ABSTRACT
Jean Piaget's own solution is developmental since he analyzes permanence in terms of a process. Lev Vygotsky concerns himself with permanence, though without referring explicitly to it or the segmentations it makes possible, when he considers the role of adults, as intentional agents, in the appearances and disappearances of objects for the infant. To access the kind of "functional permanence" necessary for adapting to reality, the object must be analyzed within the communication networks in which its function arises, especially when the focus of attention is the developing child. Nevertheless, psychology, in its different versions, under Piaget's influence, has been preoccupied with the permanence of the object understood in terms of its "physical" reality, that is to say, a "natural permanence" outside communication and consensus. The term "pragmatics of the object" implies that it is necessary to restore objects "to the world," locating them in everyday life and analyzing them in terms of their function.
