Multiplicity Needs Coherence – Towards a Unifying Framework for Social Understanding

In this commentary, I focus on Albert Newen’s multiplicity view (MV) and aim to provide an alternative framework in which it can be embedded. Newen claims that social understanding draws on at least four different epistemic mechanisms, thus rejecting the idea that there is a default mechanism for social cognition. I claim that MV runs the risk of combining elements that have been described in metaphysically incompatible theories. I will argue that multiplicity needs coherence, which can be achieved by applying the theoretical framework of first-, second-, and third-order embodiment (1-3E; Metzinger 2014) to the study of social cognition. The modified version of this theory, 1-3sE (first-, second-, and third-order social embodiment), can serve as a unifying framework for a pluralistic account of social understanding.