ABSTRACT
This chapter tries to show some of the capacities that a child must have if he is to be able to gain access to the world of intersubjective knowledge. Piaget contends that development proceeds from the egocentric to the socialised. Interpreting essentially similar data, Vygotsky from a different philosophical tradition, argues that development proceeds from the socialised to the individualised. Recent psychological studies have shown the abilities of babies to be far greater than had been imagined. Apart from these empirical studies, there are a priori reasons why infants must be credited with far more than mere mechanical responses to environmental stimuli. These views on the social nature of knowledge provide a complement to Piaget's individualism.
