Anthropomorphism and mental state attribution

Abstract

Contemporary neuroscience studies propose that sensory-motor experiences in the form of ‘re-enactments’ or ‘simulations’ are significant to the individual's development of concepts and language use. To a certain extent, such studies align with non-Cartesian perspectives on situated cognition. Since perceptual activity is reflected neurally, however, the neural perspective of experiences and re-enactments allows us to distinguish between online and offline conditions within situated cognition, thereby addressing the extent to which direct experiences contribute to a particular learning episode. Whereas online situated cognition reflects the ‘traditional’ 4e's (minds as embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) and focus is on cognitive processes confined to the individual, offline situated cognition introduces Others as significant contributors to cognitive processes in the individual.In this paper, I analyse how offline situated cognition entails a hitherto underdescribed but radical receptivity to the social world that works through language. Based on the unfolding of how we acquire the concepts of mental states as part of theory of mind, I establish that in the hands of interlocutors, words cultivate minds by first eliciting phenomenal sensations and then facilitating an association of these to experiences that originate with a different phenomenal content. Thus, I conclude both that phenomenal experiences online are central to conceptual learning offline through re-enactions and that Others are profoundly essential in forming cognising Selves.