Abstract

Towards the end of the 1980s, theory-theory and modularity-theory were accompanied by a rival approach, the simulation-theory, put forward by philosophers Robert Gordon (1986), Jane Heal (1986) and Alvin Goldman (1989) and by developmental psychologist Paul Harris (1992). They reject the idea of a rich body of information needed to understand others. In this chapter, we discuss Alvin Goldman's detailed proposal, according to which we use our own subjective experience as a model to understand what others think and feel. We analyze the notion of mental simulation in some detail and evaluate its application to two distinct levels of mindreading, both of which employ the imagination as a core capacity. Finally, we evaluate theories of embodied simulation which appeal to the mirror neuron system on the implementation level in support of a version of simulation-theory and discuss the contribution of mirror neurons to social understanding more generally.