Infantile Polymorphism

Merleau-Ponty's positive concept replacing "infantile mentality" (Lévy-Bruhl, Charles Blondel) and "small adult" (classical psychology's assimilationist view). The cardinal formula (CPP ch. 7 §V, line 4942): "There is no infantile mentality, but rather an infantile polymorphism." The child resembles pathological subjects, "primitive" peoples, and adults all at once because they have not yet been integrated into culture; the apparent resemblance does not entail identity. The concept generalizes Freud's "polymorphously perverse" sexuality through Lévi-Strauss's structural reading: childhood polymorphism is sexual and social — the child has not yet crystallized into one mode of relation.

Key Points

  • The cardinal definition: "We must conceive of the child neither as an absolute 'other' nor as 'the same.' Instead, we must view the child as polymorphic" (CPP ch. 7 §V, line 4942).
  • Source-level extension: MP extends Freud's "polymorphously perverse" via Lévi-Strauss to the social register: "the child is socially polymorphic" (CPP ch. 3 §II.A.2, p. 153). Children are sexually polymorphic (Freud); they are also socially polymorphic — not yet committed to one set of social distinctions, attitudes, dichotomies.
  • The polymorphous-then-impoverished arc: language acquisition is partly deflation (Jakobson) — "after a polymorphous phase that contained all possibilities, it will be a passage to a purified, more defined language, but a much poorer one" (CPP ch. 1 §VI). The arc generalizes: child experience is rich-because-not-yet-organized; adulthood is partly impoverishment.
  • Polymorphism as the positive register of the child's relation to "primitive" peoples and the pathological. Not identity (which would be Lévy-Bruhl's "prelogical mentality" mistake). The polymorphic child can resemble many others without being any of them.
  • Stendhal-Mead methodological homology: the same reasoning that dissolves "feminine nature" dissolves "child nature" (CPP ch. 7 §V, line 4954). Polymorphism is what both are reduced to when fixed-natures-readings are dissolved.

What the Concept Does

Infantile polymorphism positively replaces the "infantile mentality" / "small adult" alternatives by:

  • Naming what the child is rather than what the child lacks: "not yet integrated into culture" is a positive description, not a privation.
  • Generalizing Freud's polymorphous-perversity beyond sexuality (where Freud locates it) to the social register (Lévi-Strauss generalizes; MP appropriates).
  • Authorizing the cross-cultural comparison without committing to identity-claims: child / "primitive" / pathological subject resemble one another in their non-integration into the dominant adult-Western culture, but each is its own polymorphism.
  • Underwriting the adultomorphism critique: the adult error is reading polymorphism as deficiency against an idealized adult standard.

What It Rejects

  • "Infantile mentality" (Lévy-Bruhl, Blondel): treating child consciousness as opaque "other" with its own logic.
  • "Small adult" (Piaget, classical psychology): treating child consciousness as deficient adult.
  • The recapitulation thesis (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny): child as evolutionary stage.
  • The parallelism of child / primitive / pathological as identity-claim. MP rejects Lévy-Bruhl's parallelism: "the same act in the aphasiac seems at the same time blinder and more certain than in the child, since, even though it is devoid of meaning, the action takes place through a very old mechanism. This mechanism is not yet established in the child, and yet despite the fact the action is hesitant, it is marked by insight" (CPP ch. 3 §II.A.1, p. 151).

Stakes

If accepted, infantile polymorphism:

  • Authorizes culturalism-mp: cultures crystallize the child's polymorphism in different ways — Mead's seven tribes are seven crystallizations, not seven errors.
  • Authorizes gender-as-cultural-developmental: masculinity / femininity are crystallizations of the polymorphic child's relation to the mother-child dyad mode, not fixed natures.
  • Bridges to Mead's "generalization of psychoanalysis" (CPP ch. 7 §IX): the Oedipus is one solution to the problem set by polymorphism + the biological cycle of pre-maturation.
  • Connects to PhP's "lateral universality" (preview): the same logical structure governs MP's later claim that cultures converge laterally without sharing essences.

Problem-Space

The problem this concept addresses: how can we describe child experience as positively distinct without either treating it as opaque-other or as deficient-adult? The classical answers (Lévy-Bruhl's "prelogical" / Piaget's "small adult") both fail by importing adult dichotomies — either as exclusion or as standard. MP's third way: polymorphism. The child is neither outside our experience nor a deficient version of it; he is the not-yet-crystallized version that any culture differently crystallizes. Same problem-space as gender-as-cultural-developmental, the cross-cultural application of culturalism-mp, and the late MP's lateral universality.

Connections

Open Questions

  • Does infantile polymorphism as a concept survive into the late MP (V&I, Nature)? It seems implicit in lateral universality but is not lexically realized.
  • What is the relation between infantile polymorphism and the late ontology's "wild being"? Both name a not-yet-crystallized mode that subsequent organization differentiates.
  • Is the polymorphism / culture-crystallization story compatible with MP's other claim that culture is the missing middle term between psyche and society? (Possibly yes: culture is what crystallizes polymorphism into determinate form — but this connection is not made explicit in the lectures.)

Sources

  • merleau-ponty-2010-child-psychology-pedagogy — ch. 7 §V (line 4942 "infantile polymorphism" cardinal); ch. 3 §II.A.2 (p. 153 "socially polymorphic" via Lévi-Strauss); ch. 1 §VI (polymorphous-then-impoverished arc); ch. 7 §IX (Mead generalization); ch. 7 §V (line 4954 Stendhal-Mead homology).