It seems that the data discussed in the previous section allow us to come to the conclusion that ES is the primary and earliest mechanism contributing to the foundation of the sense of self and others. That said, in conclusion, we would like to stress again the issue of the cognitive role ES has in relation to language. Though the aspect of the relation between ES and language was not addressed in Pfeiffer’s commentary, this was a central point of our proposal. The relation between ES and language is two-sided. On the one hand, empirical evidence has shown the role ES plays in language comprehension. These data (for an overview see Gallese & Cuccio this collection, p. 13) suggest that the bodily, sensory, and motor dimensions play a constitutive role in language, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. On the other hand, being linguistic creatures, we humans are the only living species able to fix and relive specific aspects of our bodily experiences by means of symbols. Words or other forms of symbolic representations such as art, for example, allow us to activate and relive our bodily experiences. In this way, by means of symbolic representations, we can share our bodily experiences, enacted by ES, even with people far away from us in time and space. As argued in our paper, ES is a model of our own experiences and its defining features are best explained by resorting to the Aristotelian notion of paradeigma. ES-as-paradeigma (and not just as motor resonance) provides a neurobiologically-based new perspective on human social cognition and ultimately on the very definition of human nature.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the EU Grant Towards an Embodied Science of InterSubjectivity (TESIS, FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN, 264828) and by the KOSMOS Fellowship from Humboldt University, Berlin to VG.