Against Theory of Mind (Electronic book text)

The 'theory of mind' framework has been the fastest growing body of empirical research in contemporary psychology; it has given rise to a range of positions on what it takes to relate to others as intentional beings. Yet the approach has avoided any sustained engagement with alternative explanations of social action and experience, such as socio-cultural psychology, dialogical psychology, discursive psychology, narrative psychology or ethnomethodology. This volume brings together disparate strands of theory of mind research and mercilessly documents conceptual errors on which the approach is based and pseudo problems which it tries to answer. The book lays out the historical roots of the theory of mind idea and indicates better alternatives, such as ecologically informed narrative psychology.