Why does Sally never Call Bobby `I'?

Abstract

Coelho and Figueiredo (2003) raise the issue of intersubjectivity. I propose to consider the problem from an action-theoretical and constructivist perspective that in some ways agrees, in others contradicts, the theses of the authors. The view I present is based on various publications on the `I'-Other problem since 1975. The centrality of the person's `I', as the overarching locus of action control and regulation, is re-claimed. By the same token, the role of society is re-defined, society being too heterogeneous, too contradictory, to influence directly the formation of the `I'; social impacts have to be filtered, selected, evaluated and assimilated by individual `I's, and thus the `social other' is itself personally constructed.