| My interest in this dissertation is social cognition, which, very basically, is our ability to understand and interact with others. I defend a mindreading account of social cognition according to which we attribute mental states to others and explain and predict their behavior in terms of those attributed mental states. I consider two deflationary alternatives to mindreading: embodied cognition and embodied simulation. These deflationary accounts hold that social cognition consists in embodied, non-mentalistic practices, like detecting facial cues, perceiving bodily movements, and responding appropriately to such embodied signals. I argue that embodied cognition and embodied simulation are not sufficient to explain the sophistication and complexity of human social cognition. Embodied cognition and embodied simulation fail to offer a compelling alternative to mindreading.;The deflationary accounts are unsuccessful as alternatives to mindreading, but they highlight neuroscientific data that promise to shed light on social cognition. Within philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience there has been an explosion of interest in mirror neurons. These neurons allegedly solve the problem of other minds, are the neural basis for morality, imitation, language, and culture and will do for psychology what DNA did for biology. The purpose of the second half of the dissertation is to explicate the exact role of mirror neurons in social cognition.;Relying on empirical data from developmental psychology and neuroscience and philosophical arguments from action theory, I argue that mirror neurons are, at best, indirectly related to goal understanding. The relationship between mirror neurons and low-level social cognition is fairly tenuous, which suggests that the bold claims about mirror neurons will not stand up to scrutiny. I argue that contrary to the prevailing opinions, mirror neurons are best construed as evidence for the Theory Theory account of mindreading. This conclusion controverts a widely held view, which is sometimes explicitly argued for but mostly simply assumed, that mirror neurons are simulation mechanisms and thereby evidence for the Simulation Theory. I conclude the dissertation with a general discussion about the possible role of mirror neurons in autism, a developmental disorder involving severe and distinctive social deficits. |
