An unsettled theory of mind

Abstract

Theory of Mind (ToM) research often takes for granted that minds have certain basic features: that they reside primarily in brains, that cognition and sensation are functionally and architecturally distinct, and that sophisticated ToM is uniquely human. This contribution examines an alternative ToM preserved in the archival testimonies of nineteenth-century |Xam hunter-gatherers in southern Africa, demonstrating how distinct ontologies yield fundamentally different understandings of cognition, consciousness, and their distributions in the world. Grounded in detailed anatomical knowledge and systematic environmental awareness, |Xam neuroanatomical theory locates mental processes in the throat, arteries and spine rather than the brain, understands thought to be rooted in observable physiological processes within the self and the other, and recognises consciousness across species boundaries. The studied archive reveals distinctly phenomenological accounts of cognition, identifying thought through perception of certain movements: in the internal movements of one’s own body and in external movements of social others, human or otherwise, demonstrating their own awareness of being observed. The |Xam criteria for conscious agency in the world thus functions as commentaries on their own experiences of mind, resonating with contemporary questions about embodied cognition and awareness, and the distribution of consciousness in the body beyond the brain, and in the world beyond the human.