Mark asked:

With regard to empathy, what exactly is the simulation theory? What are the major arguments in
favour if it being the central method of understanding other people?

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Greg Currie, at the Flinders University of South Australia has written an excellent short account of his
research into 'simulation theory' and its rival 'theory theory' which you will find at
http://wwwehlt.flinders.edu.au/philosophy/research.html.

According to Greg Currie, simulation theory 'says that I put myself in another's
shoes by running my own mental processes "off-line", disconnected from sensory inputs and
behavioural outputs. Instead of applying a (rough and ready) psychological theory to the other
person, I take on pretend or imagined versions of the beliefs and desires I would have if I were in that
situation, and then I just observe what decision I make.' Whereas, on the alternative view, 'we
theorize about others, and about ourselves, on the basis of the behaviour we observe, and the theory
we arrive at is a theory of mind. We then apply the theory to people so as to make predictions about
their behaviour, just as we apply scientific theories to stones and planets.'

It seems to me that there is a third, more fundamental approach to understanding others which both
simulation theory and theory theory presuppose. This is when I don't use any means or method of
interpreting another person's behaviour. I don't formulate a 'theory' on the basis of 'evidence'. I don't
first go through a routine of imagining what it would be like to be in their situation. I simply seetheir
action for what it is. In the vast majority of cases, people would be very perplexed if you asked them
how they knew about the mental states of others, or how they knew why another person did what
they did.

I am not putting this forward as the overlooked 'third alternative' between the two theories which
Currie describes. There are times when one has to make a positive effort to 'put oneself in another
person's shoes'. Imagination is an intellectual capacity that needs to be exercised, and some are
more proficient at it than others. It is the skill possessed to a high degree by the novelist, who
succeeds in drawing us into an imaginary character's world. There are other times when the focus is
rather on making sense of a person's actions in relation to their situation. The more we find out about
that situation the more evidence we will have for our 'theory'. It is an empirical question at just what
point empathizing ends and theorising begins or vice versa.

One of the characteristics which marks the autistic child is the lack of a capacity or concept of how
things appear from another person's point of view. There are psychological tests, which most children
are able to pass by the age of four or five, to determine whether they are able to attribute false beliefs
to a real, or imaginary individual. 'Noddy has put his chocolate bar in the tin, but when Noddy wasn't
looking, Lucy took the chocolate bar out of the tin and put it under the bed. Where will Noddy look for
the chocolate? The child who answers, 'Under the bed' has not yet grasped the idea of 'how things
are so far as Noddy's state of belief is concerned'. There is only 'how things are', full stop.

Exactly what capacity does the autistic child, or the child under a certain age, lack? Do they lack the
emotional capacity for empathy? or the intellectual mastery of a psychology theory whose inputs are
what another person wants and what they believe? This is a murky area.

But there is a prior, strictly philosophical question, concerning how it is possibleto make sense of
another person's actions at all. Suppose little green aliens landed from Mars. It does not seem
impossible that we could learn to communicate, and to make sense of one another's actions. Yet
there would be crucial areas where we simply could not seehow things were for them, or they with
us, with our radically different 'nature'. For all that, there would necessarily be something we had in
common. There would be things we needed in order to live, even if they were different things, there
would be things that gave us pleasure, even if they were different things, and so on. Most importantly,
we would each possess a language where actions could be explained by giving reasons.

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It is the capacity for language, for reason, that makes me,myself the instrument that perceives the
meaning of another person's actions, just as the eye is the instrument for perceiving objects. In an
important sense, what the autistic child lacks is a crucial constituent of rationality. To say that,
however, does not make the phenomenon of autism any less puzzling, or go any way towards
resolving the clash between 'simulation theory' and 'theory theory'.

Geoffrey Klempner