I Could Be You: the Phenomenological Dimension of Social Understanding

This paper discusses the phenomenological dimension of social understanding. The author’s general hypothesis is that complex forms of social unders . standing that biological agents especially humans show are based on two s . mechanisms: 1 the bodily, experiential dynamics of emphatic resonance s . and 2 the biographic reconstruction of a communication situation. The latter requires the agent’s bodily experiences as the point of reference for the reconstruction process. This hypothesis is derived from discussions in philosophy, natural sciences, and cognitive science on the social embodiment of cognition and understanding. Evidence comes from studies on social cognition in primates, infants, and autistic people that are interpreted in terms of the `̀ mind-experiencing’’ hypothesis. The second part of the