Mindreading and Introspection
Abstract
Abstract: In this article I take a nativist-modularist perspective on mindreading, endorsing the hypothesis that a form of primary mindreading is not a developmental achievement, but an innate social-cognitive evolutionary adaptation implemented by neurocomputational mechanisms that come online during the first year of age. Moreover, I recommend a cognitive-constructivist stance on introspection. Expanding on Peter Carruthers’ strong case for the claim that mindreading has a functional and evolutionary priority over introspection, I maintain that mindreading is also developmentally prior to introspection. If the latter is not taken as a competence in isolation, but placed in its context of meaning, i.e., the construction and defense of subjective identity, good reasons emerge for arguing that it takes shape through the act of turning on oneself the capacity to mindread other people; and that this occurs through that socio-communicative interaction with caregivers (and successively other social partners) investigated by the attachment theory.
Keywords: Attachment; Subjective identity; Introspection; Mindreading.
Comprensione della mente altrui e introspezione
Riassunto: In questo articolo assumo una prospettiva innatistico-modularistica in relazione alla capacità di comprendere le menti altrui (mindreading), accogliendo l’ipotesi che una forma primaria di mindreading sia non già una conquista ontogenetica bensì un adattamento socio-cognitivo realizzato da meccanismi neurocomputazionali specifici per dominio, già operativi intorno ai 12 mesi di età. Adotterò invece una prospettiva cognitiva e costruttivista sull’introspezione. Estendendo il ragionamento di Peter Carruthers in favore della tesi secondo cui il mind-reading ha una priorità funzionale e filogenetica sull’introspezione, sosterrò che la prima capacità ha una priorità anche ontogenetica sulla seconda. Se la mentalizzazione in prima persona è presa nel suo contesto di senso, ovvero la costruzione e difesa dell’identità soggettiva, si può sostenere che essa si costituisce nell’atto di rivolgere su se stessi la capacità di mentalizzare in terza persona, e che questo si verifica in virtù di quella interazione socio-comunicativa con il caregiver (e successivamente con gli altri partner sociali) che è oggetto di indagine della psicodinamica dell’attaccamento.
Parole chiave: Attaccamento; Identità soggettiva; Introspezione; MindreadingParole chiave
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PDFRiferimenti bibliografici
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.4453/rifp.2015.0023
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