Deep and dynamic interaction : response to Hanne De Jaegher

Abstract

First, let me thank Hanne De Jaegher for her comments on my paper, and more generally for her reminder of the importance of social interaction in addressing the problem of social cognition. I agree with much of what she says, including the suggestion that the proponents of the more cognitive accounts of social cognition may try to appropriate elements of interaction theory (IT). Indeed, in some quarters this has already happened (see, e.g., [Currie, 2008] and Herschbach, 2008 M. Herschbach, False-belief understanding and the phenomenological critique of folk psychology, Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (12) (2008), pp. 33–56. View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (4)[Herschbach, 2008]). What is appropriated, however, is not only (if at all) the aspect of direct perception, but the idea of basic interaction itself. One wonders, however, whether this might not be a good thing, in a Trojan Horse sort of way. After all, both De Jaegher and I are trying to present convincing evidence in support of an interaction account, and to some extent the fact that more cognitivist explanations (like TT or ST) are softening toward various aspects of IT may signal some sort of theoretical progress. Unfortunately, however, proponents of the more cognitivist views are holding tightly to their rigid theoretical assumptions and are simply trying to make a little room for the vocabulary of IT. Part of the task is to move them from an overly fast assimilation to a more considered accommodation, and then further to the point of a complete reframing of their assumptions.