Comment: Basic Empathy and Complex Empathy

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Zahavi
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Simulation Theory ◽  
Theory Theory ◽  
Social Understanding ◽  
Short Commentary

In my short commentary, I dwell on the distinction between basic and complex empathy, and suggest that a basic perception-based form of empathy might point to the existence of a type of social understanding that is more direct and more fundamental than the types of social cognition normally addressed by simulation theory and theory theory.

The Person Model Theory and the Question of Situatedness of Social Understanding

2018 ◽  
pp. 468-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Newen
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Simulation Theory ◽  
Early Infancy ◽  
Theory Theory ◽  
Social Understanding ◽  
Interaction Theory ◽  
Context Dependent ◽  
Clear Cases ◽  
Person Model ◽  
Intense Debate

Humans are hyper-social beings, highly dependent on others and on successfully interacting with them. Which theory can adequately describe our ability to understand others? In the literature we have an intense debate among proponents of theory-theory, simulation theory, and interaction theory. I argue first that none of these accounts is adequate but that we need to go in the direction of what I call the “person model theory.” The second important question is which types of embodiment (or further aspects of 4E) are systematically relevant for social understanding according to the person model theory? I argue that there are clear cases of embodiment of social understanding, while extendedness and/or enactment seem to be only clearly implemented in early infancy. Furthermore, 4E features of being embodied, enacted, extended, or embedded can only be ascribed to an implementation, a token of a specific type which makes the 4E features intensely context-dependent.

scholarly journals The Private Language Argument and a Second-Person Approach to Mindreading

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Joshua Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Simulation Theory ◽  
Theory Theory ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Private Language Argument

I argue that if Wittgenstein’s Private language Argument is correct, then both Theory-Theory and Simulation Theory are inadequate accounts of how we come to know other minds since both theories assume the reality of a private language. Further, following the work of a number of philosophers and psychologists, I defend a ‘Second-Person Approach’ to mindreading according to which it is possible for us to be directly aware of at least some of the mental states of others. because it is not necessary to assume a private language within the Second-Person Approach, I argue that this account of social cognition is superior to Theory-Theory and Simulation Theory since it avoids the objections of the PlA.

Social Cognition: A Literary Perspective

Paragraph ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Chesters
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Simulation Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Victor Hugo ◽  
Theory Theory ◽  
Francois Rabelais ◽  
Interaction Theory ◽  
Scientific Debate

The set of procedures called variously mindreading, mentalizing, or social cognition — broadly put, the process by which we know others — is one that literature can dramatize in peculiarly intense ways. This essay describes three accounts of these procedures in current cognitive scientific debate — Theory Theory, Simulation Theory, and Interaction Theory. It is argued that each account alone struggles to capture the strange blend of immediacy and opacity that confronts me when I seek to grasp the minds of others. Through close readings of two literary passages (one by François Rabelais, the other by Victor Hugo), it is further argued that literature can by contrast do exactly this. To read ‘cognitively’ is thus both to reveal and to enlist literature's power to think about thinking.

Einfühlen und Verstehen

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-243
Author(s):  
Verena Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Simulation Theory ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Theory Theory ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
The Many

How do we understand other minds? The current debate uses the iridescent term “empathy” to explain our quite different mindreading capacities. Since no alternatives seemed to be available the discussion has been mostly in a deadlock between “simulation theory” and “theory theory”. Only recently the relevance of phenomenological findings on the issue has been brought forward. In this paper Husserl’s two concepts of “Einfühlung”, as developed in the second volume of his Ideas, are set against the background of the latest discussion. Husserl’s explanation of empathy in terms of analogical experience highlights the transcendental role of empathy in the context of constitution. At the same time it may solve some of the many riddles left by the recent debate.

Universal belief-desire psychology? A dilemma for theory theory and simulation theory

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 744-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek W. Strijbos ◽  
Leon C. de Bruin
Keyword(s):  
Simulation Theory ◽  
Theory Theory

Social perception and “spectator theories” of other minds

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Søren Overgaard ◽  
Joel Krueger
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Perception ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Social Understanding ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Second Person ◽  
The Social

AbstractWe resist Schilbach et al.'s characterization of the “social perception” approach to social cognition as a “spectator theory” of other minds. We show how the social perception view acknowledges the crucial role interaction plays in enabling social understanding. We also highlight a dilemma Schilbach et al. face in attempting to distinguish their second-person approach from the social perception view.

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