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Systems of psychology, like those who invent them, are lopsided affairs. In illuminating one aspect of the human situation, they neglect its other aspects…. Moreover, though each system willpresume universal and perennial truth, the modest fact is that each psychology is, in its own way, a particular and contemporaneous response to the dilemma of a particular age. And why should it be otherwise?
There is no life that is not in community.
During the last twenty years, there has been an explosion of parent-infant research, and with it an ongoing debate about the subjectivity and intersubjectivity of infancy. Previously held ideas of infancy (e.g., autistic stage) have receded in importance, relegated to the back shelves, except to demonstrate their weak assertions and to bolster the argument for new paradigms that provide greater clarity. This is to be expected. Whenever there is a change in paradigms (Kuhn, 1970), which seems to be part of the perennial human tendency to define and redefine ourselves (Taylor, 1971), a corresponding attempt to disclaim previous views occurs. At the same time, the discourse surrounding the new paradigm involves continual refinement of and argument about conceptual distinctions and definitions, questioning the logic of each assertion, and disputing evidential claims. We see this, for instance, in the spirited debates and clarifications about whether the infant is innately intersubjective and what forms or characteristics comprise the infant's intersubjectivity. The new (or old) theories of human development we hold dear and defend are treated as objects, representing various approximations