Bodily expressions, feelings, and the direct perception account of social cognition

Abstract

In this paper, I will argue in favor of a direct perception account of social cognition (DP), focusing on the idea that we can directly grasp at least some mental states of others through their bodily expressions. I will investigate the way we should consider expressions and their relations to mental phenomena in order to defend DP. In order to do so, I will present Krueger and Overgaard’s idea of expressions as constitutive proper parts of the mental phenomena expressed and I will show how this position can support DP. Then, I will present the way in which the authors seem to construe the relation of parthood between expressions and mental states – that is in terms of components (or, pieces, as I will argue) of integral wholes, and I will introduce the possible issues that derive from this strategy. I will propose a different way to understand this parthood relation, referring to Husserl’s notion of moments as distinct from that of pieces (Husserl 1900-1901). I will narrow my analysis to expressions of feelings, and I will try to argue that they can be described more aptly as moments of the feelings expressed. Finally, I will show how this account can support DP.