Publications
Publication details [#48109]
Sinha, Chris, Esa Itkonen, Jordan Zlatev and Timothy P. Racine, eds. 2008. The Shared Mind. Perspectives on intersubjectivity. (Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 12). John Benjamins. xiii+391 pp.
Publication type
Book – edited volume
Publication language
English
Keywords
Annotation
The cognitive and language sciences are increasingly oriented towards the social dimension of human cognition and communication. The hitherto dominant approach in modern cognitive science has viewed “social cognition” through the prism of the traditional philosophical puzzle of how individuals solve the problem of understanding Other Minds. The Shared Mind challenges the conventional “theory of mind” approach, proposing that the human mind is fundamentally based on intersubjectivity: the sharing of affective, conative, intentional and cognitive states and processes between a plurality of subjects. The socially shared, intersubjective foundation of the human mind is manifest in the structure of early interaction and communication, imitation, gestural communication and the normative and argumentative nature of language. In this volume, leading researchers from psychology, linguistics, philosophy and primatology offer complementary perspectives on the role of intersubjectivity in the context of human development, comparative cognition and evolution, and language and linguistic theory.