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Articles

The interactive turn in social cognition research: A critique

 

Proponents of the so-called “interactive turn in social cognition research” maintain that mainstream research on social cognition has been fundamentally flawed by its neglect of social interaction, and that a new paradigm is needed in order to redress this shortcoming. We argue that proponents of the interactive turn (“interactionists”) have failed to properly substantiate their criticisms of existing research on social cognition. Although it is sometimes unclear precisely what these criticisms of existing theories are supposed to target, we sketch two possibilities: interactionists can either accept the primary explanandum addressed by mainstream social cognition research—namely mindreading—and claim that interactionism contributes some hitherto neglected but necessary component of a successful explanans, or they can argue that mainstream research has focused on a misconceived explanandum. We argue that interactionist claims of both sorts are problematic.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to audiences at Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Boğaziçi Universities for helpful discussion. We also thank Adrian Alsmith, Ezequiel Di Paolo, Shaun Gallagher, Johan Gersel, Thor Grünbaum, Dan Hutto, Dan Zahavi, and three reviewers for Philosophical Psychology, all of whom offered constructive criticism.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Søren Overgaard

Søren Overgaard is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen.

John Michael

John Michael is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen.

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