Editorial: The social and enactive mind

There is no zero-point of the social relatedness of the individual, no “beginning” or sharp break when he steps into society as if from outside as a being untouched by the network and then begins to link up with other human beings. On the contrary, just as parents are needed to bring a child into the world, just as the mother feeds the child first with her blood and then with nourishment from her body, the individual already exists, on the most fundamental level, in relation to others, and this relation has a particular structure specific to his society. He takes on his individual stamp from the history of these relationships, these dependences, and so, in a broader context, from the history of the whole human network within which he grows up and lives. [...] Robinson Crusoe, too, bears the imprint of a particular society, a particular nation and class. Isolated from all relations to them as he is on his island, he behaves, wishes and plans by their standard...