[Intersubjectivity: Between Explanation and Understanding].
Revista Colombiana de psiquiatria March 1, 2014 Flor Emilce Cely Ávila
The longstanding division between the natural sciences, which aim at explanation, and the social sciences, which aim at understanding or interpretation, is being challenged by interdisciplinary work on the emergence of the mental within intersubjective relationships. Phenomenology's concept of intersubjectivity as an embodied practice now finds support from cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychology. Authors like J. Bruner and S. Gallagher propose such collaboration as a way to integrate the traditions of explanation and understanding. This paper analyzes how far this collaboration, especially on understanding others and its relevance for psychopathologies, has closed the gap that opened in the nineteenth century between these traditions.