Often reading philosophy books is a daunting task, and philosophical language seems to be aimed at mind-bending. The philosophical concepts are far, unattainable, and not intuitive at all. However, it is not always the case, and it doesn’t have to be. This time I read a book about mind reading, what we are all very familiar with and what we do every day. The book is titled “Philosophy of Social Cognition” by Tobias Schlicht.

Social cognition involves cognition that takes place in social situations, when people interact with other people (or broadly other agents). Reading minds is a part of our social cognizing repertoire, which implies understanding other people's intentions, goals, beliefs, and desires. Basically, any interaction throughout the day involves mind reading. For example, if I’m using particular gym equipment and I see the person is coming straight at me, I may assume she wants to use the same machine (if I don’t know her, but if I know her, it could be another story). The question that is at the core is how do we do that? It turns out there are theories explaining that, that have been developed over the years, and here is a brief description.

• Theory-theory. I’m a scientist, and I build theories regarding the observed phenomena. Theory-theory suggests that we do the same for interpersonal interactions. For instance, I may observe a person in the gym doing strange exercises, and then I will explain his behavior that maybe he doesn’t know how to use the machine or maybe he is training for this-and-that. The theory-theory relies on the early findings with children in a false belief task. In this task, children observe a person putting an object in the box and leaving the room, then they observe another person taking an object out of the box and hiding it in another box, then upon the return of the first person, the children are asked where the first person will look to retrieve the object. It turns out that before the age of four, children consistently answer incorrectly, stating that the person will look in the box where the object is, but not where the person believes it is. Theory-theory claims that it happens because before that age the child had not developed a theory that explains what is behind the person's actions. However, maybe the child doesn’t develop a theory because the experimental situation is unfamiliar. Recently, my capacity for explaining the actions of some world leaders is also quite limited.

• Modularity theories. These ones are drawing from the conception of cognition in general as modular. This conception supposes that there are innate, specialized, and encapsulated modules for different cognitive functions. In social cognition, one variant of modularity suggests that humans have the following modules: 1) intentionality detector—perception of intentions in other agents, 2) eye direction detector—perception of orientation of someone’s eyes, 3) shared attention mechanism—establishment of an encompassing relation between the agents in the interaction and the object of the interaction, 4) theory-of-mind mechanism—representation and understanding of other’s mental states, 5) emotion detector—perception of emotions in interactions, 6) empathizing system—recognition of emotional states of others. The proponents of the theory also claim that although modules are innate, they develop in the course of life. Also, it seems that modularity can explain selective impairments in social skills in certain conditions, such as autism. Possibly, it may explain many other conditions; you just need to add one more module.

• Simulation theory. The claim here is that in order to understand others, we attempt to put ourselves in their position and simulate what it could feel like. Some advocates of simulation theory would distinguish between explicit and implicit simulation, with explicit being a conscious imagination and implicit being a subconscious process involving mirror neurons. Mirror neurons have been discovered in the monkey motor cortex. They were activated in cases when the monkey was moving, but also when observing an experimenter's movement. The conclusion followed that these neurons simulate the movement during mere observation. The stretch to social cognition was an easy one.

• Empathy theory. This one states that we are able to directly reverberate our own mental reality with the mental reality of other people. The theory allows for a possibility of a system for direct perception of affective state. Empathy theory is trying really hard to be distinct from simulation theory.

• Enactivist theories. Enactivists emphasize the embodied nature of cognition. It means that we are capable of perceiving emotional states and intentions of other people without additional thinking because it happens while we observe their body position and facial expressions. Moreover, the social understanding emerges from the process of interaction in social settings instead of mere observation. Some prefer books over interactions with people, which then, according to enactivists, would make them lack social understanding. Don’t read books.

• Predictive processing theories. The main claim is that the brain is a predictive machine. All the time, the brain builds predictions about the causes of events in the environment and compares the predictions with outcomes in order to update its model of the world. The main aim of the brain is to minimize surprise. i.e., minimize the difference between prediction and outcome (which is prediction error). Predictive processing has been applied to many areas of cognitive science. For social cognition, it states that the brain tries to build the model of social interactions and minimize prediction error associated with social understanding. If you were looking for a theory that can explain everything, you found it. Nothing seems suspicious, does it?

From reviewing all the theories of social cognition, the author concludes that none of them alone can explain social cognition. Therefore, the author advocates for a pluralistic approach. Given that our social interactions are so complicated, it makes sense to assume that one theory may explain one facet of social interactions, while another - a different facet. Or one theory may explain the social cognition of one level of explanation, while another - on the different level (three levels of explanation were introduced by Marr; they are computational, algorithmic, and implementational). Via meticulous philosophical analysis, the author shows that many theories have points of contact.

I can agree with pluralism; it seems to be a fruitful direction to follow in social cognition research. But if I were to pick one theory, it would be a simulation theory. It does feel sometimes that I'm simulating other people's thoughts and feelings.

The book reads fast and is written in a plain and coherent style. The breadth of information covered is satisfying: it covers both empirical findings and philosophical works. I would benefit from a separate section for each of the theories covering what level of explanation they reside in. Sometimes, these comments were in the text but somehow mixed with the rest of a discourse. Additionally, I would be curious to learn the opinion of the author. I understand that this book is probably targeted at students and is supposed to provide a general overview, but a section or two could have been dedicated to explicitly promoting pluralism. With that being said, I recommend the book for a broad reader.

I consider myself a cognitive scientist, and I was skeptical when I learned that some philosophers step into discussions about what is clearly the realm of cognitive science. After finishing the book, I understand the importance. While being cognitive scientists, we are also simultaneously being humans. We have beliefs and desires and a certain way we see the world. The task of a philosopher is to take a detached point of view and analyze all of the advances while being an outsider. Together with a philosopher's critical evaluation skills, the outside perspective can give us, cognitive scientists, a means of getting out of our bubble and examining our own theories differently.

Favorite quote (actually a quote from Alison Gopnik):

“But what do babies see when they look out at other people? They know so much less than we do. It’s not hard to imagine that, as we coo and mug for them, they only see strange bags of skin stuffed into clothes, with two restless dots at the top and a hole underneath that opens and closes. “

May, 2025