So far, I have posited basic human traits as behavioral propensities that are constitutive of self-consciousness. These propensities include self-idealization, a basic affiliation need, the fear of rejection, compulsive self-reflectivity, and the universal struggle to reconcile first- and third-person perspectives on the self. All of these human propensities point to the socially “co-constructed” nature of self-knowledge.

I try now to articulate further these propensities in terms of six propositions. These propositions form the theoretical framework that will guide the rest of the book. Together, they account for the co-constructed nature of self-knowledge and ultimately for the social origins of human self-consciousness.

I return first to the general intuition that drives this theoretical framework. I then present and comment on each of the six propositions in turn. I finish the chapter with a succinct narrative summarizing this articulation of ideas from a developmental point of view.

“COGITAMUS, ERGO SUM” – WE THINK, THEREFORE I AM

The origins of self-knowledge are social because without others there would be no such things as a “self,” hence no object for self-reflection. This is the basic, commonsense intuition driving my ideas. Self-knowledge has a social background. A self exists in relation to no-self entities, namely, people who coexist in a shared world. Like any forms in the realm of perception, it can only exist in relation to a ground. For self-knowledge, this ground is made of people. We depend on people to come to life and to survive. Other people are the foundation of self-knowledge and of self-consciousness.