Introduction: Against ‘Theory of Mind’

Abstract

The ‘Theory of Mind’ (ToM) framework has been associated with one of the fastest growing bodies of empirical research in psychology over the last 30 years, and has also given rise to a range of different theoretical positions and elaborations within those positions. However, the approach has remained unusually self-enclosed, avoiding any sustained engagement with alternative explanations of social action such as discursive psychology or socio-cultural psychology. By comparison with the wealth of articles and books published by proponents of ToM, the critical literature on ToM is rather limited, consisting of a few articles and monographs taking issue with its assumptions (e.g., Hobson, 1991; Carpendale and Lewis, 2004), methods (Dunn, 1988; Reddy, 1991, 2007) and empirical findings (McCabe, Leudar and Antaki, 2004; McCabe, Leudar and Healey, 2005; Ochs and Solomon 2007). There is, however, also important recent work within the philosophy of mind directed against ToM (e.g., Zahavi, 2006; Hutto, 2008). To our knowledge there exists not a single published response in which proponents of ‘Theory of Mind’ address systematically and carefully the objections to their programme. Indeed, critical studies are either ignored or subjected to considerably more methodological scrutiny than confirmatory findings. ‘Theory of Mind’ has become so much a part of the furniture in developmental and cognitive psychology that it is now largely confused with the very phenomena it was introduced to explain.