Shannon Spaulding, “How We Understand Others: Philosophy and Social Cognition” (Routledge, 2018))

New Books in Sociology · Nov 15, 2018 · 1h 5m

Social cognition includes the ways we explain, predict, interpret, and influence other people. The dominant philosophical theories of social cognition–the theory-theory and the simulation theory–have provided focused accounts of mindreading, the more specific practice of ascribing beliefs, desires, and intentions to others in order to predict and explain their behavior. In How We Understand Others: Philosophy and Social Cognition (Routledge, 2018), Shannon Spaulding draws on social psychological research and kindred spirits in philosophy to argue for an expansion of this traditional focus. In…