3194 2023 eng 1 25 3 202 article Springer Nature Berlin 1 -- -- -- The current understanding of cognitive development rests on the premise that infants can individuate objects early on. However, the so-called object-first account faces severe difficulties explaining extant empirical findings in object individuation tasks while alternative, more parsimonious explanations are available. In this paper, we assume that children start as feature-thinkers without being able to individuate objects and show how this ability can be learned by thinkers who do not already implicitly possess the notion of an object. Based on Tugendhat's ideas on the relation between singular terms and object reference, we argue that spatial indexicals comprise the fundamental means of object individuation and describe how feature thinkers might acquire the complex substitutional system of spatial indexicals. In closing, two accounts of object cognition that do not rely on symbolic capacities, namely Pylyshyn's FINST indexes and Burge's perceptual objectivity, are critically discussed. Synthese Spatial indexicals in early development 0039-7857 1573-0964 10.1007/s11229-023-04300-5 urn:nbn:de:kobv:525-31948 2023-08-29T11:33:02+00:00 sword hisres Creative Commons - CC BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International Frauke Hildebrandt Ramiro Glauer Richard Moore deu swd Kind deu swd Säugling deu swd Kognitive Entwicklung Bildung und Erziehung FB1 Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaften Import Fachhochschule Potsdam https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-fhpotsdam/files/3194/s11229-023-04300-5.pdf