Dissertation

Mind in Practice : A Pragmatic and Interdisciplinary Account of Intersubjectivity

This book is about what happens when two people meet. Its main aim is to present an account of intersubjectivity.

Author

Leon de Bruin

Date

29 September 2010

Most contemporary explanations of intersubjectivity fall into two main categories: theory theory and simulation theory. This book seeks to undermine the picture of intersubjectivity taken for granted by these accounts, and instead shows what social sense-making looks like from a pragmatic point of view. It proposes that intersubjectivity is enabled through a large range of second-person practices: (i) embodied practices allow us to employ various innate or early developing capacities that constitute a base-line for social understanding, (ii) embedded practices enable us to understand others within a broader social and pragmatic context, and (iii) narrative practices provide us with stories about self and other in order to further fine-tune and sophisticate our intersubjective interactions. 

Supervisor: prof.dr. G.Glas

Cum laude

• intersubjectivity
• simulation theory