Forms of vitality revisited: The construction of an affective bodily self

This article outlines a socio-constructivist view of the ontogeny of an early form of psychological self-consciousness: an affective bodily self-consciousness. In so doing, it aims at contributing to a larger anti-Cartesian agenda, which rejects the claim of the primary nature of the knowledge of one’s own mental states. This will be pursued by seeking a synthesis of what may at first appear as a motley assortment of materials: the social biofeedback theory of parental affect-mirroring proposed by György Gergely and John S. Watson, Daniel Stern’s notion of forms of vitality, and Antonio Damasio’s concept of background feelings.