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Topoi (2020) 39:521–534
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9574-0
‘I Interact Therefore I Am’: The Self asaHistorical Product ofDialectical
Attunement
DimitrisBolis1,2· LeonhardSchilbach1,2,3,4
Published online: 13 June 2018
© The Author(s) 2018
Abstract
In this article, moving from being to becoming, we construe the ‘self’ as a dynamic process rather than as a static entity. To
this end we draw on dialectics and Bayesian accounts of cognition. The former allows us to holistically consider the ‘self’ as
the interplay between internalization and externalization and the latter to operationalize our suggestion formally. Internali-
zation is considered here as the co-construction of bodily hierarchical models of the (social) world and the organism, while
externalization is taken as the collective transformation of the world. We do not consider these processes as sequentially
linked, but rather as a dialectic between the collective and the individual. This leads us to the suggestion of the self as a
historical product of dialectical attunement across multiple time scales, from species evolution and culture to individual
development and everyday learning. Subsequently, we describe concrete means for empirically testing our proposal in the
form of two-person psychophysiology and multi-level analyses of intersubjectivity. Taken together, we suggest that a fine-
grained analysis of social interaction might allow us to reconsider the ‘self’ beyond the static individual, i.e. how it emerges
and manifests itself in social relations. Such an approach, we believe, could be relevant in multiple fields, from ethics and
psychiatry to pedagogy and artificial intelligence.
Keywords Social interaction· Intersubjectivity· Internalization· Externalization· Predictive processing· Active inference
Through others, we become
ourselves.
Lev Vygotsky (1896–1936)
I see nothing other than becoming.
Heraclitus (ca. 535–475BC) in
Nietzsche’s the birth of tragedy
1 What isthe‘Self’?
1.1 Questioning theQuestion
In modern societies people tend to consider the idea of the
‘self’ as self-evident. Certain civilizations have even sug-
gested that one’s ultimate goal in life is to ‘know thyself’
(e.g., the ancient Greeks referred to it in multiple instances
as ‘γνῶθι σεαυτόν’). However, the question of the ‘self’ did
not exist from the beginning of the history of culture and
human thought, but it arose at a certain level of historical
development as a result of deep societal transformations.
At different stages of historical development, this question
has been addressed in different ways. For instance, Plato
(429–347BC), and before him Homer (ca. Eighth century
BC), imagined the ‘self’ as an immaterial spiritual substance
(i.e., the psyche or the soul). More specifically, Plato con-
trasted the eternal form with the ephemeral body, which
he thought of as an imperfect copy of the former (Kraut
2017). In fact, we later meet dualistic views on the ‘self’ in
various religious traditions, as well as in notable thinkers,
such as Platinus (ca. 204–270) and Descartes (1596–1650).
* Dimitris Bolis
dimitris_bolis@psych.mpg.de
Leonhard Schilbach
leonhard_schilbach@psych.mpg.de
1 Independent Max Planck Research Group forSocial
Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute ofPsychiatry,
Kraepelinstrasse 2-10, 80804Munich-Schwabing, Germany
2 International Max Planck Research School forTranslational
Psychiatry (IMPRS-TP), Munich, Germany
3 Department ofPsychiatry, Ludwig Maximiliam Universität,
Munich, Germany
4 Outpatient andDay Clinic forDisorders ofSocial Interaction,
Max Planck Institute ofPsychiatry, Kraepelinstrasse 2-10,
80804Munich-Schwabing, Germany
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522 D.Bolis, L.Schilbach
1 3
Descartes, who famously declared “I think, therefore I am”
(or “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am”, as para-
phrased by Antoine Léonard Thomas), considered mind
and body as two distinct entities, which could yet influence
each other.
Nowadays, mainstream science has moved away from an
idealistic and dualistic view of the ‘self’. Already, Aristotle
had argued that the soul could not be separated from the
body (cf. Sihvola 2008). Yet, religion, offering the concept
of immortality as a solution to the problem of death has
played a pivotal role in hindering this transition (Barresi and
Martin 2011), ignoring alternative solutions such as the one
put forward by Epicurus (341–270BC), who proclaimed
that the problem is not death itself, but the fear of death.
In fact, Epicurus and others such as Democritus adopted a
monistic perspective, which can be traced into modern times
with thinkers such as Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), Baruch
Spinoza (1632–1677) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872).
Despite other fundamental differences, present in diverse
philosophical traditions has been the idea of a lawful under-
standing of the world, at times emphasizing a mechanistic
explanation, which largely characterizes the scientific para-
digm until today. Indeed, one can draw parallels in today’s
neuroscience, which is largely grounded in frameworks,
which focus on describing the underlying mechanisms of
a phenomenon, e.g., distinct neurobiological mechanisms
underlying consciousness.
Various roles have been considered for the ‘self’ and con-
sciousness in (more) modern science and philosophy as well.
For instance, John Locke (1632–1704) focused on the rela-
tions between basic physical/mental elements, emphasizing
sameness: “[…] in this alone consists personal identity, i.e.
the sameness of a rational being: And as far as this con-
sciousness can be extended backwards to any past action
or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is
the same self now it was then; and it is by the same self
with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action
was done.” (Locke 1694; cf. Barresi and Martin 2011). On
the other hand, David Hume (1711–1776) claimed that the
‘self’ is an illusion, as there “are the successive perceptions
only, that constitute the mind; nor have we the most distant
notion of the place, where these scenes are represented, or
of the materials, of which it is compos’d” (Hume 1739; cf.
Barresi and Martin 2011). After all, Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844–1900) not only famously argued that “God is dead”,
but also noted that the ‘self’ is dead as well (cf. Barresi and
Martin 2011). So, what is the ‘self’? Barresi and Martin
(2011) answer that the concept of ‘self’ in today’s literature
appears divided in a number of different roles, such as ‘self-
image’, ‘self-conception’, ‘self-discovery’, ‘self-confidence’
etc.
In this article, we will approach the multi-fragmented
paradox of the self, through an integrative perspective,
adopting a dialectical and historical perspective. In line
with dialectical cultural-historical theories (cf. Vygotsky
1930–1935/1978), we will try to motivate a shift of focus
from being to becoming, along multiple temporal scales. In
doing so, we will move beyond the individual in the ques-
tion of the (a-)typical ‘self’, in both conceptual and empiri-
cal regards. More concretely, we will argue that the ‘self’
lies beyond the static individual, namely in the unfolding
of social relations, as a dialectic of internalization/extern
alization, over multiple temporal scales. Along these lines,
autism and other psychiatric conditions have been recently
revisited as processes of cumulative misattunement between
persons, rather than mere brain disorders (Bolis etal. 2016,
2017). Subsequently, we will delineate an empirical research
framework for scientifically validating relevant questions,
i.e. two-person psychophysiology and multi-level analyses
of intersubjectivity. Finally, putting this approach into a
broader context, we will discuss why challenging the con-
cept of the self is important anyway by describing the prac-
tical implications of our approach across various fields of
research and practice. Here, we will consider aspects ranging
from ethics and pedagogy to psychiatry, neuroscience and
artificial intelligence.
1.2 A Dialectical Perspective
To begin, we will make a case for the use of dialectics as a
powerful tool for science. To this end, we will first provide
a brief introduction to the method and present concrete dia-
lectical insights for the discussion of the self. Dialectics can
be thought of as an evolving school of thought, met in vari-
ous historical and cultural contexts (e.g., Greek, Chinese,
Indian, German dialectic; Wong 2006; Dafermos 2015).
It asserts that phenomena cannot be meaningfully under-
stood by reducing them into single levels of description or
by assuming a metaphysical independence between levels
of description. It rather states that phenomena should be
studied as processes in their wholeness, inner contradiction
and movement. In this light, the self cannot be understood
in isolation from the body, social interaction and society
(Bolis etal. 2017). More concretely, primarily leaning on
views of Vygotsky and colleagues on the dialectical nature
of human thought and development, we will try to overcome
traditional dichotomies, such as object/subject and organism/
environment, by viewing them as both a result and a cause
of reciprocal adjustments, or individual/society by consider-
ing the whole and the part as, albeit partially autonomous,
highly interdependent levels of organization. Along these
lines, the self is not to be taken as a static entity bounded by
the individual, but rather as the interplay of dynamically and
reciprocally interacting factors. More specifically, we will
consider it as a process of circular causality among differ-
ent levels of organization (Fig.1; e.g., physical, biological,
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523‘I Interact Therefore I Am’: The Self asaHistorical Product ofDialectical Attunement
1 3
psychophysiological and sociocultural) unfolding over dif-
ferent time frames (e.g., evolutionary, cultural, develop-
mental, psychophysiological and microbiological scales;
Vygotsky 1930–1935/1978; Bolis etal. 2017).
In a nutshell, dialectical thought emphasizes change over
sameness and becoming over being, by viewing reality as
dynamic processes rather than static entities (see also pro-
cess philosophy; Seibt 2017). As Nietzsche (1844–1900)
noted, citing Heraclitus (ca. 535–475BC): he [Heraclitus]
altogether denied being. [...] Louder than Anaximander,
Heraclitus proclaimed: “I see nothing other than becoming.
Be not deceived. It is the fault of your short-sightedness, not
of the essence of things, if you believe you see land some-
where in the ocean of becoming and passing-away. You use
names for things as though they rigidly, persistently endured;
yet even the stream into which you step a second time is
not the one you stepped into before” (Nietzsche 1872/1999,
pp.51–52). Along these lines, Nietzsche strictly denies a
dichotomy of object/subject: “[the subject is but a] term for
our belief in a unity underlying all the different impulses of
the highest feeling of reality”. There is no such unity, only
“the fiction that many similar states in us are the effect of
one substratum: but it is we who first created the “similarity”
of these states; our adjusting them and making them simi-
lar is the fact, not their similarity, which ought rather to be
denied.” (Nietzsche 1901/2017; see also Barresi and Martin
2011). Nietzsche then goes on to criticize an “absurd over-
estimation of consciousness” which had been transformed
“into a unity, an entity: ‘spirit’, ‘soul’, something that feels,
thinks, wills”, provocatively characterizing this as one of
the “tremendous blunders” intellectual culture had created
(Nietzsche 1901/2017; see also Barresi and Martin 2011). In
other words, Nietzsche here rejects the idea of an ‘artificial’
unity of consciousness (or the self). This brings us to a car-
dinal concept of dialectics, the ‘unity of opposites’.
Put simply, ‘unity of opposites’ defines a phenomenon
by its internal oppositions: “All things come into being by
conflict of opposites, and the whole flows like a stream”
(Diogenis on Heraclitus, ca. Third century BC; cf. Mag-
nus 1970). Later Hegel (1770–1831) elegantly elaborated:
“[…] every actual thing involves a coexistence of opposed
elements. Consequently to know, or, in other words, to com-
prehend an object is equivalent to being conscious of it as
a concrete unity of opposed determinations, [whereas] the
old metaphysic, as we have already seen, when it studied the
objects of which it sought a metaphysical knowledge, went
to work by applying categories abstractly and to the exclu-
sion of their opposites” (cited in Blunden 2000). In brief,
Hegel claimed that ideas and concepts can be only under-
stood in historical terms, as when abstracted, they become
meaningless (Grossmann 2018). Importantly, a dialectical
account does not merely focus on interpreting a harmonic
development of internal contradictions, but also unveils
dramatic tensions, conflicts and struggle of opposites. In
fact, within dialectical thinking, such inner contradictions
are the ones that drive change. Gradual change, in turn, is
thought to lead to ‘crises’, which are overcome by qualitative
leaps. Taken together dialectics, therefore, assume a constant
evolution of phenomena, where change is periodic but not
returning to the same point.
With regard to the topic at hand, Hegel suggested that
self-consciousness does not emerge through passive and
individualistic introspection, but through dynamic and recip-
rocal relations with others (cf. Barresi and Martin 2011). In
fact, Karl Marx (1818–1883), whose work leaned on but
also criticized Hegel’s work, proclaimed: “[…] the human
Fig. 1 Schematic depiction of
dynamic interrelationships in
the evolution of matter organi-
zation across several time scales
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524 D.Bolis, L.Schilbach
1 3
essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual.
In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations” (Marx
and Engels 1888). The primacy of the social realm has later
been stressed by so-called cultural-historical approaches (cf.
Roth 2016). A prime example of this can be found in the
work of Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), who directly applied
dialectical thinking to developmental psychology and pro-
claimed that “through others we become ourselves”. He fur-
ther suggested that all ‘higher’ mental processes within an
individual result from an internationalization of prior social
interactions between people. But dialectical thinking, as
described here, should not be exclusively attributed to West-
ern philosophy. For instance, according to African Ubuntu
“a person is a person through other persons” (Birhane 2017).
We also meet forms of dialectical thinking in Buddhism and
Taoism (cf., Grossmann 2018). Taken together, in the forma-
tion of the self, the social can be assumed to dialectically
precede the individual.
In this line of thought, we suggest that interpersonal sta-
tistical regularities shape multiscale hierarchical models on
an individual level and vice versa. For instance, at the level
of perceptual awareness and everyday learning (time scale of
seconds to hours), others play an important role in shaping
subjective feelings and decision-making. Let us imagine an
illustrative scenario (Bolis and Schilbach 2017b): a person,
in the process of deciding what is the most appropriate cloth-
ing for tonight’s walk, checks current weather out at the bal-
cony. She feels a cold breeze, which initially makes her think
that a warm coat might be a good idea; yet a glance down
the road makes her change opinion, as all people outside this
day are lightly dressed. Such kind of decisions, especially
when reinforced by persistent cultural norms (time scale of
weeks to years), is possible to form even more stable per-
sonal habits. For instance, people in ancient Greece were
accustomed to exercising without clothes. In modern socie-
ties, despite objective conditions that might call for such a
habit sometimes (e.g., warm weather) such a behavior would
be considered uncomfortable by most people. Here we see
how a socially constructed statistical regularity is internal-
ized at the level of the individual—at such an extent so that
its violation directly evokes certain subjective feelings.
Across longer time scales, the cumulative internaliza-
tion of such interpersonal regularities directly shapes who
we are becoming, literally changing our bodies and brains.
Both ‘higher level’ mental functions and ‘automatic’ pro-
cesses can be thought of as emerging due to and through
social interactions across the life span. Let us examine a
simple example inspired by Vygotsky (1930–1935/1978,
pp.103 of the Greek translation): a child in an effort to
maintain interoceptive balance unsuccessfully tries to reach
for food with the index finger extended. The caregiver, who
observes the effort, helps with bringing the food toward the
hand of the child. After a number of repetitions, this kind of
interpersonal process, and the statistical regularities associ-
ated with it, is internalized by the child in such a way that
the extension of the index finger eventually represents a call
for attention to a pointed object. Intriguingly, it is not only
higher symbolic functions that are culturally shaped, but
also more ‘fundamental’ ones, such as eating and drinking.
For instance, while babies eat and drink when they feel the
need for it, adults regularly do so not for covering direct
survival needs but rather social ones (e.g., eating as a part
of a break from work or drinking alcohol when socializing).
Along these lines even interoceptive control can be thought
of having social origins, being developed in this way already
from infancy onwards (Ciaunica and Fotopoulou 2017; Foto-
poulou and Tsakiris 2017). To probe this further, interac-
tion processes can be thought of as ontologically primary to
entities on an ultimately basic level. In this line of thinking,
entities actually emerge through interactions (intra-actions
for emphasis; Barad 2003) and not vice versa, from within
their relationship and not outside. In this light, we view the
multifaceted construction of the self as an active process
of culturally mediated internalization of social interactions
along multiple time scales.
Here, it is crucial to note that internalization plays an
important albeit partial role in the formation of the self. It is
the dialectic between internalization and externalization that
provides a more complete picture of the co-construction of
individual and social reality. Internalization can be thought
of as the active reconstruction and synthesis of incoming
information and past experiences, while externalization
can be thought of as the tool-mediated translation of inner
processes into collectively transforming the world, includ-
ing others. The dialectic between internalization and exter-
nalization becomes apparent when examining the simple
example of holding and manipulating an object (Leontyev
1975/1983; Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004). In this very
moment a person transforms not only the world but also her-
self, as in her effort to act on the environment, she embodies
its structure and dynamics. Tools are not to be confused only
with conventional material objects. The term here is used to
also broadly encompass ‘intellectual objects’ in the service
of communication, such as language and art (cf. Vygotsky
1930–1935/1978; Dafermos 2002). In other words, humans
change themselves through changing the environment in a
socioculturally mediated procedure of mutual adjustment.
More broadly, evolution (or development1) of species,
societies, persons and concepts should not be viewed as an
one-way adjustment, but rather as a dialectical, namely a
dynamic, reciprocal and cumulative process (cf. Levins and
Lewontin 1985). We will come back to this crucial insight
1 Hereafter we will use the term development to broadly imply
change across various scales, emphasizing our historical standpoint.
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525‘I Interact Therefore I Am’: The Self asaHistorical Product ofDialectical Attunement
1 3
later, but will now review these cardinal concepts through
a Bayesian lens, which will allow us to operationalize our
suggestions formally.
1.3 A Bayesian Perspective
The main premises of the “Bayesian brain hypothesis” rest
on the idea that the brain represents information accessed via
the sensory organs in the form of probability densities, as
opposed to single numbers, which are continuously updated,
as if following a specific set of mathematical formulas based
on Bayes theorem (cf. Bolis etal. 2017). Interestingly, such
a perspective brings together under a common umbrella
diverse putative cognitive processes of major importance,
such as optimal information integration both in time and
space, optimal multimodal cue integration, as well as flex-
ible information manipulation without the need to commit to
particular decisions at an early stage of processing (Knill and
Pouget 2004). In other words, through a Bayesian lens one
can view the brain as an organ which calculates and main-
tains probabilities about events in the world or about the
organism itself, via a combination of already gained experi-
ence and newly sensed information. Importantly, the more
confidence (i.e., precision) is placed on the validity of expe-
rience (i.e., prior beliefs) the less beliefs are updated based
on new incoming information (i.e., evidence). Notably, a
Bayesian ‘belief’ should not be confused with an everyday
meaning of the word belief which might be taken to refer
to a conscious representation. On the contrary, a Bayesian
belief can be thought of as a dynamic state, either conscious
(e.g., determination not to eat meat) or unconscious (e.g.,
glucose levels).
A concrete and prominent implementation of the Bayes-
ian brain hypothesis can be found in predictive processing
(i.e., predictive coding and active inference; Friston 2010,
2013; Clark 2013). Within this framework a biological sys-
tem is essentially viewed as a prediction machine and action
generator, which actively tries to align reality with internal-
ized models of reality, as precisely as possible. As noted
above, reality embraces both the world and the organism
itself. According to such a perspective, the brain’s ultimate
goal is the long-term minimization of free energy, by cal-
culating (under certain simplifying assumptions) prediction
errors, i.e., the discrepancy between incoming information
and generated predictions, based on prior experience. Impor-
tantly, this is thought to be accomplished via two main ave-
nues, namely either via updating the (Bayesian) beliefs one
holds for aligning them with the environment (i.e., predictive
coding; cf. internalization), or through action, which can
help to experience the environment in accordance with prior
beliefs (i.e., active inference; cf. externalization). Put simply,
to survive, an organism obeys the following straightforward
rule: adjust yourself to reality or change the reality itself (cf.
Friston etal. 2010).
In this framework, the updating of beliefs is accomplished
across various hierarchical levels at the same time. More
concretely, two processes run in parallel: prediction errors
ascend the hierarchy reconfiguring the organism for optimiz-
ing predictions, while in parallel predictions descend the
hierarchy explaining away prediction errors. The hierarchical
organization of this scheme is of immense importance, as it
allows for the consideration of multiple levels of increasing
abstraction. For instance, social relations along development
are not merely stored and represented as concrete memories,
but are perhaps more crucially, internalized at higher levels
of the hierarchy as generalized cultural norms. The latter
can, in turn, be utilized to guide behavior across a multitude
of contexts.
As noted above, a process of belief updating should be
always thought of in relation to action. Importantly, such
a dialectic of internalization and externalization can take
either ‘adaptive’ or ‘maladaptive’ forms along various time
scales, leading to a cascade of interpersonal (mis-)attune-
ment (Bolis etal. 2017). To give a simple example, abusive
interactions with care-givers in early life could influence the
way an individual forms relations later, which may help to
explain personal tendencies and so-called personalities, but
also symptoms across different psychiatric and psychologi-
cal conditions. In other words, growing up in an interperson-
ally adversive environment may lead to expectations about
how social interactions unfold, which will modulate how
future interactions actually play out. From our standpoint,
such an example illustrates how the Bayesian perspective
may be able to capture and express the inextricable linkage
of social and individual reality. Seen through a Bayesian and
dialectical lens at the same time, we can, therefore, view the
‘self’ as a non-linear dynamic process, rather than as a static
and unified entity.
Notably, predictive coding and active inference can be
thought of as a dialectical framework in and of itself. Per-
ception and action become two dialectical facets of the same
process, i.e. the minimization of prediction error. Current
internal (e.g., perceptual) states inform future actions, while
informed interaction with the environment (including others)
greatly modulates internal states. Furthermore, the interrela-
tion between the environment and the ‘self’ is controlled by
the synthesis of an organism’s current state and incoming
information, either through updating current beliefs or the
environment itself. In these terms the ‘self’ can be consid-
ered as the dialectic between predictive coding (cf. internali-
zation) and active inference (cf. externalization) processes
(Bolis etal. 2017). Taken together, multilevel computational
frameworks grounded in predictive processing (cf. Bolis
and Schilbach 2017b; Ramstead etal. 2017) can, therefore,
serve as a formal bridge between philosophical arguments
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526 D.Bolis, L.Schilbach
1 3
and neuropsychological evidence for revisiting the ‘self’ as
a historical product of dialectical attunement.
2 The Dynamic Self inAction
2.1 The Dialectic ofInternalization/Externalization:
Insights fromEvolutionary & Developmental
Psychology, Neuroscience & Psychiatry
In the following section, we selectively review results and
insights from different disciplines in order to add empirical
findings to the argument that the self can be regarded as
a (historical or developmental) dialectic of internalization/
externalization over multiple scales.
Across an evolutionary scale, the change to upright posi-
tion comprises perhaps one of the most important qualitative
leaps. In fact, bipedal walking has been crucial to the evolu-
tion of the self for various reasons. Perhaps, most impor-
tantly, walking on two feet allowed the development and
use of sophisticated tools. The latter revolutionized the way
humans adapt to the environment, allowing them to actively
and dialectically transform the world they inhabit according
to their needs. That is, it is not only humans who change the
environment, but the environment in turn changes them in
face of their impact on it (cf. Levins and Lewontin 1985).
In brief, contrary to a perhaps common belief, humans (and
other organisms) do not evolve via passive adaptation, but
they fundamentally change themselves via socioculturally
mediated transformations of the environment. However,
having said that, this development has not come without
compromises.
It has been hypothesised that bipedal walking has
imposed certain constraints on the birth canal, which does
not allow the birth of a fetus much older (and thus bigger)
than 9months. Additionally, according to the ‘metabolic
crossover hypothesis’ (Ellison 2001; Dunsworth etal. 2012)
the mother may not be able to support an older and more
energetically demanding fetus. Consequently, while apes and
other animals quickly master basic skills that grant them
relatively early independency after birth, human infants are
born unable to survive on their own. Indeed, the brain size
of newly born infants is only a quarter of its fully devel-
oped size. This means that major development occurs after
birth in direct interaction with the environment and others:
“Maybe human newborns are adapted to soaking up all this
cultural stuff and maybe being born earlier lets you do this
[…] Maybe being born earlier is better if you’re a cultural
animal” (Karen Rosenberg on Adolf Portman; cited in Wong
2012). Such a compromise between early independency and
optimal development might actually, in and of itself, define
the timing of birth.
Another major evolutionary leap with regards to human
cognition is the change from individual to shared intention-
ality (Vygotsky 1930–1935/1978; Tomasello 1999, 2014;
Tomasello etal. 2005; Tomasello and Carpenter 2007),
which can be broken down to more intermediate leaps (e.g.
from individual to joint and from joint to collective inten-
tionality; Tomasello 2014). The question here is: How did
we go from relatively competitive great ape societies to
(possibly) cooperative human cultures? It might have been a
huge leap if there had not been an intermediate link between
our common ancestor and humans. The needs for coopera-
tion (e.g. for foraging) in the early human societies may have
led to the transformation of individual to joint intentionality,
involving two (or a small number of) individuals (Tomasello
2014). According to this hypothesis, this development has
allowed for the coordination of roles and perspectives toward
joint objectives, resulting in new forms of perspectival and
symbolic representations, socially recursive inference and
self-monitoring (regulating one’s own actions from the per-
spective of a cooperative partner). The practical need for
coordination might have actually prompted the develop-
ment of bodily structures, which subsequently supported
more abstracted cognitive functions beyond the ‘here and
now’. One tempting line of thought here would be to con-
sider human body (e.g., eye and face) and brain evolution
as reciprocally driven in the context of collaborative social
interaction (cf. Kobayashi and Kohshima 2001; Powell etal.
2010; Dobson 2012). From a Bayesian perspective, ascend-
ing the hierarchy of a neural network, information gets more
and more abstracted (e.g., from dealing with the probability
of an event, to dealing with volatility, volatility of volatil-
ity and so forth; cf. Mathys etal. 2011). Taken together,
we hypothesize that such a kind of evolution, which have
allowed for abstracting beyond the concreteness of real-time
social interactions, might have been toward the direction of
extended bodily hierarchies.
Similarly to development at the scale of phylogeny, devel-
opment at the scale of ontogeny can be also thought of as
unfolding in socioculturally mediated interaction with the
environment and others, undergoing a series of qualitative
leaps along the lifespan (e.g., from individual to collective
intentionality; Tomasello and Rakoczy 2003). More con-
cretely, the acquisition of language, which can be considered
as a particularly transformative leap for social cognition and
interaction, is thought to emerge out of various pre-speech
communicative acts (cf. Bruner 1974). An initial basic form
of dyadic interaction (between the infant and the caregiver)
could serve as the substratum for the development of joint
attention, as well as more complex forms of interaction.
For instance, dyadic (face-to-face) and triadic (including an
object) interactions have found to be developmentally linked
(Striano and Rochat 1999). Furthermore, joint attention,
which is observed before fully developed social-cognitive
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527‘I Interact Therefore I Am’: The Self asaHistorical Product ofDialectical Attunement
1 3
awareness (Brooks and Meltzoff 2005), can predict future
linguistic ability (Morales etal. 2000; Mundy etal. 2007).
Additionally, maternal sensitivity (Hobson etal. 2004) and
synchronicity (Carpenter etal. 1998) have found to correlate
with infants’ propensity to engage in social interactions and
language development respectively.
Also in so-called psychiatric disorders, here thought of
as disorders of social interaction or cases of so-called atypi-
cal social interaction, we find an interrelation between the
manifestation of the organic condition and interpersonal dif-
ficulties (Vygotsky 1930–1935/1978; Schilbach 2016; Bolis
etal. 2017). When it comes to autism, synchronicity in ear-
lier play interactions between the child and the caregiver
was found to correlate with the development of subsequent
communicative forms, such as joint attention and language
(Siller and Sigman 2002). In fact, it has been suggested that
autism can be viewed not as a mere brain disorder, but rather
as an evolving interpersonal misattunement encompassing
various levels of description (Bolis etal. 2017). An attune-
ment between the child and the caregiver along develop-
ment is crucial in language acquisition. Yet, even when an
autistic individual becomes able to talk, in most of the cases
they achieve a propositional attunement (knowing that), as
opposed to a pragmatic attunement (knowing how), a fact
which largely prevents an intuitive participation in interac-
tions with others. This alone, we suggest, might have direct
implications in the formation of the self in autism due to the
crucial dialectical nature of language.
Our discussion on tool mediated evolution holds also for
individual development: language can be viewed as a com-
municative tool used for transforming the (social) world, but
also the self itself (Vygotsky 1934/1962). This dialectical
nature of language becomes evident when examining its dual
role, in speech (interpersonal) and thought (intrapersonal),
which should be thought in unity, rather than in external
(even tight) relation (Vygotsky 1934/1962). In other words,
contrary to a common assumption that speech is merely an
enacted thought, speech and thought unfold together, inex-
tricably entangled. Indeed, recent evidence demonstrates
neural coupling during production and comprehension of
real-life speech (Silbert etal. 2014). Importantly, the inter-
personal aspect of language should be still thought of as tem-
porally and conceptually preceding the intrapersonal one.
That is, in contrast to a Piagetian perspective, we adhere to
the Vygotskian idea that it is social interaction that drives
development and not vice versa.
In sum, basic forms of interpersonal sensorimotor con-
tingencies gradually evolve into more complex forms of
interactions, such as joint attention and multi-person interac-
tions. This kind of initial social interactions might be exactly
what (reciprocally) drives development of social cognition
for dealing with beyond ‘the now and here’ (cf. Theory of
Mind; Baron-Cohen 1991; Tomasello 1995). At the neural
level, it has been suggested that joint attention might be the
outcome of two interacting systems, namely the posterior
and the anterior attention system (Mundy and Newell 2007).
The posterior system, which is relatively involuntary and
common to many primates, begins to develop during first
months of life and can be, simply speaking, thought of as
serving for an understanding of “where others’ eyes go, their
behaviour follows” (Jellema etal. 2000; Mundy and Newell
2007). The anterior system, which is considered volitional
and goal-directed, develops later and can be, along similar
lines, thought of as serving an understanding of “where my
eye’s go, my behaviours follows” (Mundy and Newell 2007).
We take this as suggestive of a claim that the ‘self’ develops
tightly connected to the understanding of the ‘other’ and that
in fact the latter proceeds.
It might actually be the case that it is exactly in our effort
to understand others that we develop an understanding of
ourselves. Here, three tangled modeling loops are con-
sidered: (i) the inner loop, dealing with the prediction of
internal bodily processes (cf. interoception), (ii) the per-
ception–action loop, which involves the anticipation of the
consequences of one’s actions on the world and (iii) the
self-other loop, which deals with modelling other minds
(Timmermans etal. 2012). Exactly the latter loop, through
social interactions, might be what ontogenetically forge
sophisticated bodily structures that are later deployed for
reflective social cognition (e.g., Theory of Mind; Schilbach
etal. 2010, 2013; Frith and Frith 2012), via neural reuse
(Anderson 2010). There is empirical evidence suggesting
that unconstrained cognition, emotional processing and
social cognition might all share common neural networks
in the dorso-medial prefrontal cortex and in the precuneus
(Schilbach etal. 2012). Interestingly, the latter brain net-
works partially comprise the Default Mode Network, which
is putatively activated more when a person does not directly
focus on the outer world. Such a neural overlap between
‘social cognition’ and ‘introspection’ can be taken to sug-
gest that not only thinking about others (either implicitly or
explicitly), but even thinking about ourselves is driven by
social interactions.
Taken together, we construe the self as a historical pro-
cess of dialectical attunement unfolding over various time
scales (Fig.2). More concretely, we view two cardinal
groups of processes dialectically interconnected, namely
internalization and externalization. These processes are
thought of unfolding along different time scales, e.g., (i)
in the time frame of evolution, involving genetic and envi-
ronmental adaptations, (ii) across generations, as cultural
practices, or (iii) during individual development, including
bodily and world reconfigurations, such as perception, action
and learning. Put simply we view both low- and high-level
attunement. Low-level attunement emerges during collective
behaviour, when people are coupled together or when they
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528 D.Bolis, L.Schilbach
1 3
coordinate (cf. De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007). However,
while people interact, and thus act and perceive each other,
they mutually co-construct internal models across multiple
levels of bodily hierarchies. As we saw before, the construc-
tion of such hierarchies allows for consideration of increas-
ingly higher levels of abstraction and thus temporal scales.
That means that people in social interactions co-construct
each other not only in the ‘here and now’, but also beyond,
via co-configuring higher-level abstracted beliefs and pat-
terns of action, on hand in future instances across a variety
of interactive contexts or privately (cf. Theory of Mind;
Fig.2). Simply speaking, poetry (from the Greek “poiesis”,
literally meaning “making”) can be thought of as an active
externalization of internalized social interactions.
Internalization is the set of processes via which the struc-
ture of the environment (e.g., social relations) is actively
transformed and implemented within an individual. From a
Bayesian perspective, internalization entails the creation and
maintenance of dynamic hierarchical models of the world in
an effort to effectively predict future changes and act accord-
ingly. We consider internalization as being accomplished
across various time scales, from genetic information encod-
ing and cultural adaptation, to bodily reconfiguration across
development and real-time perception. For instance, in the
evolutionary scale, the human visual system is attuned to
the peak of the solar radiation spectrum that reaches the
surface of the earth. In other words, human species has bod-
ily internalized the environment in terms of electromagnetic
conditions. Interestingly, similar attunement to environmen-
tal condition is also observed along developmental scales.
For instance, experiments have demonstrated that extreme
exposure to a restricted range of visual stimuli (e.g., exclu-
sively vertical visual orientation), early in development,
modifies the morphology of neurons in visual cortex accord-
ingly (e.g., Tieman and Hirsch 1982). Furthermore, with
regards to shorter time scales, perception and action can
be seen as real-time bodily attunement to the environment.
Finally, undeniably people are also culturally attuned in mul-
tiple aspects. For instance, what is considered beautiful or
delicious seems to be different across sociocultural contexts,
both across time and space.
In fact, humans used cultural models for describing, pre-
dicting and manipulating the environment already in the
cradles of civilization. For instance, ancient societies have
construed natural phenomena, such as weather or earth-
quakes, as behavioural expressions of personified deities.
At first sight, this might appear as a rather naive approach.
However, we consider this as an ingenious tactic that might
have allowed pre-scientific communities to recruit powerful
cognitive capacities, originally developed for dealing with
the undoubtedly complex social realm. Any level of abstrac-
tion can be considered as a model of the world. To come
back to the example of language, a word can be thought of
as a sociocultural model in and of itself, which of course
presupposes the evolution of both the necessary biologi-
cal apparatus across evolution and an interpersonal attune-
ment across development. For instance, the word ‘animal’
or ‘wave’ practically captures and summarizes higher level
similarities being met in a plethora of diverse natural pro-
cesses. Here, we should stress that we do not consider the
construction of internal models as a passive accumulation
of representations.
Fig. 2 Dialectical attunement.
Environmental structure (cf.
social relations) is transformed
within an individual via inter-
nalization processes (cf. predic-
tive coding; rightward arrow).
Internalized structures serve
for co-regulating the external
(social) world via externaliza-
tion processes (cf. collective
activity; leftward arrow).
Internalization and externaliza-
tion processes are thought of
as unfolding dialectically, that
is in a dynamic, reciprocal
and cumulative interrelation.
Please note, here schematic
focus is put on the brain only for
convenience; in reality the body
participates in the dialectic of
internalization/externalization
as a whole
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529‘I Interact Therefore I Am’: The Self asaHistorical Product ofDialectical Attunement
1 3
The construction of internal models allows not only for
the prediction of the world, but also the (socioculturally)
transformation of it for meeting survival needs, through col-
lective externalization. In other words, dialectical attune-
ment does not merely imply a single-sided adjustment of
the individual into the environment, but also transforming
thereof across multiple scales: from cooking food, building
shelters and developing technology, to transforming social
structures and domesticating animal species. The activity
of an individual in everyday life is decisively modulated
by evolutionary, cultural and developmental factors. For
instance, the use of a tool is defined by human anatomy,
accumulated collective knowledge and individual learning.
As discussed above, though, a change of the environment
inherently entails a reconfiguration of the self as well. Exter-
nalization directly impacts on internalized models (cf. the
interplay between active inference and predictive coding), as
well as indirectly via the feedback of a transformed world.
For example, learning to use a tool is fundamentally different
when it is enacted rather than being merely theoretical, even
though in both situations an internal model is developed.
Additionally, both mechanical and conceptual tools (see the
example of ‘wave’ from above) have helped the construction
of modern technology, which in turn continuously modi-
fies humans in multiple aspects and scales (from everyday
behaviour to cultural habits and genetics in the long run).
Crucially, when it comes to humans, transforming the world
is fundamentally social, both with regards to our impact on
others and the environment: the former is inherently social,
while the latter becomes such via the mediation of sociocul-
tural tools. In sum, we view the self exactly as the dialectic
of the abovementioned internalization and externalization
processes.
We will come back to this point and its scientific and soci-
etal implications during our concluding remarks (Sect.2.3),
after first describing how our hypotheses could be put to the
test scientifically. To this end, we will describe experimental
and data analytic means for studying the dialectic of inter-
nalization and externalization in real-time social interactions
and beyond.
2.2 Two‑Person Psychophysiology & Multi‑level
Accounts ofIntersubjectivity
Due to conceptual and methodological constraints, research
has largely focused on either intrapersonal (e.g. neurobio-
logical and psychological), or interpersonal (e.g. socio-
cultural) processes. Here we emphasize the importance of
studying intrapersonal and interpersonal processes in their
inherent interrelation, as they unfold during social interac-
tions. In what follows, we describe an experimental frame-
work, namely two-person psychophysiology and an analysis
scheme, namely multi-level analysis of intersubjectivity that
could help us do so.
Two-person psychophysiology appears as a promising
avenue for empirical research, which while offering great
experimental control, also preserves adequate degrees of
ecological validity (Bolis and Schilbach 2017a, b). Tradi-
tionally, psychophysiology has enabled the empirical investi-
gation of the relation between physiological and psychologi-
cal processes (e.g., through physiological monitoring and
introspection), offering important insights about individual
mechanisms. However informative this kind of approach
may have been, the concept of the (a-)typical ‘self’ will
remain largely misconstrued until dynamic interpersonal
processes are systematically considered, as social cognition
might be fundamentally different when we are in interaction
with others rather than merely observing them (Schilbach
etal. 2013). It has been argued that the most important expe-
rience of the other comes from face-to-face situations; that
this is the archetypic situation of social interaction, while
all other situations are products of it (Berger and Luckmann
1967). It is exactly in this kind of situation that the ‘here and
now’ of each other’s subjectivity come together and pos-
sibly form an inextricable intersubjective unity (Berger and
Luckmann 1967; De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007; Bolis and
Schilbach 2017b).
Building upon empirical frameworks of interpersonal
research (e.g. Read Montague etal. 2001; Schilbach etal.
2006; Dumas etal. 2010; Barišic etal. 2013; Froese etal.
2015; Koike etal. 2016; Liu etal. 2016), two-person psycho-
physiology crucially allows for the empirical investigation
and systematic manipulation of face-to-face social interac-
tion, across various modalities and temporal scales. In such
a framework (Bolis and Schilbach 2017b), participants sit
opposite each other, working on tasks either individually or
collectively, while being able to interact, either in real-time
or offline, through a micro-camera communication system.
Such a two-person framework allows for systematic control
and monitoring of processes that live in different levels of
description, from (epi-)genetics and culture to interpersonal
behaviour and psychophysiology. In fact, via controlling the
synchronicity of social interaction and composition of dyads,
cardinal aspects of the self can be put into scientific test:
Emerging contextual and interpersonal differences in social
interactions might prove equally, or even more important
than individual traits in defining the becoming of the (a-)
typical self (Bolis etal. 2017).
Interpersonal frameworks for empirical research might be
an important tool for moving beyond the individual as the
unit of analysis, yet not sufficient on their own. Conceptual
and experimental practices should be developed hand-in-
hand with methods of analysis (e.g. Bahrami etal. 2010;
Konvalinka and Roepstorff 2012; Schilbach etal. 2013;
Abney etal. 2014; Dumas etal. 2014; Froese etal. 2015;
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
530 D.Bolis, L.Schilbach
1 3
Friston and Frith 2015; Zapata-Fonseca etal. 2016; Fusa-
roli and Tylén 2016; Sevgi etal. 2016; Bolis and Schilbach
2017a). Here, we suggest a shift from an exclusive focus on
the (Bayesian) brain in isolation, toward a multilevel under-
standing of intersubjectivity and psychopathology. In this
framework of analysis, principled accounts of brain func-
tion (e.g. predictive processing) are employed for describing
crucial neurobiological mechanisms, while being connected
to real-life phenomena, which by definition live in an inter-
personal space. More concretely, grounded in established
models (e.g., Daunizeau etal. 2010; Mathys etal. 2011;
Bolis etal. 2015), a two-level modelling scheme could be
used for capturing both individual processes (Bayesian level)
and collective behaviour (meta-Bayesian level). Put simply,
in this scheme intrasubjective parameters will be deployed
for capturing individual mechanisms (e.g., neuromodula-
tion), while intersubjective ones to describe emergent pro-
cesses on the collective level (e.g., interpersonal coupling).
Collective parameters refer to sociocultural tools, such as
artefacts, communication mediating factors, and generally
any co-constructed and commonly held convention. For
instance, the efficacy of a communication channel might
strongly modulate interpersonal coupling in social interac-
tion (Bolis and Schilbach 2017b).
Such an intersubjective scheme could be exploited for
considering emergent phenomena on higher levels of
description, such as for instance questions about the auton-
omy of a dyad or a group of people. To give a more specific
example, in the context of collective externalization a non-
linear model might explain observed behaviour optimally,
thus, providing evidence that the group is different than the
sum of individuals. Inversely, this framework could address
questions about how collective processes, in turn, shape
individual reality. For instance, one could differentially
study the potentially distinct impact that a competitive or
individualistic versus a collaborative structure might exert
upon an individual (Bolis etal. 2017). Collective activity
and societal structure are thought of being capable in shap-
ing individual levels (from neurobiology to phenomenology)
via internalizing mechanisms. In other words, it is not only
lower-level mechanisms that result in emergent collective
ones, but internal processes are treated, here, as dynamically
internalized interpersonal processes.
Notably, a meta-Bayesian framework can consider
observable activity in any level of description, such as neu-
ral activity, motor responses or collective behaviour. With
regard to social interactions, an interesting avenue for future
research might involve studying whether interpersonal coor-
dination on the behavioural level might actually, serve as a
prior and modulate, or even relax, the need for inferences
about the hidden causes of social behaviour. Furthermore, at
a neurobiological level, we hypothesize that activity of dif-
ferent neuromodulators could be related to a subject’s ability
of tracking different levels of interpersonal regularities. In
short, a Bayesian account of intersubjectivity intends to
offer a principled and quantitative description of the dialec-
tic between internalizing and externalizing processes across
different levels of description, as discussed above.
2.3 The Dialectical Self: Scientic andSocietal
Relevance
Our approach shares common ground and most importantly
brings together under a dialectical umbrella two seem-
ingly disparate perspectives, i.e., interactionist-enactivist
(e.g. Maturana and Varela 1980; De Jaegher and Di Paolo
2007) and computational-Bayesian accounts of cognition
(e.g. Clark 2013; Friston 2013). Enactivist accounts have
constructively put their focus on the fundamental role of
interaction and coupling with the environment, including
others. Bayesian accounts of cognition have provided impor-
tant computational tools for describing individual cognition,
mainly through hierarchical models. Our dialectical sugges-
tion, on one hand emphasizes the primacy of (social) inter-
actions. More concretely, it states that for a comprehensive
understanding of the (a-)typical self, we will need to move
beyond the individual, to the historical unfolding of (social)
interactions over multiple scales. On the other hand, our
approach extends Bayesian accounts of cognition by situat-
ing them in the context of real-time social interaction and
providing a description of internalization and collective
externalization processes beyond the individual. More pre-
cisely, it connects internalization to predictive coding and
collective externalization to active inference. By doing so,
it describes perception, learning and collective action as a
unified process that allows for aligning personal (psycho-
physiological) and interpersonal (coupling and synchrony)
states with environmental (nature and others) conditions.
Taken together, via integrating levels of description and time
scales such an approach provides a unifying and principled
way for studying the self beyond the individual.
In this article we have described the self as the dialectic
of internalization and externalization and more concretely
as a historical product of dialectical attunement over various
temporal scales (see Fig.2). According to this view, low-
level attunement is achieved largely automatically (beyond
awareness) during embodied interactions, via mechanisms of
collective externalization. High-level attunement is achieved
through mechanisms of internalization. For instance, low-
level attunement captures human action as an emergent
collective phenomenon (cf. interpersonal bodily coupling,
coordination and synergy) in the ‘here and now’. High-level
attunement captures human mind as an active environmental
reflection. In a cultural frame, this takes the form of internal-
ized values and conventions in a society, generalized across
multiple temporal and contextual frames. In sum, low- and
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531‘I Interact Therefore I Am’: The Self asaHistorical Product ofDialectical Attunement
1 3
high-level attunement are dynamically and cumulatively
interrelated, via internalization and collective externaliza-
tion processes, forming the dialectical self.
Yet still one might wonder why even question the ques-
tion of the self. We believe that any thesis on the self is
inherently implicated in numerous fields of science and the
society. A dialectical perspective, as the one described here,
points toward specific directions that acknowledge the pri-
macy of the social, without neglecting the importance of the
individual in their interrelation, co-construction and tension.
Additionally, it points toward the necessity of adopting an
empirical and principled approach to studying the self. To
this end, formal approaches of predictive processing and
dynamical systems appear as most promising. Approach-
ing the formation of the self under the unifying umbrella of
the dialectic of internalization/externalization might allow
formal integration and re-description of seemingly disparate
mechanisms across different scales. Yet the implications of
such a dialectical approach reach further than the realm of
scientific research.
In pedagogy, this is translated into an educational system
that would promote collective problem solving as compared
to mainstream competitive individual tests. Put simply, tak-
ing such an approach seriously, it would make no sense to
isolate inherently limited individual cognitive capacity and
reward merely the most relevant to a given task. On the
contrary, promoting collective problem solving and deci-
sion making via active participation and interaction would
enhance both cognitive and motivational aspects, yielding
superior pedagogical but also practical achievements. In
psychiatry, one would not be merely focused on diagnosing
and ‘fixing’ individual impairments, but also tuning inter-
personal communication and enhancing social inclusion
(Fig.3; Bolis etal. 2017). Within a clinical context, such
an approach would suggest the monitoring of not only indi-
vidual progress, but also interpersonal coupling between a
‘therapist’ and the ‘individual’, as well as between multiple
persons during group therapy. In fact, not every therapist
might be optimally suited for every patient and therefore
matching of therapist and patient might need to be assessed
in order to predict whether therapy will eventually work.
Within a societal context, ‘tuning’ will not target only the
individual with a psychiatric condition, but also her social
environment. For instance, anti-stigma and informational
campaigns will target tuning of social expectations of oth-
ers as well, effectively resulting in a reciprocal amelioration
of existing interpersonal misattunement. Such developments
might help bring a redefinition of what a psychiatric disor-
der is, situating it back into the social realm within which
it emerges.
In the field of ethics and law, seriously assimilating the
idea that the self goes beyond the static individual, a juridi-
cal system would not only focus on individual intentionality
and responsibility, but also take into account collective fac-
tors and societal structure. Along similar lines, confronting
social problems such as racism will not merely address edu-
cating individuals, but also dealing with social structures,
which potentially instigate and maintain such patterns of
behavior. Finally, such a perspective would suggest develop-
ing artificial intelligence and robotics, not via static pre-con-
figuration, but via allowing interaction for co-constructing
and internalizing knowledge. This should be expected to
yield not only more robust artificial systems, but insightful
conclusions on cardinal questions about human cognition
as well. More concretely, in line with cultural historical and
enactivist perspectives, we suggest that the role of social
interaction and active participation in the co-construction of
a culturally shaped self should be taken more seriously, in
both research and social practice, as paraphrasing Descartes:
Fig. 3 Dialectical (mis-)attunement and interpersonal re-tuning: (top)
a homogeneous dyad interacting ‘smoothly’, (middle) a heterogene-
ous dyad interacting less effectively, (bottom) retuned interaction via
not only targeting a person with a condition, but also others, as well
as the interaction itself (cf. Bolis etal. 2017)
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
532 D.Bolis, L.Schilbach
1 3
‘we interact, therefore I become’, or put simply ‘I interact,
therefore I am’.
Acknowledgements Open access funding provided by Max Planck
Society. DBwould like to express his gratitude to colleagues in the
research group for the developmental origins of human normativ-
ity (LMU Munich) for inspiring discussions during the 2015 read-
ing group on Michael Tomasello’s work, Angeliki Angeletou for the
beautiful artwork and Jessica Keverne for her diligent proofreading of
this manuscript.
Funding This study was funded by a grant for an independent Max
Planck Research Group to LS.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
Research Involving Human and Animal Participants This article does
not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed
by any of the authors.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Crea-
tive Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creat iveco
mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribu-
tion, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the
Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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