Søren Overgaard (University of Copenhagen) specializes in phenomenology and philosophy of mind. His research interests include: Social Cognition, Philosophy of perception and Knowledge Of Other Minds. For more information visit his website.
Merleau-Ponty on Mindreading: Exposing the Myth of the Mental Given
Critics of the mindreading establishment often claim that the debate between theory theory and simulation theory is premised upon what has recently been termed ‘the unobservability principle’ (Krueger, 2012) – the idea that the mental states of others are hidden and invisible and therefore must be inferred or simulated. It is also often claimed that if we abandon the unobservability principle, there is no longer any need for something like inferences or simulation routines to access others’ mental lives. Although Merleau-Ponty agrees with the mindreading critics that the unobservability principle should be rejected, what he says about our access to others’ mental states at the same time exposes a questionable assumption that seems to inform at least some of the usual criticisms of the mindreading establishment. Some of these criticisms, I argue, rely on what I shall call ‘the myth of the mental given’. Once this myth has been exposed, we can begin to gauge the work one has to do to establish a ‘direct-perception’ account of mindreading