E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 9, 2024

Rethinking the “We”: Tomasello and Winnicott
Ryo SHIBUYA

Ryukoku University
Abstract

Since the late 19th century, evolutionary theory has transformed our approach to thequestions about human origins by providing a scientific basis for understanding therelationship between animals and humans. Pedagogy has also been influenced byevolutionary theory through concepts such as “natural” development and “heredity andenvironment.” As a result, pedagogy has shaped its own role in promoting “humanization”
while assuming the undecidability of human nature. Nevertheless, it is important to examine
human diversity and explore intermediate areas in which human diversity is intertwined. To
this end, this report examines Michael Tomasello’s and Donald W. Winnicott’s arguments
and rethinks the nature of relationality and community in humans.
Examining the differences between humans and other great apes, Tomasello argues that acollective identity of “we” is formed in collaborative activities involving joint intentionality.
He situates human thinking and education in the context of this unique relationship.
Winnicott, however, finds an intermediate area by focusing on the infant’s illusion andplaying prior to joint intentionality. Winnicott’s argument will offer a new “we” thatcomplements Tomasello's “we” with slight relationships.
Key words: Evolutionary Theory, Anthropological Machine, Tomasello, Joint Intentionality,

Winnicott, Illusion and Playing

Introduction
What is human nature? What were primordial humans and society like? Questions
about human origins have been asked repeatedly. Whether one views the primordial man
as a struggling being, as Thomas Hobbes did, or as an exchanging being, as Adam Smith
did, is not merely a theoretical problem but a practical one that enables the formation of
Correspondence:
Ryo SHIBUYA, Ryukoku University. Email: r-shibuy@hotmail.co.jp

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new images of humans and society. In the second half of the 19th century, the theory of
evolution provided a basis for scientific thinking about the relationship between humans
and animals, transforming our approach to the questions about origins. Even in recent
years, new knowledge about humans informed by evolutionary theory has continued toaccumulate.
The purpose of this report is to rethink the nature of relationality and community inhuman beings by focusing on Michael Tomasello’s attempt. He relates evolution andchild development and explores primordial human society. His discussion provides astarting point for considering the meaning of education for human beings. I will firstoutline the purpose of this report by examining Giorgio Agamben’s argument about the“anthropological machine.” Next, I will delve into Tomasello’s discussion of primordial
human society, with a focus on joint intentionality and the form of cooperation unique tohumans, namely “we.” Finally, I explore the relationality preceding joint intentionality
and complement Tomasello’s discussion of “we” by examining psychoanalyst Donald
W. Winnicott’s theory of child development.

1. Evolutionary Theory, Anthropological Machine, and Pedagogy
As is well known, Sigmund Freud (1986 [1917]) argued that his own
psychoanalysis, along with Copernicus’ heliocentrism and Darwin’s theory of evolution,
did damage to human narcissism. According to him, heliocentrism broke the illusion thatman was the center of the universe, evolutionary theory challenged the hubris that man
differed from animals and was superior, and psychoanalysis sought to dismantle theauthority of the ego (SS. 7–12). However, heliocentrism demonstrated divine providence
without denying the existence of God (Canguilhem 1988, pp. 103–105), and Freud’s
psychoanalysis preserved the human authority to use language. Considering this, it canbe said that Darwin’s theory dealt the most profound blow.
Takashi Sakagami (2003) summarizes Darwin’s innovations in three ways: first,
placing the notion of transformation at the foundation of his theory and rejecting “species
essentialism;” second, eliminating teleology by introducing the ideas of environmentdependent natural selection and the aimlessness of individual variation; and third,
considering “the statistical and probabilistic law” (pp. 15–17). In other words, Darwin
placed animals and humans in a process of randomness and diversity, revealing theundecidability of human nature. As Georges Canguilhem (1991) noted, this enabled a
new understanding that humans and animals were mutually independent andSymposium: Thinking about Education through Examining Human beings

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transforming without a hierarchy (pp. 126–144). However, Darwin’s theory activated
non-Darwinian concepts of progressive evolution in the second half of the 19th century.
Herbert Spencer, Ernst Haeckel, and others developed teleological theories of evolution
based on ideas such as the inheritance of acquired characteristics or the theory ofrecapitulation. The concept of evolution, lacking purpose and direction, was replaced by
the concept of linear progress, implying human superiority (Bowler 1992). Sakagami
interprets these trends as alleviating the blow to human narcissism (Sakagami 2003, p.
16).
Given the circumstances of the time, it seems inevitable that Darwin’s theory of
evolution, while highlighting the undecidability of human nature, also spurred amovement to obscure this complexity. If Darwin’s theory and progressive evolutionary
theories are understood as discursive devices that form a single unity, they can beconsidered to have played a central role in what Agamben calls the “anthropologicalmachine.” The “anthropological machine” is an accumulation of knowledge andtechniques that define human beings through complex operations of exclusion andinclusion. According to Agamben, in antiquity, modes of thought that defined humanity
in relation to animals attempted to humanize animals, resulting in the creation of hybrid
entities such as Homo ferus. Contrastingly, the modern “anthropological machine,” while
attempting to demarcate humans and animals, is confronted with a lack of humanspecificity and attempts to draw a line of demarcation within human beings.
Consequently, the nonhuman (e.g., animal life or organic life) is found inside humanbeings and is excluded. A residue that is neither man nor animal, or a “bare life” strippedof all humanity, is thus produced (Agamben 2004, pp. 29–38). From this perspective, theevolutionary discourse of the late 19th century has drawn a dividing line within humanity
and created exceptional beings. The evolutionary discourse not only revealed the lack ofhuman specificity, as demonstrated by Darwin, but also prompted psychiatry’s theory ofdegeneration as well as anthropological investigations of “savagery” and “uncivilization”
as early stages of humanity.
Pedagogy is also not unrelated to the “anthropological machine” associated withevolutionary theory. According to Hisato Morita, Darwin’s theory of evolution frameddevelopmental psychology by introducing the concept of adaptation and providing abinary scheme of “heredity and environment.” There, on the one hand, scholars such as
Stanley Hall explored “natural” development on the basis of teleological evolutionary
theories, and on the other hand, William James and others emphasized “random selection”
without direction and focused on the interaction between organism and environment(Morita 1992, 1994, 2000). Here we find an attempt to explore human nature and
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establish education in the face of the lack of human specificity. In this context, pedagogy
has focused on “natural” development and defined unruly children as exceptional beings,
while concurrently being aware of the lack of human specificity and boldly tackling thedifficult task of “humanization.” In this sense, it can be said that since the end of the 19th
century, pedagogy has established its own foundations by promoting “humanization”
within the framework of developmental theory, while acknowledging the undecidabilityof human nature1.
Of course, pedagogy has not simply involved setting up an “anthropologicalmachine” in motion. Recent themes in the philosophy of education such as the Infans,
the Other, and the Becoming are attempts to redefine the residue produced by the“anthropological machine.” Specifically, Satoji Yano (2019) proposed a different
approach to education than “humanization,” by examining the origins of education in
relation to external factors beyond the community and emphasizing the continuity
between animals and humans 2 . This would be one way of suspending the“anthropological machine” that operates within pedagogy. What is emphasized here isthat there is no simple escape from the “anthropological machine.” As Yano states, theabandonment of demarcation can lead to the spread of disorder and violence. Therefore,
it is inevitable to establish the boundary between human and nonhuman in a more
appropriate way and to promote “humanization” in each situation (p. 138)3. Nevertheless,See also Yasuo Imai’s (2022) discussion on the relationship between evolutionary theory and education.
Imai analyzes the controversy in the German-speaking world at the end of the 19th century. The issue
there was whether the theory of evolution, considered as a “hypothesis,” should be taught in schools.
According to Imai, this controversy shows that with the development of natural science, absoluteknowledge was shaken, and difficulties arose in teaching correct knowledge about the “world.” Imai’s
assumption is that the concepts of “nature” and “development” of children were needed to overcome
these difficulties, and that thus the evolutionary theories of Spencer, Haeckel, and others were drawn upon.
Such a teleological theory of evolution reinforced the notion of progressive development and facilitatedthe naturalistic reduction of education. Imai further discusses that Friedrich Nietzsche and John Dewey
attempted to open up a realm of education distinct from the realm of nature, through a non-teleologicalunderstanding of evolutionary theory (pp. 55–113). Imai’s discussion is an attempt to delineate theappropriate boundaries between culture and nature, human and nonhuman. Contrastingly, the purpose ofthis report is to identify the area of intertwining between the two, before delineating the boundary betweenthem.
2
Yano (2019) examines how the boundary between humans and animals has been questioned inpedagogy. Considering Agamben’s argument, he notes that an important task of education is not only toestablish the boundary between human and nonhuman but also to understand how to cross this boundary(pp. 101–106, pp. 119–141).
3
In recent anthropology, as seen in Bruno Latour, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Tim Ingold and others,
attempts have been made to break down the dichotomy between culture and nature, human andnonhuman, and to describe the two in terms of symmetry (Kasuga 2011). However, even in such attempts,
the boundary between human and nonhuman is not unconditionally discarded. For example, Latour
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even in such cases, it is necessary to change the mechanisms of anthropological machines.
One approach is to examine human diversity and identify an intermediate space between
humans and nonhumans, where diversity is intertwined and residue is rested.
Since the emergence of sociobiology in the 1970s, attempts have been made to
explain altruism and sociality in terms of genes and natural selection. In this context, theconventional views of human nature and society have been challenged. These studies
provide an essential basis for delineating certain boundaries. Tomasello’s work is one
such case study. He explores the fundamental nature of human society throughcomparative experiments with infants and chimpanzees. The primordial humans
described by Tomasello are not in conflict with each other. Rather, they came together toshare intentions and goals, forming a collective identity, namely “we.” Thus, Tomaselloplaces human thought, morality, and education in the context of relationality andcommunity unique to humans. However, he does not pay much attention to intermediateareas. In the following discussion, I examine his argument, focusing on the concept of“we.” I then raise some questions and clarify the direction in which “we” should bereconsidered.

2. Joint Intentionality and “We”: Tomasello’s Theory of Evolution andDevelopment
Tomasello describes the remarkable behaviors of nonhuman apes. They reason,judge, group, and help each other. The differences between humans and other great apes
are not always clear. Beginning with a discussion on joint attention, Tomasello regards
the collaborative nature of humans as distinguishing between the two. In The Cultural
Origins of Human Cognition (1999), human cultural evolution and language acquisition
are explained in terms of a nine-month revolution and joint attention.
According to Tomasello (2000 [1999]), the infant engages early in emotionallycharged interactions with others (“proto-conversations”) through touching and vocalizing.
At around nine months of age, the infant’s world is reorganized, and the infant begins tounderstand that others are also agents with intentions. During this stage, the binary(1993) criticizes that modern society is creating the appearance of a boundary between human andnonhuman on the one hand, while producing a hybrid of the two on the other. His aim would not be somuch to abolish the demarcation of human and nonhuman, but to seek a new “humanization” byexamining how the two are mixed together. This report also examines the “in-between” of human andnonhuman in a different way than Latour and explores new humanization.
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relationship between the self and others evolves into the ternary relationship involving
the self, objects, and others. The infant becomes aware of others’ reactions and sharesattention with them (pp. 58–65).
Since the work of Jerome Bruner and others, joint attention has been argued as thebasis for sharing semantic worlds with others and acquiring language (see Bruner 1995).
For example, Sumio Hamada (1992) suggested that through joint attention, infants
exchange viewpoints with others and learn how familiar people see and behave toward
the third term (pp. 79–85). Tomasello (2000) also examined the function of joint attention
and viewed it as an essential scene in developmental process. According to him, first,
joint attentional scenes provide opportunities to share intentions and contexts. Thisprepares infants to read others’ intentions and develop imitative learning through anunderstanding of intentions. Second, joint attentional scenes allow infants to distancethemselves from their own perspectives. There, infants become aware that others arepaying attention to them, and they begin to see themselves from the perspective of others(pp. 96–100). These processes of sharing intentions and pluralizing one’s own
perspectives form the basis for symbol formation and language acquisition.
Further, Tomasello focuses on collaborative activities, which entail joint attention
and understanding of others’ intentions. He situates them within an evolutionary scenario
as what constituted the primordial human community. In The Natural History of Human
Thinking (2014), he discusses how collaborative activities involving joint intentionality
and shared goals form a “we” relationship and constitutes a feature of human thinking.
Tomasello suggests that hundreds of thousands of years ago, early humans became more
inclined toward collaborative foraging. This led to the formation of a “we” that shared a“common-ground” for communication and engaged in self-monitoring from theperspective of others (Tomasello 2014). The Natural History of Human Morality (2016)
also traces a similar scenario regarding the emergence of moral values such as fairness
and equality. Let us now turn to this book, which elaborates on the normative nature of“we.”According to Tomasello (2016), most primates care for kin and “friends” and live
interdependently, on the basis of “sympathetic concern.” They “form emotional bonds
with those who help them (…), and then they naturally help those with whom they aresocially bonded ― kin and ‘friends’ as it were” (p. 14). But such “emotional reciprocity”
is often embedded in competition and dominance. Cooperation in nonhuman apes
therefore occurs only in the context of conflicts with neighboring groups and competition
within a group. Tomasello’s question concerns the transformation of this situation. In his
view, the forced collaboration and interdependence in the hunting of large prey led to the
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expansion and transformation of “sympathetic concern,” which established the “we”
involving the emergence of social norms (ibid., pp. 43–50).
What, then, is the “we” that Tomasello refers to? It is a “joint agent” formed throughcollaborative activities in which participants share intentionality and goals―a “secondpersonal agency” that encompasses “I” and “you” but does not belong to either.
Tomasello explains this concept from the following perspectives. First, a “commonground” is formed, comprising shared knowledge and understanding. This provokes asense of “openness” and a feeling of “ought” (normative trust and responsibility). Second,
when participants in a collaborative activity adopt each other’s point of view, an exchangeof roles becomes possible. Thus, a “bird’s-eye view” is generated, which enables
participants to conceptualize their cooperative efforts as a whole (ibid., pp. 51–53). Third,with role exchange comes “self-other equivalence,” which leads individuals to regard
themselves and others as equals (ibid., pp. 55–56). In this way, interaction within acollaborative activity produces mechanisms such as a common-ground, bird’s-eye view,and self-other equivalence. These mechanisms represent the ideal form of collaborative
activity and govern the relationship between “I” and “you.”
Tomasello suggests that partner choice plays a crucial role in the broader functioningof such mechanisms. According to him, obligate collaborative foraging requires
individuals to choose good partners. In such situations, early humans recognized that
others were evaluating themselves, and they attempted to manipulate others' impressions
based on the ideals of cooperative activities4. Further, those who acted as free riders or
could not participate were excluded. As a result, distribution became a reward for active
participation (ibid., pp. 57–62). As the “partner choice market” was established, thesecond-personal “we” as a “supraindividual entity” began to wield normative power5.
When partners failed to fulfill their role, they were sanctioned on the basis of “we.”However, Tomasello notes that these markets were only partial at first, as early humans did notaccumulate enough information and included free riders.
5Here, we can assume that economic calculations entered into human relationships and community,
leading to the principle of efficiency. Tomasello, however, seems to understand the process fromcollaborative activity to the principle of efficiency in an overly linear manner. Contrastingly, David
Graeber (2014) criticizes discussions that understand social relations only in terms of the exchange
principle; that is, in terms of accounts and calculations. He notes that there are moral principles not basedon these calculations: hierarchy and communism. He further identifies communism as a “baseline
communism,” which is not a social system but operates in everyday relationships. It is “any humanrelationship that operates on the principle of ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to hisneeds’” (p. 131). Such baseline communism is at work even in situations in which the principle ofexchange dominates. Graeber’s argument seems to indicate a different type of relationship andcommunity than the “we” described by Tomasello.
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Concurrently, protests against unfair treatment, termed “second-personal protest,”
became possible. Rather than merely demanding food, protests began to arise fromfeelings of “resentment against disrespect, resentment against being treated as something
less than equal” (ibid., p. 70).
Thus, a new set of social principles emerged, distinct from the sympathetic concernsand great apes’ ranking system. Within this framework, each person’s behavior isregulated by a collective identity of “we.” For a long time, however, this “we” hadremained temporary. Tomasello explains that it achieved stability only in the era ofmodern humans. As modern humans formed cultural groups, a temporary “we” wasextended into a customary “we,” and an unstable “common-ground” became a “culturalcommon ground” that was assumed to be known by all members of the group.
Consequently, the authority and “objective” perspective of “we,” independent of
individuals, was established, and social norms related to fairness and equality wereformed. However, “we” do not only establish a basis for fairness and equality. Whencertain individuals gain the power to represent the authority of “we,” it could also mean
the emergence of a hierarchy based on authority, which is different from the ranking
system of animal society (ibid., pp. 67–68). Therein lies the ambivalence between
equality and hierarchy.
Here, we can consider the nature of human education. For Tomasello, primordialeducation is that which is based on the authority of “we” and creates an equilibrium ofknowledge, forming a “common-ground.” Tomasello suggests that the formation ofcultural groups and the difference between “us” and “them” brought about the need for
education (ibid., pp. 96–97). Interestingly, even the youngest children try to teach, which
involves a duality of equality and hierarchy. Tomasello notes that children use “normative
language” to their peers, such as “one must put it here” and objectification, such as “itgoes here” (ibid., pp. 97). This is already education that refers to the customary “we,” but
concurrently it is an act of assuming the position of representing authority. Education
promotes an equal “we” and concurrently empowers a teaching person to embody theauthority of “we.”As described above, Tomasello takes the interaction in joint attention as a starting
point and then reveals the relationality and community unique to human beings. He
argues that during interactions, humans constantly form a second-personal “we,” out of
which they create fixed institutions and objectivities. This also demonstrates that
institutions and cultures are never static but are shaped by interaction and influenced by“second-personal protest.” As Tomasello himself suggests, the resistance against
disrespect argued by Axel Honneth in The Struggle for Recognition is also a struggle over
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57“we” (Tomasello 2016, p. 72; see also Honneth 1992). While assuming a “we,” people
reform the way “we” are (who is included in “we,” what constitutes a fair evaluation,
what equality means, etc.) as equal members of society or as individuals demanding afair evaluation of their own role6. This is where the diversity of human society comesfrom. However, some questions remain unanswered, such as how the scope of “we” isdecided and how relationships between “us” and “them” are established. To begin with,can “we” function independently?
Here I would like to go beyond Tomasello’s argument and consider that there is atransitional state between the shared intentionality and the earlier stage, and that the two
are often intertwined. In discussing forms of learning, Tomasello (2000) distinguishes
between “ontogenetic ritualization,” which is also found in chimpanzees, and “imitative
learning,” which is unique to humans. Ritualization is a form of learning in which twoorganisms shape “each other’s behavior through repeated instances of social interaction”
without sharing intentions (p. 31). Certain rituals are established through the repetition ofinteractions such as the infant performing an action and the mother responding to it. Thisis learning through emotional coordination, which is characteristic of the binary
relationship prior to joint attention. Imitative learning, on the other hand, is a form oflearning to reproduce the actions of others based on an understanding of their intentions.
However, as Tomasello himself argues, an infant’s pointing, for example, can beeither imitative learning or ritualization in response to an adult’s action (ibid., pp. 87–89).
Indeed, even when we think we have a shared intention, this is often not the case. In manycases, ritualization and imitative learning are intertwined. This is also true of collaborative
activities. Tomasello (2016) emphasized that even when chimpanzees cooperate to forage
for food, they do not share the same goal. It is not a “we,” he says, but a “group behavior
in I-mode” (p. 27), which is simply coordination between individuals. However, since
many collaborations are supported by emotional coordination, “we” and “I-mode” seemto be intertwined.
This will lead to a rethinking of “we.” There may be myriad holes in Tomasello’s
Tomasello’s argument overlaps considerably with that of Honneth. Tomasello (2016) regards theresistance to disrespect in Honneth’s discussion as presupposing a “we” (p. 72). Honneth (2012) also
refers to Tomasello in Reification, in which he argues for the priority of “emotional attachment or
identification” over cognition of objects (pp. 42–45). However, Honneth (1992) refers to Winnicott anddiscusses the process by which the infant moves from a state of fusion, through the destruction of objects,
to the recognition of others (SS. 153–172). He thus focuses on a transitional state between sympathetic
concern and joint attention. This perspective is not so evident in Tomasello. However, Honneth does notemphasize the peculiar forms of relationality and recognition in illusion as much. In exploring this point,
this report takes Winnicott's argument in a different direction than Honneth’s.
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R. Shibuya“we,” and “we” may be intertwined with and filled by different levels of relationality.
However, I do not have the expertise to examine this point through empirical research.
Here, I explore the developmental theory of psychoanalysis, specifically Winnicott’s
arguments, to discuss how infants come to share intentionality with others. This isbecause Winnicott discusses this process in terms of illusion and playing, demonstratinga different level of relationality than “we.” Indeed, Tomasello’s argument andpsychoanalysis have different origins and levels, and it may be inappropriate to link them.
However, attempts to integrate the psychoanalytic debate with infant research since the1980s are ongoing7. In particular, Jessica Benjamin (1995) links the work of Daniel N.
Stern and others to Winnicott's argument (pp. 81–115). With these attempts in mind, let
us examine the relationality in Winnicott's developmental theory.

3. Illusion and Playing: Winnicott’s Theory of Development
Freud also addressed the question of how a community with morals and norms cameinto being. In Totem and Taboo (1912), he constructed the myth of prehistoric patricide
as the origin of morality and community. According to Freud (2000 [1912–1913]),prehistoric men formed small groups in which the strongest male occupied all women as
the father. The sons collaborated to kill and eat their father. Consequently, they were torn
between the two extremes of emotion: hostility and love for their father. They began tofeel guilty to resolve this division. After that, they formed a “male coalition” comprising“members with equal rights” and established taboos. Guilt over the absent father made it
possible for them to recognize other people and maintain a normative community ofequals (SS. 424–430).
Freud’s narrative is peculiar, but it demonstrates a general scheme in which theconflict between primordial love and hostility is transformed into guilt, resulting in therecognition of others. This scheme was further developed by Melanie Klein as an infant’s
phantasy. According to Klein, through conflict over a good object (good breast) and a bad
object (bad breast), an infant develops a sense of guilt for aggression and begins torecognize the mother as a holistic object (Likierman 2001, pp. 100–135; see also Klein
1984). Klein viewed the process of recognizing the other and sharing reality with others

For example, Anne Alvarez (1992) draws on the work of Colwyn Trevarthen, Daniel N. Stern, andothers to present a new theory and technique of psychoanalytic intervention with autistic, abused, andother children.
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as the development of a phantasy. Contrastingly, Winnicott discussed this process throughthe interaction between the infant and mother, similar to Tomasello’s approach. However,Winnicott focuses on the transitional area preceding the sharing of intentionality. The
central issue is the conflict of recognizing the other as possessing an inner reality distinct
from one’s own. Winnicott discussed this transitional area in terms of illusion and playing,both of which are riddled with contradictions8.
First, we provide an overview of Winnicott’s developmental theories. He discusses
infant development from three perspectives: integration, personalization and objectrelating (realization)9. According to Winnicott, an infant is initially an unintegrated being
whose experiences are fragmented. What protects the infant is care such as holding, warm
wrapping, and bathing, as well as the caregiver’s gaze, which brings together the infant’s
experiences. Winnicott refers to these as “holding” or the “holding environment.”
Supported by “holding,” the infant can remain unintegrated in a comfortable state andoccasionally develop an integrative “I,” despite the threats posed by internal instincts andexternal invasions. This forms the basis for the “True Self” outside communication10.
Next, in personalization, the coordination of body and mind is established, and the psyche
becomes “indwelling in the soma” (Winnicott 2018, p. 45). This is facilitated by the“handling” as initial playing. As the infant and others (the mother) are brought together
at the same wavelength and engage in various interactions, a distinction between the self
and others is established. This fosters a sense of “I am.” Finally, when others (the mother)
repeatedly present an object (breast), the infant foresees that others have an inner world,and steps into a reality that can be shared with others11.
It is important to note that this process occurs in the earliest stages and is not a linear
I have discussed Winnicott’s arguments regarding illusion and playing at length in another article(Shibuya 2021). The following discussion summarizes this and adds some new perspectives.
9
In “Primitive Emotional Development,” Winnicott formulated the tasks that the infant faces (Winnicott
2014, pp. 145–156). In later years, he argues how the infant is encouraged by their environment(Winnicott 2018, pp. 56–63). Here, I integrate and reconfigure these two aspects.
10
According to Winnicott (2018), infants form the “True Self” in the illusion of omnipotence when they
are raised in “facilitating environments.” However, if they are required early to adapt to reality ininadequate environments, they develop the “False Self” through compliance. It is a patchwork self thatlacks a sense of reality and wholeness (pp. 140–152). Contrastingly, the “True Self” is usually hidden andengaged with subjective objects (which are one with the subject in illusion) outside of communication.
Winnicott believed that such a self is the source of the sense of reality (ibid., pp. 179-192).
11
Winnicott's theory of development overlaps with that of Daniel Stern (2000). The “I” formed inunintegration can be said to correspond to “the sense of an emergent self” that perceives the world through“vitality affects” and “amodal perceptions.” Personalization and “I am” correspond to “the sense of a coreself” that constitutes a coherent self. Object-relating may correspond to “the sense of a subjective self”
and “affect attunement” in which the infant shares emotions with others.
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sequence of steps. Rather, it is an overlapping, back-and-forth process that unfolds overa considerable period12. Further, the infant is “an immature being who is all the time on
the brink of unthinkable anxiety” and is threatened by preverbal anxieties such as “goingto pieces” or “falling forever” (Winnicott 2018, pp. 57–58). Despite facing these crises,
the infant, supported by holding, handling, and presenting-objects, forms a “True Self”
and also encounter the world of others. Winnicott views this first encounter as an “illusion”
that is neither real nor delusional but a primordial form of relationality.
Compared with topics such as delusions, fantasies, and dreams, illusions have been
set aside in the development of psychoanalysis. However, this does not imply that
illusions have not yet been discussed. In his later work, The Future of an Illusion, Freud(2000 [1927]) interpreted religion and God the Father as illusions. According to him,
illusion ignores reality and provides momentary comfort, whereas delusion is anti-reality.
Freud argued that humans, feeling powerless in the face of nature’s reality, created theillusion of an order-giving God, or father, to find temporary solace. His conclusion wasthat humanity should break through the illusion of God and listen to the subtle voice of
reason to advance intellectual inquiry (S. 186). This reflects Freud’s heroic gesture ofbreaking free from the false refuge of God.
However, Winnicott’s perspective contrasts with Freud’s. Winnicott focuses on theillusion of union with the mother, which precedes the illusion of God, or father, andexamines how this illusion forms the basis of shared reality. What matters here are thegaps that inevitably intrude before an infant’s perspective is pluralized and shared withothers. This involves the struggle to recognize that others have different intentions andworlds13. Benjamin argues that this approach subverts Freud’s patriarchal framework.
The illusion of union with the mother inevitably accompanies the process of
separation insofar as the mother plays a central nurturing role. According to Benjamin(1995), when this illusion is successfully navigated, the mother can be recognized as theother. However, in cases of failure, the mother’s power is transferred to the father,resulting in the dehumanization of the mother and the creation of the illusion that God or
Winnicott believes that the processes of integration, personalization and object-relating occur before
the age of five or six months. He also states that it is during this period that infants come to understandthat others have inner lives.
13
Illusions are usually recognized only after differences from reality have been noticed. In this sense,
illusion always precedes reality and is only discerned afterward, once the shared reality with others is
acknowledged. However, the illusion that Winnicott addresses exists in the intermediate area between
fantasy and reality, that is, before the full development of reality-testing, or in a state where both singularand plural perspectives are present simultaneously. If we understand illusion in this way, we can argue
that the establishment of shared reality inevitably involves this potential illusion.
12

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father provides protection and order (pp. 96–97). The terror of nature and reality that gives
rise to the illusion of God is itself the product of a failure to confront reality. Thus, Freud’s
heroic gestures mask this failure by defeating the illusion. Contrastingly, Winnicott
revisits the primal illusion, not to defeat it but to explore how to play with it and come toterms with it. Now, let us delve into Winnicott’s narrative of illusion.
In “Primitive Emotional Development” (1945), the primal relationship between
infant and mother is described as a “moment of illusion.” According to Winnicott,although infants and their mothers interact, their inner worlds do not intersect14. However,if the mother repeatedly offers the breast to the infant when the infant desires it and tries
to create it within his or her inner world, a “moment of illusion” occurs, in which theinfant’s world and the mother’s world overlap. Winnicott writes:
I think of the process as if two lines came from opposite directions, liable to comenear each other. If they overlap, there is a moment of illusion―a bit of experience
which the infant can take as either as his hallucination or as a thing belonging toexternal reality. (Winnicott 2014, p. 152)
As Thomas H. Ogden (2018) notes regarding this passage, Winnicott suggests thatthe overlapping of the two lines is ultimately an illusion, but in this illusion a specificrelationship emerges (pp. 225–229). In this illusion, the infant creates the breast, feels
united with it, and simultaneously has slight contact with the world of the mother whobrings the breast into being. This is not an undifferentiated fusion. As Benjamin (1995)
argues, the infant is beginning to realize that the mother has a different intentionality andworld. In attempting to reject this reality, the infant perceives the illusion of union andomnipotence. That is to say, the illusion of union is created afterwards in the tension
between separation and rejection, and the infant anticipates the other person’s different
world within this illusion. Moreover, when this tension is disrupted, the infant may
become entangled in a relationship of domination and subjugation, faced with a choice
between the fantasy of omnipotence and the powerlessness of the self (pp. 89–93)15.
Drawing on recent developmental studies, Benjamin (2018) argues that a rhythm emerges in theinteraction between the infant and the mother, which does not belong to either side. She conceptualizes
this rhythm as the “rhythmic Third,” which can be the locus of primordial recognition (p. 30). Furthermore,
Benjamin suggests that this “rhythmic Third” develops into the “differentiating Third,” in which
individuals engage with others while recognizing their differences (ibid., pp. 21–48).
15
Benjamin suggests that Freud and other (male) psychoanalysts fell into this trap. Winnicott believedthat the tension between the illusion of union and the reality of separation is maintained in playing. Perhaps
he saw this tension as essential for fostering individual freedom, creativity, and the recognition of
14

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In this sense, illusion is a form of a slight relationship in which the fusion anddifference between the self and others are intertwined. Here, the worlds of the infant andthe mother are related in a misaligned way. This illusory sense of togetherness forms thefoundation for the infant’s experience of “living together.” In this way, Winnicott foundan intermediate area between infants and mothers where the fusion and differentiation
remain indeterminate. For Winnicott, this is not simply something to overcome but
constitutes a space of its own. He later conceptualizes it as a “potential space” andunderstands it as a place for playing. What emerges there as a successor to the illusory
breast is the “transitional object,” such as scraps of blankets and tattered dolls to whichchildren have a special attachment. Winnicott (2005) defines it as the first “‘not-me’possession”—an ambiguous intermediate term between inside and outside (pp. 1–34).
By playing with a transitional object, infants or young children develop an illusion in an
unintegrated state and take a half-step into a world shared with others. At that time, it isimportant not to threaten the ambiguity of the transitional object. Winnicott says that weshould refrain from asking the question, “Did you conceive this or was it presented toyou from outside?” (ibid., p. 17). This is because if we make a clear distinction between
the inside and outside and determine their origin and ownership, the potential space
disappears and the transitional object is broken.
The play discussed here is not the type of game Tomasello discusses, which is basedon shared rules or role exchange16. Instead, it involves children manipulating their toys in
the presence of another person. Winnicott presents the images of this playing as theinteraction of the surfaces of two curtains or two jugs, with reference to Marion Milner(Winnicott 2005, p. 132). On one hand, there is a movement that develops an isolated
world without knowing the outside; on the other hand, there are moments when thismovement slightly intersects with the other world.
Let us examine an example of such a play by Winnicott. For example, Edmund,aged two and a half years, at first asked “Where’s toys?” but then never said a word. hedifferences with others.
16
Tomasello occasionally refers to children’s play. Play in his discussion is a game with shared intentions
and norms, or early symbolic play in which intentions are first shared and then extracted (Tomasello 2000,
pp. 84–85). Further, Tomasello (2014) finds the evolutionary origins of pretend play in “pantomiming asa serious communicative activity.” He suggests that pretend play originally evolved from gesture language
for conveying information (pp. 63–64). It was through these “young children’s joint pretense” that rulegames were established (ibid., pp. 91). Tomasello considers the transmission of information and thesharing of intentions as essential aspects that precede play. For him, play is only secondary. Contrastingly,
Winnicott links playing to illusion as a precursor to the sharing of intentions and discusses it as the basis
for a shared reality.
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sat on his mother’s lap or played silently with toys while Winnicott talked to his mother.
Initially, he played cautiously; then he began blowing bubbles into his mouth and became
preoccupied with the string he had brought from another room. He then moved back andforth toward his mother. Winnicott did not directly engage with Edmund. He was justthere. But not without a relationship. He writes, “As it happened I was there mirroring
what was taking place and thus giving it a quality of communication” (ibid., p. 59).
What we have here is a different picture from that of collaborative activities
involving joint intentionality. This child does not share the same intentionality or goals as
the adults around him. They are “together” in the same place from different perspectives.
In this circumstance, the toddler is in a relaxed and unintegrated state, and develops
illusions using the transitional object of the string as the medium. The adults who watch
over him become the environment for the toddler, feeling that the toddler is anticipating
the world of others. Indeed, there was communication. Nevertheless, it is acommunication involving irrelevance, in which the toddler forms a “True Self” outsideof communication. In this process, the toddler acquires the “capacity to be alone.”
Of course, young children will eventually emerge from the illusion, acknowledge
that their world differs from that of others, and enter reality, sharing intentionality withothers. The transitional object also survives, albeit under intense attack. It then serves its
purpose and is no longer being examined. However, it does not simply disappear:
It is not forgotten, and it is not mourned. It loses meaning, and this is because thetransitional phenomenon have become diffused, have become spread out over thewhole of the intermediate territory between ‘inner psychic reality’ and ‘the external
world as perceived by two persons in common.’ That is to say, over the whole cultural
field. (ibid., p. 7)
The transitional object is not simply lost but becomes diffusely spread throughout
the cultural field. This implies that the themes of illusion and playing are not confined toinfancy. What Winnicott stated is that behind a culture that is based on shared reality and“common-ground,” there exists a vast realm of illusion that remains slightly relational(illusory culture). Illusions give rise to countless gaps in images and connections outside
cultural norms. In fact, even within the “we,” individuals are constantly alone anddeveloping illusions. Only when a small part of such illusions takes shape and is shared
can the culture of “we” be constructed. If this is true, then illusion becomes the foundationof the “we” and the source of cultural creation and human freedom.

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Conclusion
Through examining the differences between humans and other great apes,
Tomasello argues that the relationality and community of “we” are formed incollaborative activities involving joint intentionality. As a “supraindividual entity,” “we”
governs the relationship between “I” and “you,” forming the basis for a sense of equality
and the foundation of culture. Contrastingly, Winnicott found a peculiar intermediate area
between joint attention and emotional coordination. In this area, the infant experiences
the illusion in which the fusion and difference between the self and others are intertwined.
Through this illusion, the infant comes into slight contact with the world of others.
Eventually, this area becomes a space of playing, intertwined with “we” and spreading
into the background of culture. This aspect of Winnicott’s argument serves as a starting
point for thinking about creativity and freedom among humans.
Certainly, Winnicott’s arguments are more concerned with care than education.
Nevertheless, it can be argued that education not only establishes a “common-ground,”but is also closely intertwined with care, and that illusion and playing continually haunt
the workings of education. In addition to social norms, equality, and authority, humannature includes caring, playing, and engaging in illusions. These elements are constantlyintertwined and contribute to human diversity.
In The Dawn of Everything (2022), David Graeber and David Wengrow attempt todemonstrate that human beings have exercised their social freedom in playful ways fromtheir earliest beginnings. The authors suggest that prehistoric hunter-gatherers
experimented with a variety of social relationships. According to the authors, there is no
single form of human nature. Humans have moved, cared for, supported each other, madepromises, fought, teased others, and connected with diverse others while inventing
various social relationships17. Could we not consider the realm of illusion and playing, as

Graeber and Wengrow’s aim is to explore why human intrinsic freedoms (the freedom to relocate, thefreedom to disobey, the freedom to shape new social realities) have been diminished and linked to thedomination of others. They suggest that this question involves “the profound ambivalence (…) of (…)
caring relationships” (Graeber & Wengrow 2022, p. 191). Presumably, the caring relationships aretransformed when responsibility for care, once confined to a particular relationship, is transferred to those
who have no connection with the cared-for individual. Slaves exemplify this transformation. According
to Graeber and Wengrow, slaves can be seen as those who are forcibly separated from social ties throughviolence with the aim of producing caregivers (ibid., pp. 502–514). In this context, the caregiver isperceived as “them” within “us,” with whom the cared-for individual does not have to share a common
perspective. Consequently, a domination-subjugation relationship is established, and freedom becomes17

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Winnicott showed, as giving rise to such human diversity and freedom, from which a
new “we” always emerges?

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