Insight and self-observation

their role in the analysis of the etiology of illness

Alfred H. Stanton

pp. 33-47

in: Lucia Vaina, Jaakko Hintikka (eds), Cognitive constraints on communication, Berlin, Springer, 1984

Abstract

The subheading "On Reading Minds," is not without risk in a symposium of experts on schizophrenia, particularly if it suggests a cookbook set of directions. However, the way one reads minds is clear; it is similar to the way one reads books. One listens to what someone else has to say and hears what that person has in mind; not everything in his mind, and not necessarily accurately what is in his mind, but something of what he has in mind. This is a wonderful and improbable set of phenomena; that thoughts are quickly transferred back and forth between two organisms in a universe which, at first glance, would not seem to be a likely place for such an occurrence.