The Second-Person Perspective of Mental States Attribution: A Systematic Review of its Current State of Development

Abstract

In psychology and philosophy of mind, the problem of knowledge of other minds is a field of rich disputes. Running counter to the perspectives of first- and third-person mental attribution, which assume that minds are opaque and that access to them is inferential, the second-person perspective postulates the existence of a non-representational way of knowing other minds, which is presumed to emerge within early communicative exchanges in the form of natural, basic, and direct emotional involvement. In this systematic review article, 57 philosophy or psychology manuscripts were selected with the aim of analyzing and comparing them. This study makes it possible to assess: (a) the current status of the second person perspective, (b) its main findings in developmental psychology and psychopathology, (c) the methodological discussions that stem from its assumption, and (d) a set of internal and external criticisms and questions formulated with respect to it. It is concluded that the second person perspective has a heuristic value and would be remarkably enriched if it carefully addressed the criticisms leveled against it.