This comment on Stueber’s article clarifies the nature of the core disagreement between his approach to understanding reasons and mine. The purely philosophical nature of the dispute is highlighted. It is argued that understanding someone’s narrative often suffices for understanding the person’s reasons in ordinary cases. It is observed that Stueber has yet to provide a compelling counter case. There is also a brief clarification of some of the empirical commitments of the narrative practice hypothesis.
ApperlyI.ButterfillS. A. (2009). Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states?Psychological Review, 116, 953–970.
2.
CurrieG. (2010). Narratives and narrators. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
3.
StueberK. R. (2006). Rediscovering empathy: Agency, folk psychology and the human sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
4.
StueberK. R. (2012). Varieties of empathy, neuroscience and the narrativist challenge to the contemporary theory of mind debate. Emotion Review, 4, 55–63.
