Empatia e lettura della mente : l'origine di un fraintendimento

The aim of this work is to analyze the origin of a conceptual misunderstanding about the meaning of mindreading. By analyzing the genealogy of the concept, the author shows that mentalizing is the naturalized response to the Cartesian doubt about human nature; no longer, therefore, res cogitans and/or res extensa, but rather mindreading. Her argument is based on four premises: Cartesian dualism; folk psychology; empathy understood as a cognitive tool; the intention of naturalizing ethics. She traces the origin of the misunderstanding from post-Cartesian philosophy to the contemporary debate. Folk psychology has completely obscured the nature of mindreading, since it has excluded from the debate metaphysical research on the mental, using empathy as a psychological glue to explain the mind of the Other and his or her emotionality. [Publisher's text]