Slide 40: Outer ‘Material Experience’ Domain: Identifying The Intersubjective


The outer dimension of protolanguage, on the other hand, that of ‘the world around us’, distinguishes 2 domains of material experience, the objective versus the intersubjective.

The intersubjective domain is that of ‘me-&-you’ — ie the 1st-&-2nd person domain
The objective domain is that of the rest — ie the 3rd person domain.

But how can the distinction of intersubjective versus objective arise before a socio-semiotic system is already established?

What distinguishes the intersubjective domain of ‘me-&-you’ in the material experience of an organism from the objective domain of everything else are perceivable behavioural (‘body-doing’) tokens of senser-sensings.

This is because (exterior) ‘body-doings’ identify (interior) ‘senser-sensings’ in the organism’s domain of material experience.  That is, such behavioural tokens identify other  fellow ‘subjects’.


Incidentally, this a semiotic explanation for what psychologists and philosophers term ‘theory of mind’.