craft an ‘‘aesthetics of existence.’’ It is this breadth

of treatment that still makes Baldwin such a fascinating writer to consider today.

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1. Baldwins inner and outer developmental resolutions of the mind–body

problem

Bill Kessen made a detailed study of a paper by Baldwin (1905) in a talk

he gave at Yale University. Baldwin�s 1905 paper was delivered in at theWorld�s Fair in St. Louis, one of the most prestigious events of that time

(Lamolinara, 1999). This paper pursues Kessen�s analysis of Baldwin�s(1905) paper by examining its two proposed solutions to a perennial con-

cern for psychology and philosophy—the mind–body problem. Many con-

temporary attempts to address this problem are in response to a deeply

Cartesian tradition that posits an irreconcilable divide between mind and

body. Baldwin refuses to accept a fundamental and unbridgeable divide be-

tween mind and body that leaves the problem unsolvable in principle. Heproposes possible ways to reconcile first and third person perspectives in

the science of consciousness; solutions that deserves the attention of con-

temporary neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers interested in

these issues.

1. Materialist solution. Baldwin advocates provisionally adopting a psycho-

physical parallelism between first and third person approaches to study-

ing consciousness for purposes of scientific research. He argues that

ultimately both terms of this parallelism will mutually assimilate eachother, as knowledge of neuroscience progresses. Despite their disagree-

ments, the positions adopted by contemporary neuroscientists like Varela

(Lutz, Lachaux, Martinerie, & Varela, 2002) and Pribram (1997), by de-

velopmental psychologists like Karmiloff-Smith (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992;

Thomas & Karmiloff-Smith, in press), and by philosophers like Dennett

(1991, 1996) all seem to be variations on this theme.

2. Idealist solution. For Baldwin, aesthetic experience affords an essential

union of two points of view: that of the �producer� of a work of art,and that of the �spectator�; a union in which we find our experience is a

richer whole. Aesthetic appreciation suggests a form of immediate expe-

rience in which the dualism of external and subjective becomes blurred

and, at least ideally, tends to disappear. Baldwin believes such self-forget-

ting is true of any instance of deep contemplation. This view resembles

the state of mind described as flow by Csikszentmihalyi (1997) in which

individuals lose any sense of self as distinct from their activity.

Although insightful, Baldwin�s ideas need to be adapted to bring them intothe 21st century. Foucault�s (1988, 1994) ideas about the ‘‘art of living’’

provides an interesting interpretative lens through which to view Baldwin�sdevelopmental teleology. But unlike Baldwin, Foucault claims that there is

no essential human nature to be discovered and perfected; rather, there are

different ways of acting toward each other, understanding each other and

ourselves, that are themselves historically situated—that have their own

historical genealogy. Thus, our subjectivity is invented through our rela-

80 M. Ferrari / Developmental Review 23 (2003) 79–108

tionship with others and with ourselves; relationships reflect prevailing

social conditions and broad cultural category systems. In this way, Foucault

supports Kessen�s (1979, 1984, 1990) claim that the child and even child

development are cultural inventions; also, Foucault adds that our own au-

tobiographies are cultural inventions as well.The implication of Foucault and Kessen�s views are that—although a

deeply personal knowledge of ourselves is the finest expression of our hu-

manity—it is knowledge that draws on historically generated cultural prac-

tices and adapts them to individual lives. If so, then as Foucault (1988, 1994)

suggests, one way for scientists to reconcile first and third person perspec-

tives on development is to study the practices by which we foster what we

consider most good, true, and beautiful in ourselves.

2. Need to approach this question through genealogy and ‘‘genetic logic’’

For Baldwin, the mind/body problem must be addressed through ‘‘genet-

ic logic,’’ a term he coined to describe his approach (genetic psychology)

that is now somewhat misleading.1 A better label today might be ‘‘genera-

tive psychology,’’ since he explores the generation (and resulting geneaol-

ogy, or ‘‘genetic series’’) of what we now call ‘‘radical conceptualchanges’’ to our subjective experience of reality and to our theories about

human experience (Chi, 1992; Ferrari & Elik, 2003).

Baldwin (1930) objected to the quantitative method used in the ‘‘exact

sciences’’ (e.g., that of Herbert Spencer) as it reduces complex phenomena

to a static structure of simpler components—the antithesis to how knowl-

edge evolves. Baldwin argued that any study of conceptual change in one�sunderstanding of the mind and body required a method that would explain

how new attributes of both emerge at each new level of conceptual under-standing. His �theory of genesis� proposed two fundamental postulates about

our psychological experience: (1) All truly genetic series are irreversible and

(2) each new stage in such a genetic series is sui generis, a novel mode of

1 Baldwin gives a very compelling explanation of why he chose the term. He notes that he

chose �logic� to ‘‘designate the course of organization (whether it be by integration, synthesis, or

what not) by which a given developing function maintains and advances itself.’’ (Baldwin, 1930,

p. 11). He notes that the term �dialectic� was used by Hegel, following Aristotle, to speak of the

absolute as proceeding from a dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; but in the case of

thinking, the word �logic� is commonly used (e.g., logic of experience, of ethics, of history).

‘‘Genetic logic was, in my usage, the term adopted to designate the body of inside or psychic

processes in which mental development takes place. Within this logic, all the varied special

motives of adaptation, opposition, assimilation, etc. uncovered in the detailed researches, show

themselves in the panorama of personal and social progress.’’ (1930, p. 12). Unfortunately, this

term has not weathered well, since logic is now the province of philosophy and genetics has

become its own field of biological enquiry.

M. Ferrari / Developmental Review 23 (2003) 79–108 81

presence in subjective reality (Baldwin, 1930). Thus, every genetic change

constitutes a real progression of nature to ‘‘a higher mode of reality.’’ This

approach has important implications for understanding of the concepts of

mind and body.

3. Baldwins generative genealogy of the concepts of mind and body

Baldwin�s generative (or genealogical) approach to the mind–body prob-

lem sought to coordinate two main dimensions of human experience: one so-

ciohistorical (as seen in the refinement of theories in philosophy and

psychology—disciplines that aim to explain the human psyche); and the

other individual (as seen in the increasing appreciation of the distinctionbetween mind and body during ontogenesis). I will look at each of these

aspects in turn.

3.1. Cultural development of the notions of mind and body

Although individual and cultural concepts are dialectically related, there

is a sense in which culture is primary for Baldwin. Baldwin (1911) states

that:

The institution is only the permanent form in which the organization of members

of a group embodies itself for carrying on its social function. The school, the

state, the church, are typical institutions, thus understood. (p. 119).

In the history of psychology, the institution is that of the academy, or the

university lab, along with social practices that allow for the development ofknowledge about the psyche.2 According to Baldwin, institutions undergo a

genealogical progression of forms which concretize views of man and his re-

lation to the world that are analogous to those seen in children�s conceptualchange during development (see Table 1). In fact, Baldwin (1905, 1913a,

2 Another classic example of an institution that concerns individual selves and one much older

than psychology, is organized religion. Religious institutions and religious law show how

subjective idealization acquires permanent sociocultural form. Indeed, the ideal of self-

perfection is not only a social ideal, nor is it best expressed through social institutions or

practices: It is primarily personal. Thus, according to Baldwin (1911), the religious spirit goes

beyond existing religious institutions, which serve only as the vehicle for personal revelation (see

also James, 1902). God is beyond the church, and if someone is inspired to be the source of

divine revelation they must distance themselves from existing religious institutions and perhaps

lead a protest or reform. Thus, in religious institutions, both the individual and collective

strivings for perfection are fulfilled. (Baldwin, 1911). But precisely because of the transcendent

nature of the Christian God, as commonly understood, Religion cannot overcome the dualism

between self and other (i.e., God)—a point also made by Piaget (1928). For Baldwin, this

tension is resolved in aesthetic experience, as will be discussed later.


1913b) considers the entire history of psychology as more or less directly

parallel to the development of individual understanding of the relation of

mind and body over the course of development.

The parallelism or concurrence of [the race�s and the individual�s progressive

understanding of the self] is this: the course of human interpretation presents

a series of progressive stages which bear analogy, both in character and in or-

der of appearance, to the stages of the individual�s progressive understanding

of the self. [. . .] The racial progression is due to a series of assimilations, on

the part of society, of the thoughts or interpretations of individuals. [. . .]

On the other hand, the results reached by individuals are re-interpretations

of socially current material. Individual invention and originality always pro-

ceed by a re-reading of earlier knowledge, belief, or practice. (1913a, pp.

134–135).

Both series of progressions were considered natural and good (see Ca-

han, this issue). Briefly, for Baldwin (1905, 1913a, 1913b), ancient views

about psychology were spontaneous and unreflective (what Baldwin calls

�projectivist�) (see glossary). Thus, Baldwin notes that the Ionian pre-socratic philosophers, like Thales, made no conceptual distinctions be-

tween mind and body—they saw nature as undifferentiated (see also

Snell, 1953/1982).

Of course, Baldwin (1905) is careful to add that ‘‘This is not to say that

the adult person himself—for example, a thinker such as Thales—was not

self-conscious and did not deal practically with the problem of self vs.

things; but only that, in his reflection, he did not segregate the elements

of his one general experience in explicit dualisms.’’ (p. 145, footnote). Thus,individuals certainly operate with an implicit distinction between thoughts

and things that allows them to deal successfully in the world, but only with

Table 1

Genesis of the mind/body problem: Cultural developmental sequence

Projective (Prelogical)

One substance (fire, water) (Thales/Heraclitus)

Subjective (Quasilogical)

Reality is (inner) ideas (Democritus/Plato)

Reality is material (outer) world (Aristotle)

Objective (logical)

Mind and body considered incommensurate substances (Descartes)

Reflective (Extralogical, 19th c. scientific psychology)

Individual

Empirical (subjective) (Locke/Hume)

Experimental (objective) (Wundt)

Social

Social contract (subjective) (Rousseau/Comte)

Biological evolution (objective) (Darwin)

Aesthetic (Hyperlogical)

Pancalism. Still to be developed as psychological science, now present in art production


time does this distinction become conceptualized and understood (Dennett,

1991, 1996; Piaget, 1970, 1974a, 1974b).

Only with the atomists (e.g., Democritus) did the subjective or �inner�principle become conceptualized as distinct from external reality, in the

‘‘doctrine of the relativity of the sense qualities’’ (1905, p. 146). This in-ner–outer distinction was carried into ‘‘the general sphere of truth by the

sophists’’ (1905, p. 146) and found their ultimate expression in Socrates

and Plato. Aristotle grounded his theory in the outer principle of this same

basic dualism of inner and outer as two aspects of the same reality.

Modern views on mind and body are not seen before Descartes (al-

though he was foreshadowed by Augustine) since Descartes was the first

to propose two separate substantive principles for mind (thought) and body

(extension) (Baldwin, 1913a). But even Descartes focused only on the gen-eral principle of mind and body; it remained for Locke and especially

Hume to extend the discussion to personal identity and the importance

of individual subjective experience based on reflection on the ideas in their

own minds. By contrast, more contemporary experimenters like Wundt

made objective tests of others� individual experiences. Likewise, subjectivereflection was the source of a new set of ideas about the social group as

seen in Rousseau and Comte, who advanced the importance of social

identity as a social contract, whereas Darwin launched an objective gene-alogical treatment of mental and physical development of biological or-

ganisms considered as a group. It is to this last tradition that Baldwin

himself subscribes, although he clearly hopes to reconcile all of these cur-

rents within a single unified theory of development. It is precisely this am-

bition to integrate so many diverse currents of thought into a single

developmental theory—albeit at times problematic—that made Baldwin

such an important historical figure for Bill Kessen (1965; see Cahan, this

issue).According to Baldwin, all of these thinkers3 were intellectual giants who

radically transformed Western cultural understanding of self and world,

mind and body. In particular, the reflective enlightenment philosophers,

set the stage for the modern empirical and experimental study of the mind.

[T]he platform upon which the entire development [of contemporary psychology

as a science] is projected [. . .] is that of the cognitive and reflective self-conscious-

ness of such a sort as that which the individual has attained when he thinks of his

inner life as a more or less consistent unity, passing through a continuous and de-

veloping experience: a self different from things, and also different from other

selves; yet finding its experience and exercising its functions in closest touch with

both. (1905, p. 156).

3 And many other transitional figures too numerous to mention here, but I encourage anyone

interested to read Baldwin�s (1905, 1913a, 1913b) fascinating portrayal of the development of

psychology as a discipline.


Most contemporary historians of psychology reject the notion of a

necessary progress in the science of psychology (and all necessary

progress has been seriously challenged by postmodernism generally)—

certainly Kessen (1984, 1990) was among them. Instead historical

accounts of social and institutional transformation are now framed asconceptual ‘‘paradigm shifts’’ (Kuhn, 1962) or ‘‘historical conceptual

change’’ (Carey, 1999), or the mundane effects of power struggles, new

food-production techniques, disease, and military technology (Diamond,

1997). But this is not to say that there is no relation between historical

and individual conceptual change, even for Kuhn (1964/1980; see also

Piaget & Garcia, 1983). Before considering this question, let us first look

at the relations between social understanding and that of particular in-

dividuals.

3.2. Individual and social development

Baldwin�s theory postulates an intimate relation between personal and

cultural development (see Cahan, this issue). Society and the individual

are not two distinct things or forces that act separately; rather, they are

two sides of an emergent organic whole (Baldwin, 1911). The individual�sabsorption of the culture�s �social heritage� generates a continuous body ofaccretions (language, institutions, customs, etc.) through social traditions

and practices.

The notion of self as socially constructed is essential to Baldwin�s theoryof self-development. By imitating others, individuals gain a sense of their

self-identity, along with its correlative term, the social other; both concep-

tions draw on the same body of experiences. In each social situation this

sense of self and other are largely identical; only partially and progressively

do they become different (Baldwin, 1930; Bruner & Kalmar, 1998; Mueller& Runions, this issue). This dynamic constitutes a �dialectic of personal

growth,� which is simultaneously that of social organization. Thus, ‘‘the in-

dividual is a �social outcome, not a social unit.� We are all members of one

another.’’ (Baldwin, 1930, p. 5). Or again, ‘‘We all breath in a social atmo-

sphere; and our growth is by this breathing-in of the traditions and examples

of the past.’’ (Baldwin, 1896, p. 314). Personal identity is unintelligible out-

side of this social atmosphere.

Baldwin�s views concord with those of Taylor (1989, 1995), who does notdirectly address the mind–body problem, but does introduce a phenomeno-

logical approach to interpreting the social embeddedness of human experi-

ence that seems very close to Baldwin. In Taylor�s (1989) view, self is

constituted through communally shared values and ideas. Thus, for both

Taylor and Baldwin, it is unintelligible to speak of the self unless one refers

to what is considered rational and to what is considered good within a com-

munity. However, Taylor (like Bruner, 1990, 1996) places less emphasis on


self-concept, as compared to Baldwin, and more on the role of narrative in

one�s sense of becoming a person.

There is a close connection between the different conditions of identity, or of

one�s life making sense [. . .]. One could put it this way: because we cannot but

orient ourselves to the good, and thus determine our place relative to it and

hence determine the direction of our lives, we must inescapably understand

our lives in narrative form, as a �quest.� But one could perhaps start from another

point: because we have to determine our place in relation to the good, therefore

we cannot be without orientation to it, and hence we must see our lives in story.

From whichever direction, I see these conditions as connected facets of the same

reality, inescapable structural requirements of human agency.’’ (Taylor, 1985,

pp. 51–52)

Here we see a limitation in Baldwin�s views—although he certainly

alludes to narrative in his work (Baldwin, 1899), it is not integral to

his theory. And yet recent research has shown the importance of nar-

rative for children�s developing sense of self as embodied persons. In

fact, children�s autobiographical sense of self is often co-constructed

through shared narratives (Bruner, 1990, 1996; Miller, 1994; Nelson,1997).

Whether or not one agrees with this specific sequence of seminal

thinkers in the history of psychology, Baldwin makes the compelling

point that current understanding is based on increasingly subtle distinc-

tions regarding the nature of human experience. In fact, such historical

conceptual changes are perhaps best understood from the perspective

of what Taylor (1995; see also Gadamer, 1995, 1996) calls perspicuous

contrasts. Such contrasts allow new distinctions about mind, body andself to be developed by extraordinary minds (Gardner, 1997, 2002; Kuhn,

1964/1980) in each different historical period. Baldwin thus seems to ech-

oes Bourdieu�s (1994, 1997) point about how fields of human understand-

ing develop. Bourdieu notes that extraordinary individuals are considered

the most insightful individuals within a tradition and become heroes and

standard bearers for their views of what is critical to preserve and foster

(see also Amsterdam & Bruner, 2000; Becker, 1974; Dennett, 1991, 1995).

Thus Baldwin and Bourdieu suggest that new social understandingsare generated by individuals who stand out from the common crowd

and are considered to be geniuses precisely because they more deeply ar-

ticulate the implications of commonly held conceptions (Taylor, 1989,

1995).

Of course, new views are also sometimes discovered piecemeal by

groups of individuals working within a particular tradition (Latour,

1999; Simonton, in press). That is, the dynamic of conceptual develop-

ment described by Baldwin might equally be based on the work of agroup of thoughtful people working in the same area who communicate

and share ideas with each other (Simonton, in press), or entrepreneurs


who create new institutions to study and important problem, whether

they themselves are a genius or not (Simon, 2002). These possibili-

ties do not detract from Baldwin�s fundamental claim that knowledge will

develop through increasingly refined theories about the phenomena in

question.

3.3. Genius as the agent of sociohistorical development

Be that as it may, for Baldwin, new conceptual distinctions (such as

increasingly refined distinctions between mind and body) are generated

by particular geniuses who make their own understanding readily avail-

able to the wider public. In this sense, although geniuses judge by the

same standards as their social teachers, they see farther and thus can in-troduce innovations that are later adopted and institutionalized and be-

come the new standard practice.4 Baldwin thus suggests that while each

child recapitulates cultural development to date within that culture be-

cause personal identity is socially constructed, great minds presage cul-

tural development.5 And when individual visionaries come head-to-head

with institutions and traditional cultural groups that oppose them, Bald-

win states:

The ethical in the man represents the essential and highest outcome of his

individual nature [. . .]. The socially established represents the highest outcome

of the collective activities of man [. . .]. What can be done in the case of con-

flict between these two? Nothing! Nothing can be done. [. . .] This is the final

and irreducible antinomy of society. [. . .]//Just as the individual is often con-

demned for law�s sake, so society is often �damned for conscience�s sake.�(1899, pp. 538–540 passim)

So while Gandhi is considered a great moral leader and an inspiration

to many in the West today, he was jailed as a dangerous political dissidentby the British and was assassinated by an extremist because of his views.

These considerations of conflict between the individual and society merely

4 Like Bruno Latour (1999), Baldwin stops short of endorsing a pure relativism and

subjectivism by holding that, ‘‘both as a biological function of trial and error and as an

epistemological instrument of scientific and social progress, knowledge presupposes a dualism

of controls: The agent on the one hand, and the recognized worlds of truth and reality that is,

recognized by him on the other.’’ (1930, p. 10).5 According to Baldwin, even the genius can develop only in advance of where current

knowledge in their society has developed to date. In other words, those born into a society

in which all participate emotionally in the life of the group, with no substantive distinction

between mind and body, will not be in a position to appreciate this distinction unless they

already have distinguished inner from outer attributes of experience; human understanding

is constituted through a communal interpretation of reality (Nussbaum, 2001; Taylor,

1989).


nuance Baldwin�s basic thesis, which is simply that as individual social

agents we are necessarily constituted by, and judge, our experience within

a certain sociocultural matrix that itself has a certain historical genealogy.

While we may react to this cultural heritage in a variety of ways, we can

never repudiate it because the historical concepts and narratives handeddown to us are central to what Dennett (1991) calls our ‘‘narrative center

of gravity’’; that is, our deepest sense of self and of what it means to be a

good person:conceptions and narratives by which we orient our lives

(Taylor, 1989).6

With all of this in mind, let us now consider how an individual child

develops into an adult concerned about the mind–body problem, before

we consider possible ways Baldwin suggests that the problem can be

overcome.

4. Baldwins generative genealogy of individual understandings of mind and

body during child development

Baldwin (1903) proposes a three-staged sequence of ‘‘genetic progres-

sions’’ through which individuals generate the distinction between mind

and body, and adds a fourth stage in subsequent writings (1905, 1913a,1913b) (see Table 2). Let us now explore this sequence in detail as it clarifies

the distinctions that he draws about the cultural evolution of the concepts of

mind and body.

4.1. Projective progression (pre-logical)

Following the general consensus of thinkers at that time, Baldwin sug-

gests that, at first, an infant�s apprehension of reality is what he calls �a-du-alistic� or projective (a claim still endorsed, nearly a century later by Piaget,

1970). In other words, ‘‘consciousness, in its earliest experiences, does not

have the distinction between the �inner� and the �outer,� the self and the

world.’’ (1903, p. 226). Baldwin calls this state �projective� (to distinguish

it from subjective or objective), in the positive sense that even without this

conceptual distinction between subject and object, a mental content is

still presented or �projected� as the particular sense from which that con-

tent arises.7

6 This is not to say that a particular tradition of thought cannot have a greater grasp of the

truth when explaining some particular phenomenon, thus allowing one to avoid complete

relativism with regard to knowledge and value—a point important to thinkers as diverse as

Baldwin (1930), Foucault (1994) and Taylor (1995).7 In this way, Baldwin seems to endorse a phenomenological approach similar to Heidegger�s

(1996) Dasein, in describing individual�s foundational experience of reality.


All of these views are consistent with Baldwin�s proposal (admittedly

very difficult to test) that this distinction is based on different stimulus

properties of persons and things. Thus, the first distinction to emerge

in infants is a �projective progression,� in which ‘‘projects become person-

al-projects and thing-projects’’ (1903, p. 229). The beginning of the dis-

tinction between mind and body (i.e., the projective progression) stems

from infant�s realizing that sensations are projected from both persons

and things. Baldwin grants that it is far from clear what the entire con-tent of such Person-Projects might include, but minimally they include ef-

fort, and pleasure and pain, which in some ‘‘mysterious way’’ belong to

the individual himself. In more modern terms, Baldwin�s Person-Projects

seems to refer to what Bruner (1990; Bruner & Kalmar, 1998) calls self-

indicators (e.g., agency, commitment, inner resources, evaluations, qualia,

and coherence). Persons, because they engage in spontaneous movement,

are much more interesting things for infants to attempt to imitate. Thing-

Projects, by contrast, ‘‘stand stubborn’’; they refer to things that can beleft behind, shared, or manipulated and resist subjective efforts—all of

which is not so obviously true of agents. At this point, there is still no

distinction between external things and self; persons and things are dis-

tinctions of stimuli that occur largely through infants� accommodating

their activities to various life situations (see also Mueller & Runions, this

issue).

Mitigated support for Baldwin�s ideas is found in contemporary theory

and research. Bruner and Kalmar (1998) acknowledge that the distinctionbetween self and other is certainly innately determined (while remaining

flexible to cultural influences). They point out that in an important way,

having a sense of self requires appreciating the difference between predicates

that apply to persons and those that apply to things. In other words, con-

ceptualizing the self necessarily requires a contrast class that allows an

Table 2

Genesis of the mind/body problem: Individual developmental sequence

Projective (undifferentiated experience)

Imitate others and discover own agency

Self�s agency is increasingly distinguished from that of others

Subjective (inner outer distinction)

Realization that that certain attributes of experience are not in outer objects, but in our

inner experience (e.g., a pole looks bent to us when half under water, but is not �really�bent.)

Ejective personification (Objective; mind/body distinction, substantive)

Mind is now considered substantially different from body

Reflective (mental contents and social contract)

Realization that our own minds have their unique contents and personal interpretations

Pancalism (Hyperlogical; aesthetic experience or contemplation)

Individual art appreciation or contemplation that transcends these previous dualisms


experienced event to be classified as belonging to the self or to some other

class or events. We develop a sense of self in large measure because we are

treated as though we have a mind and a self (something Bruner, 2000—cit-

ing a study by Sue Savage Rumbaugh—argues affects even chimpanzees

that are reared by humans as opposed to those raised by other chimpan-zees.8 Neisser (1997) seems to have something similar in mind when he sug-

gests that infants develop two prototypical senses of self: an ecological self

that situates their conception of body within a physical environment, and

an interpersonal self that situates themselves as agents in relation to other

agents.

Like virtually all contemporary writers, Baldwin (1894) grants that cer-

tain simple orientations toward classes of stimuli (e.g., persons and

things) and reflex predispositions to action are present at birth, andmay be needed to get the whole process of conceptual development going.

Indeed, research indicates that infants distinguish between being touched

by their own fingers from being touched by other objects from the day

they are born (Rochat, 2000). And Meltzoff (1997)—who says that his

work shows more affinity with Baldwin than it does with Piaget—has

many studies that suggest that infants already seem predisposed to imitate

other persons, and it is upon this predisposition that they build the dis-

tinction between persons and things (Meltzoff, Gopnik, & Repacholi,1999).

In all of these cases, these innate capacities for discrimination are no

guarantee that the child is explicitly aware of the difference between persons

and things. And even if more details about early infant self-knowledge are

now available, Baldwin�s point—here closer to Dennett (1996; see also Pop-

per, 1994, Piaget, 1970; Piaget & Garcia, 1983)—is that even if a distinction

between self and things is innate in human infants, this distinction is neces-

sarily the result of evolutionary selection that solidified that distinction asnecessary for our �kind of mind.� Still, the notion of implicit knowledge of

self and others is problematic for Baldwin, although he granted the impor-

tance of such experience based on studies of hypnotism and other forms of

suggestion reported by Janet and Ribot (while scoffing at the claims made by

Freudian psychodynamic theory, which he found unoriginal and overblown,

see Baldwin, 1930). In any case, the advent of explicit subjective conscious

experience in infants is still problematic for contemporary developmental

theorists who tackle a similar genealogical account of self-development

8 Much as many, myself included, would like to see this quintessentially human capacity

extended at least in germ to our nearest biological relative. Daniel Povinelli has a series of

studies that show that chimps raised in captivity have no sense of intersubjectivity either as

regards joint actions or with regard to an appreciation of other minds. His careful studies need a

careful refutation by any who wish to support the claims of Bruner and Rumbaugh (see recent

work by Tomasello in this regard).


and self-understanding (Case, 1991), or for neuroscientists and philosophers

who sometimes dub this ‘‘the hard problem’’ of consciousness (Chalmers,

1996).

4.2. Subjective progression (quasi-logical)

Once this �projective progression� has occurred, the infant is in a position

to experience what Baldwin calls the subjective progression, in which ‘‘per-

sonal projects become subject-self and object-self’’ (1903, p. 229). The rad-ical conceptual change that produces concepts of subject and object in the

infant comes about through an increasing appreciation of animation, move-

ment, and change.

The immature reflection of the individual finds, in the perception of animation

and capricious movement, the road toward a solidified and concreted dualism.

Through this type of reflection, the world circle closes in somewhat on upon a

personal center. It neglects the fixed, changeless, inanimate things of the world

as in so far unexistent or hypothetical. In respect to them the senses can deceive.

(1905, p. 145)

It is the relativity and deceptiveness of, for example, the colors or

smell of things that leads children to the broader question of whether

or not the �inner� is a sphere to be distinguished from the �outer� (Bald-win, 1905). In this growing distinction is found the germ of the difference

between the outer and external (which can be left behind and returned to)

and the inner and subjective (the ever present, the always owned) (Bald-

win, 1903). An essential feature of this stage of the progress of conscious-

ness is that Person-experiences, which become �subjective� by this act ofinterpretation are simultaneously, ‘‘by the same act of apprehension, com-

mon to the individual’s psychic self [. . .] and to the other self or projective

person already presented in contrast to things.’’ (1903, p. 227). Thus, there

is no problem of ‘‘other minds’’ since they predate the conceptual distinc-

tion between subject and object (see Mueller & Runiions, this volume, for

details).

According to contemporary views, the conceptual differentiation be-

tween self and external world is certainly in place, in a rudimentaryway, by about age 18 months, when infants can recognize their own reflec-

tion in a mirror (Case, 1991; Kagan, 1981; Mascolo & Fisher, 1998). Cer-

tainly, by age 3–5, children gain an �intuitive knowledge� and

understanding of psychology, in that they know that there are two orders

of reality: subjective reality and perceptible reality (Johnson, 1988). Re-

search clearly shows that children do have an appreciation of others� de-sires, and can interpret behavioral indicators of their representational

intentions from a very young age, before acquiring a �theory of mind� inwhich they appreciate the possibility of false belief (Wellman, Cross, &


Watson, 2001). All of this work still seems to rely on a distinction between

internal and external attributes of experience, and not on a substantive

distinction between psychic and material things: It is thus generally in

agreement with Baldwin�s theory.

4.3. Ejective progression (personification, logical)

Once the inner self becomes a possible object of interpretation, chil-

dren are in a position to experience the ejective progression, in which‘‘object-self becomes mind and body’’ (1903, p. 229). Only now does a

complete dualism between mind and body emerge. Children not only dis-

tinguishes Person-characteristics from Thing-characteristics, but also ap-

propriates the Person-characteristics as their own—as identical with

some of their own subjective states. Thus, they begin to distinguish their

subjective-self-part from their thing-part and to consider their own body

on a par with that of others. They learn to call the thing part �Body,� andthe self-part �Mind.� The self is one of a number of Minds; and theequally numerous things which go with selves are Bodies (Baldwin,

1903). The key point, according to Baldwin (1905), is that one advances

from:

a dualism of �inner–outer� to one of �mind–body�: from what may be called a dis-

tinction of attributes to one of substances. The individual proceeds, in his gener-

alization, to carry over the physical part of his own person—separating it

substantially from the psychical part—to the side of the �outer� as such. It is onlywhen he is able to do this, and does it, that the dualism of mind and body is any-

thing like complete (p. 150).

This is the Cartesian position, of course, and the question immediately

arises as to the relations between these two substance terms—a point not

lost on Baldwin (1903, 1905, 1913a, 1913b).

In terms of experimental research, Johnson & Wellman (1982) found

that elementary school children see the brain as a sort of ‘‘inner I’’ that

interprets and guides experience. And certainly a large body of careful re-

search shows that children do not have a ‘‘theory of mind,’’ in the sense

of understanding belief entitlement (and hence false-beliefs) in others be-fore sometime around age 4 or 5 (Flavell, 1999, Wellman et al., 2001).

Research on self-conscious emotions like pride and shame—which imply

an appreciation of self as the object of positive or negative appraisal by

another—shows that these also emerge around the same age (Lewis,

1999).

According to Baldwin (1894, 1903), these three progressions are sufficient

to account for contemporary conceptualization of the relation between

mind and body. However, in his later work Baldwin (1905, 1913a, 1913b)proposes another individual progression, which he calls �reflective.� At the


risk of muddying the waters, let us briefly consider this further refinement of

Baldwin�s scheme.

4.4. Reflective progression (extralogical, and ‘metacognitive’)

According to Baldwin (1905, 1913a, 1913b), the thought of a separate

personal self is a late occurrence in individual development and is due to re-

flection. The earlier stages of dualistic thought are so essentially social that

the mind–body dualism is an abstraction in both its terms; mind representsmany minds, and body many bodies. Only when children reflect on their

thoughts as objects open to interpretation, Baldwin suggests, do they reach

the further refinement of having a unique personal mind that is not on iden-

tical to that of all other individuals.

The movement by which the logical or reflective faculty comes into operation

in the individual mind [. . .] involves simply the recognition by the individual

that all the objects of knowledge—percepts, images, notions, ideals—all are,

whatever else may be said, in his own mind; all are ideas, whatever else they

may prove to be besides. [. . .] In this distinction between the subject and the

whole of experience considered as objective to it, we have the further state-

ment of dualism in the form known as ‘‘reflection.’’ [. . .] it involves a certain

reserve of the self over against the entire contents in the mind. In this sense

it affords a new dualism: the self is distinguished from the entire body of its

ideas or thoughts; upon these it passes judgment. They are its objects, its

ideas, its experiences, no matter what differences of value may be assigned

to them as the result of reflection. [. . .] all come forward as objects of

thought for the inspection and judgment of the self which is the subject.

The dualism of reflection is a subject-object dualism. (Baldwin, 1913b, pp.

145–146)

The emergence of this further distinction between differentiation of mind

from body into self and the objects of thought has not received much exper-

imental study. Research indicates that children are known to appreciate the

occurrence of false beliefs in other minds due to their lacking or havingfaulty information by age 5. But if one sets the added criteria of being able

to interpret the import of other�s experiences, given their personal interpre-

tation of a situation, then this ability does not seem to occur before age 7

(Chandler & Carpendale, 1998). At about the same age children begin to

appreciate that others have an inner life when there is no external manifes-

tation of mental activity (Flavell, Green, Flavell, & Grossman, 1997), and

some (e.g., Pinard, 1986) suggest that truly being able to reflect on one�sown cognitive activity—in a principled way—may not occur before adoles-cence. Indeed, only in mid-adolescence do most people begin to worry

about the coherence and consistency of their personality and their ‘‘true

self’’ (Fischer & Biddell, 1998; Harter, 1999; Mascolo & Fisher, 1998),

and have a ‘‘life story,’’ in the adult sense of the term (Habermas & Bluck,

2000).


In any case, although children�s understanding of theory of mind has

been well studied by Flavell and many others (see Wellman et al., 2001),

to my knowledge, little work has examined whether a deeper understanding

of this distinction self and thought is associated with a radical conceptual

change in children�s understanding of mind and body as predicted by Bald-win (1903, 1905). The only empirical study to specifically integrate Baldwin�sideas in exploring conceptual change in people�s understanding of mind and

body that I know of is by Broughton (1982), in which he was able to show

general support for the genetic sequence proposed by Baldwin in subjects

ranging from age 5 to 25. Clearly, this is still a rich area of potential re-

search.

And to add to Baldwin on this final stage, Foucault and Bourdieu

have pointed out that one�s body, too, is a personal body that is subjectto what Foucault (1988, 1994) calls �governance� or social control just by

virtue of the sort of body it is. Thus, if ill, one is placed in a hospital

designed to cure the body, or if insane, one is placed in a mental hos-

pital that one is not allowed to leave. Different types of body are subject

to different forms of social power, as seen in different treatment of peo-

ple according to social constructions of race or gender that lead to dif-

ferent political and even psychological attributes being ascribed to them

(Amsterdam & Bruner, 2000; Foucault, 1994). More personally, each ofus in Western cultures can decide to donate our blood or even body-or-

gans after our death, as though these are objects that are our personal

property (just as our thoughts are our personal thoughts)—a view not

shared by people in Japan (Lock, 2002). In some cases, we also enlist

others to help care for ourselves, through advice and even through med-

ication like Ritalin (to deal with Attention Deficit Disorder) or Lithium

(to deal with depression). These medications, despite their controversy

and acknowledged side-effects, are designed to transform our body–minds in ways that allow us to lead better lives. This class of activities

speaks to the ways we need to reconceptualize the mind–body problem,

considered next. But first, here is a summary of Baldwin�s argument

so far.

4.5. Summary of Baldwin’s sequence of progressions

Baldwin first suggests that experienced stimuli (projects) are catego-rized into those that are attributed self-agency (persons) and those that

are not (things) (Progression 1). This distinction, coupled with imitation

of significant others—the most interesting class of stimuli for Baldwin�sinfant—prompts an appreciation of one�s own inner experience as distinct

from that of others, through which the infant�s general sense of agency is

then divided into that of their own self and of other selves (Progression

2). Other selves are then realized to also share in agency—now conceptu-


alized as mind—but they are also seen to be things, i.e., bodies (a

substantial difference); likewise, one�s own self is conceived of as a mind

that is also associated with a body (Progression 3). Finally, the very

contents in one�s mind (i.e., thoughts, images, sensations) come to be

considered things upon which the self can reflect (Progression 4) (seeFig. 1).

Fig. 1. Baldwin�s four genetic progressions that generate the mind–body problem for Western

culture and the individuals who inhabit it.


Let us now consider two ways Baldwin builds on this sequence to propose

developmental solutions to the mind–body problem.

5. Baldwins inner and outer solutions to the mind–body problem

According to Baldwin, failure to consider these four progressions ac-

counts for the apparent impasse in philosophical and psychological expla-

nations of the relation between mind and body: they take progression 3

and 4 as given, without asking how they emerged from a less differenti-

ated experience of reality. Looked at generatively, these four progressions

have important implications for what seems an intractable philosophical

problem.How can body and mind—as we now conceive of them—be reconciled in

a single set of facts?

It becomes a legitimate problem to determine what sorts of interpreta-

tion individual minds and culturally dominant theories makes of their par-

ticular truths and values, that is, of possible �realities.� Do individuals or

theories: (1) accept the dualism between self and the rest of the world as fi-

nal, or reduce one of these terms to the other (becoming idealist or materi-

alist)? (2) Do they deny the importance of first-person experience throughreflection (becoming positivist) or try to escape the primacy of thought

(lapsing into mysticism)? (3) Do they make final appeal to something out-

side the self for inspiration (finding Religion the absolute foundation of re-

ality) or fall back on the majesty of man (as did the romantic poets)?

(Baldwin, 1930).

The individual falls on occasion into each of these interpretations, following

his temperament, training, or the example of others; and the race does like-

wise, both naturally in its institutions, and reflectively in its philosophy. The

great institutions of human progress—scientific, economic, religious, artistic—

each rests on one of these motives and builds itself upon it, as if it pos-

sessed and could reveal the whole truth. The philosophic thinker, in his turn,

seeks some one motive to unify this heritage, while conserving all its ele-

ments—all the fine accretions to life and thought that the race has acquired

by toil and sacrifice. What, he asks, is at the bottom of it all? What expe-

rience reveals the richest synthesis and indicates the most satisfying presence

of reality—giving to each of the partial and seemingly equal �real� things

of thought, desire, and feeling, its proper place and value?’’ (1930, pp.

23–24).

What Baldwin (1903, 1905, 1913a,b, 1930) suggests is that pure ide-

alism and pure materialism are both unintelligible philosophical posi-

tions from a genealogical point of view, since the articulation of one

concept required the equal articulation of the other. Idealism (for exam-

ple, the existentialist position of Sartre, 1948) is untenable because it

proposes a well-articulated conception of mind without allowing for


an equally developed conception of the material world. Likewise, a

purely materialist and reductionist position like the neuroscience of

Churchland and Churchland (1998) is equally unintelligible for the anal-

ogous reason: it is simply impossible to develop a conception of the

material substrate of experience without necessarily developing anequally articulate conception of one�s subjective ability to apprehend

that material.

Baldwin was equally dismissive of Cartesian interactionism (a criticism

which one can extend to its modern variants, e.g., Eccles, 1990), which he

felt was a fundamental confusion of categories. There is no intelligible sense

in which causal effects from one sphere of conceptualization (e.g., agency)

can have an effect in another sphere (e.g., the material world)—although

James (1902) and others afterwards have disputed this point. In effect, Bald-win felt that scientists who maintained a strict division between these two

spheres of experience were forced to adopt a position such as that of McG-

inn (1989, 1999), in which any effect of mind on body was essentially the last

remaining miracle of the modern worldview. But unlike McGinn (1999),

Baldwin refuses to leave off at this point, with a fundamental and unbridge-

able divide between mind and body that leaves the mind–body problem un-

solvable in principle.

Baldwin�s two proposed paths to overcome this dualism are: (1) psy-chophysical evolution, that builds from materialist intuitions, and (2)

�aesthonomic idealism,� that builds from subjectivist intuitions. Both are

synthetic and aim to overcome the dualisms between mind and body, self

and other, without lapsing into a pure relativism. Let us consider each in

turn.

5.1. Psychophysical parallelism

Baldwin (1903, 1913b) advocates adopting a psychophysical parallelism

for purposes of scientific research. He argues that the scientific dualism

(common to both physics and psychology) formulated in Progression 3 is ex-

pressed through psychophysical parallelism. Indeed, the essence of that the-

ory is to refuse to postulate any positive predicates of the psychophysical

relation, and to be satisfied with recognizing sufficient uniformity and gen-

erality between the course of physical and mental events to justify investiga-

tion by recognized scientific methods in both departments of science(Baldwin, 1903). Baldwin adds that, genetically, psychophysical parallelism

justifies itself at the levels of development characterized by both Progression

2 and 3.

However, from Progression 2, Baldwin suggests that it is more prudent

conceptually to simply refuse the dualism postulated as valid in Progression

3. ‘‘In this case, the phenomena of personality are simply joint phenomena;

neither mind nor body are treated under separate categories.’’ (1903, p. 242).


Interpretation would be from one psychophysical term to another; there is

no question of mental or brain states separately affecting subsequent states

of the brain or mind or both. This leads him to propose the following simple

form of progression ‘‘in which one psychophysical term, taken as a whole, is

considered as the antecedent of another, also taken as a whole.’’ (1903,p. 242). For Baldwin, this is the only justifiable scientific method for study-

ing life, in either biology or psychology, since it commands equal recogni-

tion for two aspects of phenomena when both are present and banishes

the dualism that is abstract and artificial in concrete phenomena. Specifi-

cally, he claims that:

Evolution is psychophysical, not organic and besides—or possibly, not at all—

mental. The psychophysical standpoint is the only valid scientific standpoint

for a theory of organic descent, no less than for a theory of individual develop-

ment; and the two genetic series must be interrelated in some form of �intergeneticconcurrence�9 (1903, p. 243)

Of course, there still remains the problem of how to formulate such pro-gressions scientifically—that is, by what method to investigate successive

�genetic modes� of organization. But the important point seems to be that

words like mind and body are constitutive of meaning, jointly negotiated,

shared and reflecting a background prevalent in a culture; they are not foun-

dational to experience of the world (hence the lack of this distinction in

some native cultures) (Baldwin, 1915; Rivi�eere, 1999).It is worth noting that Piaget, another great genetic epistemologist,

also adopted psychophysical parallelism (Ferrari, Pinard, & Runions,2001)—one perhaps inspired by Baldwin. Piaget (1970) makes the elegant

suggestion that both terms of this parallelism may mutually assimilate

each other as knowledge of neuroscience progresses. More recently, de-

spite their disagreements about specifics, the positions adopted by neuro-

scientists like Freeman (1993), Pribram, and Varela, by developmental

psychologists like Karmiloff-Smith, and by philosophers like Dennett—

and perhaps Searle (1998)—all seem to be variations on this position.

In fact, attempt to reconcile first and third person perspectives on humanexperience, is one that at least some contemporary neuroscientists are ac-

tively pursuing, and advocate as the best direction for advancing the sci-

ence of psychology (Freeman, 2000; Varela & Shear, 1999; Lutz et al.,

2002).

Indeed, Baldwin seems inclined to agree with Dennett (1995) who writes:

genuine embodiment in a real world is crucial for consciousness [not] be-

cause genuine embodiment provides some special vital juice that mere virtual

9 Baldwin developed the term �intergenetic� to describe the relation existing between racial

evolution and individual development, which finds its broadest biological formulation in the

law of recapitulation.


world simulations cannot secrete, but for the more practical reason—

or hunch—that unless you saddle yourself with all the problems of mak-

ing a concrete agent take care of itself in the real world, you will tend to

overlook, underestimate, or misconstrue the deepest problems of design.

(p. 483)

Still, Baldwin (and others) point out that even if the resulting sciencewere to succeed at creating a new psychophysical approach, it neverthe-

less remains objective and impersonal. Such a science necessarily presup-

poses a distinction between one�s own body/mind and that of others; a

gap that remains unbridgable. To overcome this divide, the only remain-

ing possibility for Baldwin is to push reflection on the mind–body prob-

lem further, and find a category of personal experience that allows both

the material and the mental conceptual sequences to advance, while being

simultaneously held in a single thought without contradiction (Baldwin,1903). Let us now consider this second solution of the mind–body

problem, this time proceeding from the personal or subjective pole of

reality.

5.2. Aesthetic contemplation within a community of embodied minds

For those committed to Progression 4, which posits a reflective dual-

ism between mind and body, Baldwin (1903, 1930) sets out to find an in-

terpretation of experience that does not invalidate but rather transcends

this dualism: what he calls hyper- or meta- or super-logical reality. This

point is seen more clearly when we recap the progression of the categories

of mental and physical throughout the course of individual development.For Baldwin, as we have seen, during individual development the exigen-

cies of life require and produce adaptations that generate a dualism be-

tween selves and things, between mind and body, between subject and

object. This dualism involves a series of transformations which, although

they undergo refinement, nevertheless harden and intensify, until logical

and reflective thinking arise. This dualism takes on the most refined

and varied forms in the crucible of reflection, resulting in the Humean

position, or something like it. But for Baldwin, this is not the wholestory.

the category of final interpretation must be[. . .] sought in the actual coefficient of

the fullest reality of which we can have experience.’’ (1903, p. 245). What fullness

means, in this case, is that there exists ‘‘a mental organization which [. . .] �tran-scends� [. . .] the opposition between fact [. . .] on the one hand, and purposes,

ends, values, and Progressions, on the other hand; it is what is commonly known

as Aesthetic experience. (1903, p. 245)

Such aesthetic experience is itself the product of a developmental pro-

gression. The development of the imaginative function also develops,pari passu, alongside logic—imagination which, at each stage, generates


a sort of imaginative or ideal unity. So at each stage, dualism�s finality is

denied to reveal an immediate intuition of things as ideally complete and

whole extending to all of mental life. For Baldwin, in the aesthetic inter-

est, the mind spontaneously seeks a way to reconcile its realities and val-

ues among themselves, and to do so relies on what he calls �semblance�or make-believe. This is true at all the stages of mental development

(e.g., in play, reverie, imagination, hypothesis, even mystic absorption).

In each case, people create the �self-illusion of a complete and har-

monious reality, where, at least for a moment, they find both peace

and freedom (Baldwin, 1930). This imaginative function achieves its full-

est form in aesthetic experience, which surpasses and clarifies earlier

mystic modes of intuition. Something beautiful, whether found in nature

or in art, is apprehended as being both an ideal thing and ideal forthe self.

‘‘In the individual, in sum, the development of the theoretical reason or intelli-

gence culminates in laws of Truth for him absolute, that of practical reason or

will in norms of absolute Goodness, and that of the emotional life, with which

the imagination is charged, in rules of absolute Beauty. (Baldwin, 1913b, pp.

149–150).

At the highest reaches of mental development, individual thinkers nor-

mally arrive at understandings of themselves and the world that either verify

or modify naive conceptions and beliefs. Baldwin considered this final stageof imaginative interpretation of experience a form of affectivism, that in-

cludes all simpler kinds of immediatism and mysticism, with religious mys-

ticism being its most important historical form (Baldwin, 1930). But, for

Baldwin (1903, 1930) only in art do an individual�s imaginings lose their

‘‘temporary and capricious character’’ and acquire a permanent and genea-

logically progressive form. ‘‘In the aesthetic semblance of fine art we find a

permanent mode of reconciliation which includes all the serious factors of

life and welds them into a full and satisfying intuition of reality.’’ (1930,p. 25).

Baldwin called his philosophical theory of reality pancalism, (Baldwin of-

ten cites this as the motto in Greek to kalon pan literally, ‘‘All is Good/Beau-

tiful’’). Pancalism is the Platonic view that aesthetic intuition—as exercised

in contemplation of a work of art—provides an experiential basis for a

philosophical outlook that escapes the partiality and exclusion of traditional

alternatives for addressing mind and body, self and world. By recognizing

what is valid in each of these other views, and by deeply considering thespontaneous conscious process itself, one sees how a truly synthetic principle

is found in the realm of Art (Baldwin, 1930; see Cahan, this issue; Zelazo &

Lourenco, this issue).

For Baldwin, aesthetic experience affords an essential union of two

points of view: that of the �producer� of a work of art, and that of the


�spectator�; a union in which we find our experience becomes a richer

whole. Aesthetic appreciation suggests a form of immediate experience

in which the dualism of external and subjective becomes blurred and, at

least ideally, tends to disappear. Thus pancalism, or aesthonomic idealism,

perhaps resembles the state of mind described as flow by Csikszentmih-alyi (1997)—in which individuals lose any sense of self as distinct from

their activity—developed by many forms of contemplative meditative

practice.

Of course, this view is not without its problems. As Jansen & Jansen

(1995) note, what constitutes art is very tricky question. Certainly, Amster-

dam & Bruner (2000) have a very different view or the role of art and the

artist, which is that of someone who ‘‘disturbs the peace’’ and causes us

to reflect on what we consider legitimate, opening up new possible worldsfor interpretation. In this way, artists can serve the role that Baldwin re-

serves for the genius—to challenge us with new ways of conceiving reality.

Likewise, not everyone agrees that contemplation is the way to fuse subject

and object.

For Becker (1974; see also Barnes, 1991) this fusion is the essential point

of positive transference, which he equates with both agape and romantic

love—other ways in which we lose our sense of being a separate self by giv-

ing the deepest possible value to others while affirming our own eternal va-lue and worth. In fact, for Becker anxiety about death, and the search for a

heroic way to overcome it are what spur personal and cultural development.

And with agape or compassion, one doesn�t need to be a genius to care for

everyone in virtue of their being human.

In this light, it is striking that there is little mention of death in Baldwin�ssystem of thought, only of eternal personal and cultural development (but

see Baldwin�s 1930 reflections about the personal and cultural impact of

World War I). While such alternative perspectives and even gaps in Bald-win�s thinking are worth considering they do not undermine the importance

of finding a way to give our lives deep meaning unavailable to those who

limit their experience to understanding an impersonal objective world. A

quest for meaning that clearly preoccupied Baldwin for his entire career

(Baldwin, 1894, 1930).

5.3. Art of life

Perhaps ironically, the clearest contemporary expression of Baldwin�sideal of a quintessential genealogical advance is Foucault�s (1994) call to

pursue the ‘‘art of living.’’ For Foucault (contra Baldwin) this idea is a very

old idea, borrowed from the ancient Greeks. However, it is an idea that can

be adapted to our own time by considering art and aesthetics not as a prop-

erty of objects, but of our own personal lives. For Foucault (1988, 1994;

also Veyne, 1997), thinkers are necessarily embedded in particular


traditions, each with their own historical development and with their own

standards of truth—some (like economics or medicine) concerned with is-

sues of power and control over others� physical bodies, some (like psycho-

therapy) designed to enhance the quality of our lives by fostering �care of

the self� (Foucault, 1994). The important point for Foucault—and the keycontrast with Baldwin—is his claim that what is at issue is power: Power

over one�s self through techniques of self (�techniques de soi�) or power overothers through techniques to dominate them (�techniques de domination�).Note that this view does not necessarily require any progressive historical

development of human understanding. In fact, Foucault claims just the op-

posite. Our subjectivity is invented through our relationship with others and

with ourselves. Like Kessen (1984, 1990; also Bruner, 1990), Foucault pro-

poses that our relationships change to reflect prevailing social conditionsand broad cultural category systems. There is no essential human nature

to be discovered and perfected, as Baldwin seems to suggest. Rather, there

are different ways of acting toward each other, understanding each other,

and understanding ourselves, that are themselves historically situated—that

have their own historical genealogy. These self-practices do not necessarily

gain in refinement, they are merely adapted to new purposes (Foucault,

1988).

Oddly enough, Foucault uses many of the same historical figures asBaldwin to describe the history of these techniques of self, but for a very

different purpose. Through reading Foucault (1988; see also Nussbaum,

2001), we discover that the ancient Greeks were not merely developing

conceptions of human experience in the abstract, they were concerned

with how to care for themselves. True, this care was not individualized,

but rather dealt with the ethical issue of how to make the best contribu-

tion to the polis (city state). The Greek techniques of self-care (e.g., ex-

amining the significant events of each day) were later adapted by Neo-platonists and combined with Christian teachings of confession to purify

the soul from sin—a very different purpose. In modern times, these same

techniques have been adapted to aid �individual self-discovery� in psycho-

analysis and �new age� meditative techniques, for example. In all cases,

for Foucault (1988, 1994), these techniques of self are just ways that

individuals (with and through others) constitute themselves as a certain

sort of person—ideally, to promote happiness or acquire wisdom. While

this self-creation is not infinitely plastic (as it expressed through ourevolved human biology [Dennett, 1991; Pinker, 2002]) it is extremely

malleable.

It is the origins of the techniques used today—what he calls a history of

the present—that is of particular interest to Foucault. Following the

Greeks, Foucault urges us to cultivate an �aesthetics of life� through social

relationships and education. Conceptions of the good life are themselves

never divorced from our social/cultural context in which we live and


develop. Through what Hacking (1995) calls a looping effect, people apply

techniques and concepts to themselves as ways of interpreting their own

experience of happiness and of efforts to achieve it, regardless of what

the specific criteria for a good life may be. Reinterpreting Baldwin in this

light, I think, allows us to bring his views into the new century. A genea-logical analysis of Baldwin�s sequence provides rich insight into the fault

lines upon which present-day distinctions between mind and body are likely

to rest.

But some may suggest that everything discussed by Foucault is pure phi-

losophy and not science. Bourdieu (1990, 1994) provides a rich empirical

analysis of techniques of domination (what he calls a �logic of practice�) in-spired by the same French structuralist tradition that underpins the work of

Jean Piaget, a direct heir to Baldwin�s generative psychology. For Bourdieu,by implication, technologies of the self and their concomitant practices to

develop wisdom necessarily rely on historically created �cultural capital� thatsustains a particular sort of personality, or habitus, which he defines as fol-

lows:

Unlike scientific estimations, which are corrected after each experiment ac-

cording to rigorous rules of calculation, the anticipations of the habitus, prac-

tical hypotheses based on past experience, give disproportionate weight to

early experiences. [. . .] The habitus, a product of history, produces individual

and collective practices—more history—in accordance with the schemes gener-

ated by history. It ensures the active presence of past experiences, which, de-

posited in each organism in the form of schemes of perception, thought, and

action, tend to guarantee the �correctness� of practices and their constancy

over time, more reliably than all formal rules and explicit norms. (1990,

p. 54)

Whether there is a human nature that informs a search for wisdom

(Latour, 1999, 2000; Pinker, 2002), or only one that is culturally invented

and sustained through personality or habitus (Bourdieu, 1990; Foucault,1988, 1994), to the extent that our being a person is a synthesis of biolog-

ical experience and cultural memes (as Dennett, 1995, suggests), any art of

living will be one that is personally valued and pursued by individuals in

a community; values that can develop and change over generations. The

implication is that such deeply personal knowledge is indeed the finest ex-

pression of our humanity—one that draws on cultural practices to de-

velop wisdom and adapts them to our own lives. If so, then an

ultimate goal for developmental scientists who seek an immediate recon-ciliation of first and third person understanding, is to study the practices

by which we come to appreciate the significance (and fragility) of what is

most Good, True, and Beautiful in ourselves (Nussbaum, 2001). This

philosophically and historically informed search for ultimate meanings is

what both Baldwin and Kessen pursued, and would encourage in all of

us today.


6. Summary and conclusion

Baldwin was a seminal thinker at the turn of the century and a giant in

the landscape of his day. In advocating an ‘‘outer’’ evolutionary, psycho-

physical, approach to the mind/body problem, Baldwin presaged many con-temporary solutions to this perennial problem. Baldwin�s second solution to

the problem—an aesthetic appreciation that reconciles objective fact and

personal value—is original and merits further discussion. Those who doubt

Baldwin�s claim that aesthetic appreciation is the end of a natural and un-

ique sequence in human psychological development, must grant that it is it-

self an important technique of self, in Foucault�s sense—one echoed in the

writings of great thinkers like Plato. Ironically, Foucault�s proposal to re-

vive an aesthetics or art of life is a natural extension of Baldwin, since it re-turns to a personal pursuit of aesthetics that relies on practices that are a

product of history; yet, while Foucault�s techniques of self (and Bourdieu�shabitus) do transcend traditional categories of mind and body, they deny

necessary developmental and historical progress in their lived immediacy.

In this way, Foucault supports Kessen�s (1979, 1984, 1990) claim that the

child and even child development are cultural inventions; in fact, Foucault

adds, our own autobiographies are cultural inventions as well.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

(SSHRC) of Canada, for support of this project. Thanks, too, to Lora Pal-

lotta, Carrie Richardson, Nhi Vu, Ljiljana Vuletic, and many other students

who commented on earlier versions of this paper.

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