Fictional minds extend for real

Bibliographic Data

ID21592016
AuthorsMarco Facchin (0000-0001-5753-9873, University of Antwerp, corresponding author)
Year2025
Pages1-24
Publication date2025-06-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09515089.2025.2516123
OpenAlexW4411182138
LanguageEN
References cited36

Toon’s (2023) Mind as Metaphor defends a fictionalist view of propositional attitude ascriptions, according to which propositional attitudes are metaphors projecting the use of certain representational media “inside” the agent. Ascribing a belief, for example, means treating a person as if they had an “inner notebook” storing the relevant information. Such a link between propositional attitude ascriptions and our material culture puts Toon’s view in the immediate vicinity of the extended mind thesis, of which Toon tries to offer a fictionalist rendition. Yet, Toon misses one of the most important connections between his brand of fictionalism and the extended mind thesis. For, as I shall show, his fictionalism entails a specific form of the extended mind thesis. Given how Toon analyzes the literal meaning of propositional attitudes ascriptions, then some ascriptions of extended propositional attitudes are literally true, in a way that entails the existence of the relevant, extended, propositional attitude. This, I shall further argue, is actually good news for Toon’s fictionalist proposal. For, the real existence of extended propositional attitudes is not just compatible with Toon’s fictionalism, but also able to bolster its explanatory power

Cognitive science · Epistemology · Action Observation and Synchronization · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Philosophy · Psychology