Abstract: This article examines the specificity of establishment and functioning of self-position during childhood. Based on the analysis of some representations formed within the scientific cognition (about egocentrism of child’s reasoning, immatureness of knowledge on the objective permanency among children, late and inferential character of the abilities to feel their remoteness from mother, relative autonomy and independence in interpersonal communication), the author determines their discordance to the existing state of things. For developing the more suitable conceptual apparatus to examine the child’s self-consciousness, the article considers the strong and weak sides of the concept of Ulric Neisser, who introduces into the scientific discourse such viable terms as the ecological al and interpersonal “self”. As a result of the logical-methodological analysis of experimental data, are revealed the conceptual “traps” that distract the researchers towards the unbiased comprehension of the specificity of child’s self- and world perception, provoking the essential demarcation of the stages of establishment of the phenomenon and their further development noticed in the fact the first of them unfolds when the state of the carrier is holistic and unequivocal, while the other correlates with the state of duality. Thus, the author reveals the profound prerequisites of the conceptual discordance of the self- and world perception of a child and an adult. It is demonstrated that most reputable and currently popular representations on the crucial peculiarities of the child’s reasoning and world perception, associated with the name of Jean Piaget, in many aspects do not correspond with the reality. It is substantiated that the subconscious orientation of the researcher that the behavior of a young child is interpreted within the framework of the categorical scale of the world perception of an adult, provokes inaccurate outlook upon the interpretation of logics of the establishment of selfness within the cognitive development of a person.   

Abstract: The present article is devoted to the dynamics of meanings from the earliest stages of ontogenetic development. The proposed research is based on the idea of the principal difference between dual and nondual approaches to interpreting what happens during cognitive evolution. The author shows that implementation of the dual approach to intepreting processes of cognitive development of a child deprives us of the opportunity to adequately describe the dynamics of cognitive abilities and associated process of the transformation of meanings. Refusal of the adult-culture-centrist approach allows to prove that meanings are presented even at the stage of infancy but they are naturally different from what an adult knows from his own cognitive experience. Before carrying out the research, the author analyzes a number of methodological issues which allows to make the analysis less dependent on implicit limitations and stereotypes that have the status of methodological stereotypes. In particular, the author discusses the consequences of the adult-culture-centrist position in the defined significant aspects of child's development and demonstrates what destortions of the picture of cognitive evolution such approach may lead to. It is proved that the concept of meaning which is typical for contemporary science presents only a superficial layer of the depth meaning. The latter can be presented only as an extensive pattern of cohesiveness that is created at the moment of establishing the nondual integrity and possesses the features of completeness, polymodality, syncretism and nondual integrity.