Abstrakt
Theory of mind, or mindreading - the ability to understand other people's reasons for actions, mental states and emotions based on their behavior - has become one of the most prominent concepts of cognitive science within cognitive literary studies. The use of the concept ranges from broad claims about the nature and understanding of fiction in general to the specific issue of "autistic narratives" depicting autism in narrative on the level of content and/or form.
Ian A. Apperly's distinction of "three quite different ways of thinking about ToM: as a conceptual problem to be understood, as a set of cognitive processes, and as a social competence or motivation that might vary between individuals" is useful.
In looking at the work of the US writer William Faulkner, I argue that in his rich (re)presentation of the mental life of his characters, Faulkner anticipates contemporary cognitive science and philosophy of mind's view of human mind. In his novel As I Lay Dying, Faulkner's depiction of theory of mind closely follows psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen's "reading the mind in the eye" account of mindreading as well as portrays the cognitive ability in all the aspects distinguished by Apperly.
More importantly, paying attention to Faulkner's use of theory of mind allows me to point out the fundamentally embodied nature of mind that Faulkner puts forth in a novel that has traditionally been seen as positing a dualistic account of body and mind.