INTRODUCTION: Anthropologists have for some time reported that people living in a number of societies around the world insist that they can never know what goes on in the minds of others, and that this holds true regardless of what those others might choose to say or what people might observe about their behaviors. Such claims about the radical inability to know what is in the minds of others have come to be called doctrines of “mental opacity” or of “the opacity of mind” and their psychological and social ramifications are now widely debated. In this paper, I first review some of the major debates that mark this area of study, considering how they raise fundamental anthropological questions about the extent and limits of cross-cultural variation inhow people approach the world. I argue for the position that cross-cultural variation can be extensive even in areas such as that of mind-reading that academics generally argue must be present in all societies. To support this point, I consider the role played by the problem of coordinating action in philosophical, linguistic and anthropological discussions of the universal necessity of mind-reading and trust. Looking in some detail at one case of a group in which opacity doctrines are strong, I examine local notions and valuations of coordinated action and of trust in order to suggest that problems of social coordination and trust in others may not be as universally worrisome to people as much of the literature suggests.
Time:13:00pm，15th, November Venue:Room 525, Fashang Building North
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