The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds
Sarah Vincent and Shaun Gallagher authored the chapter entitled, “From False Beliefs to True Interactions: Are Chimpanzees Socially Enactive?”
Abstract:
In their 1978 paper, psychologists David Premack and Guy Woodruff posed the question, “Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?” They treated this question as interchangeable with the inquiry, “Does a chimpanzee make inferences about another individual, in any degree or kind?” Here, we offer an alternative way of thinking about this issue, positing that while chimpanzees may not possess a theory of mind in the strict sense, we ought to think of them as enactive perceivers of practical and social affordances. As such, we reframe the question: “Are chimpanzees socially enactive?”