Christopher asked:

Do any philosophies deal with the nature of the changes that take place in the individual's definition of
themselves and the universe, as the individual moves from infancy to become a member of society?

Do these philosophers deal with nature of the issues that are dealt with, the sequence of these
issues? The development of these ideas first as thesis and then as anti-thesis?

Let me explain in part:

1. The infant begins with the concept that it is the universe, then learns that it is dependent.

2. The infant begins with no definitions and learns definitions.

3. The infant begins with isolation and then experience unity.

These three issues define the inside and outside of a triangle the central issue at this stage
determining which side of the triangle the infant's tendency will rest is trust/ mistrust.

What I am working on in a philosophy that include, as part of it, the development of a series of
thesis/anti-thesis triangles at different stages of individual development. After a series of these
processes are passed through the theory sees the development of branches of philosophy as thesis
or antithesis formations.

============

Yes. But one problem with your question is that I don't know a) your background, and b) what you
mean by "philosophies". So I'll give you a list of readings, but if you know anything about child
development you've probably read them. Nonetheless:

Cowan, N., J.S. Saults, L.D. Nugent, and E.M. Elliott. 1999. "The Microanalysis of Memory Span and
Its Development in Childhood". International Journal of Psychology34 (516):353-358.

Dolgin, K. G., and M. Azmitia. 1985. The development of the ability to interpret emotional signals —
what is and is not known, edited by G. Zivin. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, Inc.

Fogel, A. 1985. Coordinative structures in the development of expressive behavior in early infancy,
edited by G. Zivin. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, Inc.

Gopnik, A., C. Glymour, D.M. Sobel, L.E. Schulz, T. Kushnir, and D. Danks. 2003. "A theory of causal
learning in children: Causal maps and Bayes nets". Psychological Review In Press.

Gopnik, A., and A. Meltzoff. 1987. "The development of categorization in the second year and its
relation to other cognitive and linguistic developments". Child Development58:1523-1531.

Gopnik, A., and A.N. Meltzoff. 1998. Words, thoughts, and theories.Edited by L. Gleitman, S. Carey,
E. Newport and E. Spekle, Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.

Gopnik, A., and D.M. Sobel. 2000. "Detecting Blickets: How Young Children Use Information about
Novel Causal Powers in Categorization and Induction". Child Development71 (5):1205-1222.

Grady, J. 2000. "Cognitive mechanisms of conceptual integration". Cognitive Linguistics11
(3/4):335-345.

Hickling, A.K., and H.M. Wellman. 2001. "The Emergence of Children's Causal Explanations and
Theories: Evidence From Everyday Conversation". Developmental Psychology37 (5):668-683.

Malatesta, C. Z. 1985. "Developmental course of emotion expression in the human infant." In The
development of expressive behavior, edited by G. Zivin. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, Inc.

Matthews, G.B. 1987. "Concept formation and moral development". In Philosophical perspectives on
developmental psychology, edited by J. Russell. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

Piaget, J. 1959. Judgment and reasoning in the child. Translated by M. Warden. Edited by C. K.
Ogden, International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method. Paterson, NJ:
Littlefield, Adams & Co.

Piaget, J. 1971. The construction of reality in the child.2nd ed. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, Inc.

Piaget, J. 1971. Insights and illusions of philosophy.Translated by W. Mays. New York, NY: The
World Publishing Co.

Stern, D. N. 1985. The interpersonal world of the infant.New York, NY: Basic Books.

Wimmer, H., and J. Perner. 1983. "Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of
wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception." Cognition13:103-128.

Zelazo, P.D. 2004. "The development of conscious control in childhood". Trends in Cognitive
Sciences8 (1):12-17.

Zelazo, P.D., U. Muller, D. Frye, and S. Marcovitch. 2003. "The development of executive function in
early childhood". Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development68 (3):vii-155.

I highly recommend Piaget (and what I have of him here is a tiny selection of his writings), Gopnik,
and Zelazo, given what you're saying above.

Steven Ravett Brown

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