Chamois, Camille

Is perspectivism a “local theory of mind”? - 2021.


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‪This article analyzes the relevance of a psychosocial interpretation of “perspectivism”. We focus on Aparecida Vilaça’s hypothesis, formulated within a project led by Tanya Luhrmann, that perspectivism can be understood as a “local theory of mind”. We thus assess the idea that there are sociocultural variations in perspective-taking capacities. In the first part, we compare three distinct approaches: the definition of perspectivism as “metaphysics”, developed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro; the cognitive approach of perspective-taking, as a universally shared capacity; and the idea, advanced by Shali Wu and Boaz Keysar, that there is a strong effect of culture on perspective-taking abilities. In the second part, we demonstrate that a definition of perspective-taking as a socially structured competence constitutes a fruitful ethno-psychological program. We then exemplify this idea by comparing it with recent models in the field of anthropology (such as the theory of the opacity of other minds).‪