I research and teach on joint action, mindreading and other philosophical issues in cognitive science. (If you were after furniture or flooring, you want my brother Matt.)
Please email me for copies of papers. (Links to pdfs are below where I'm allowed to include them.)
Cognitive Architecture of Belief Reasoning in Children and Adults: A Two-Systems Account Primer (forthcoming)
--- by Jason Low, Ian Apperly, Stephen Butterfill and Hannes Rakoczy, Child Development Perspectives
--- links: [pdf]
Coordinating Joint Action (forthcoming)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill
in Kirk Ludwig & Marija Jankovic (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Collective Intentionality Routledge
--- links: [pdf]
Joint Action: A Minimalist Approach (forthcoming)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill
in Julian Kiverstein (eds.), Routledge Handbook on the Social Mind Routledge
--- links: [pdf]
Review of Joint Commitment by Margaret Gilbert (forthcoming)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Journal of Moral Philosophy
--- links: [pdf]
Tracking and Representing Others’ Mental States (2016)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill
in Andrews, K. and Beck, J. (eds.), Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Animal Minds , London: Routledge
--- links: [pdf]
Planning for Collective Agency (2016)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill
in Catrin Misselhorn (eds.), Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems Synthese Library, vol 122, pp. 149--168
--- links: [pdf]
Motor Representation in Goal Ascription (2016)
--- by Corrado Sinigaglia and Stephen A. Butterfill
in Yann Coello and Martin Fischer (eds.), Foundations of embodied cognition 2: Conceptual and Interactive Embodiment Psychology Press, pp. 150-164
--- links: [pdf]
Is Goal Ascription Possible in Minimal Mindreading? [Reply to Michael and Christensen] (2016)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill and Ian A. Apperly, Psychological Review
123(2), pp. 228-233
--- links: [pdf] external [doi: 10.1037/rev0000022]
Perceiving Expressions of Emotion: What evidence could bear on questions about perceptual experience of mental states? (2015)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Consciousness and Cognition
36, pp. 438--451
--- links: [pdf] external [doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2015.03.008]
From foraging to autonoetic consciousness: The primal self as a consequence of embodied prospective foraging (2015)
--- by Thomas T. Hills and Stephen A. Butterfill, Current Zoology
61(2), pp. 368--381
--- links: [pdf] [publisher's page]
On a Puzzle about Relations between Thought, Experience and the Motoric (2015)
--- by Corrado Sinigaglia and Stephen A. Butterfill, Synthese
192(6), pp. 1923-1936
--- links: [pdf] external [doi: 10.1007/s11229-015-0672-x]
Intention and Motor Representation in Purposive Action (2014)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill and Corrado Sinigaglia, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
88(1), pp. 119-145
--- links: [pdf] external [doi: 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2012.00604.x]
How to Construct a Minimal Theory of Mind (2013)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill and Ian A. Apperly, Mind and Language
28(5), pp. 606-637
--- links: [pdf]
Replies to Three Commentaries on ‘How to Construct a Minimal Theory of Mind’ (2013)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill & Ian A. Apperly
in John Schwenkler (eds.), Brains (philosophyofbrains.com)
--- links: [pdf]
What Does Knowledge Explain? Commentary on Jennifer Nagel (2013)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill
in Tamar Szabó Gendler and John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 4, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 309-320
--- links: [pdf]
Introduction: Symposium on ‘How to Constuct a Minimal Theory of Mind’ (2013)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill & Ian A. Apperly
in John Schwenkler (eds.), Brains (philosophyofbrains.com)
--- links: [pdf]
Tool Use and Causal Cognition (2012)
--- by Teresa McCormack, Christoph Hoerl and Stephen A. Butterfill (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press; ISBN: 9780199571154
--- links: external [doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571154.001.0001] [publisher's page]
Interacting Mindreaders (2012)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Philosophical Studies
165(3), pp. 841-863
--- links: [pdf] external [doi: 10.1007/s11098-012-9980-x]
Direct and indirect measures of Level-2 perspective-taking in children and adults (2012)
--- by Andrew Surtees, Stephen A. Butterfill and Ian Apperly, British Journal of Developmental Psychology
30(1), pp. 75-86
--- links: external [doi: 10.1111/j.2044-835X.2011.02063.x]
Joint Action: What Is Shared? (2011)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill and Natalie Sebanz (eds.), Review of Philosophy and Psychology
2(2)
--- links: [publisher's page]
Gaining Knowledge via Other Minds: Children's Flexible Trust in Others as Sources of Information (2011)
--- by Elizabeth J. Robinson, Stephen A. Butterfill and Erika Nurmsoo, British Journal of Developmental Psychology
29(4), pp. 961-980
--- links: external [doi: 10.1111/j.2044-835X.2011.02036.x]
Infants' Representations of Causation (Commentary on Susan Carey, The Origin of Concepts) (2011)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Behavioral and Brain Sciences
34(3), pp. 126-127
--- links: external [doi: 10.1017/S0140525X10002426]
Joint Action and Development (2011)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Philosophical Quarterly
62(246), pp. 23-47
--- links: [pdf] external [doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.00005.x]
Joint Action: What Is Shared? Introduction to the special issue (2011)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill and Natalie Sebanz, Review of Philosophy and Psychology
2(2), pp. 137-146
--- links: external [doi: 10.1007/s13164-011-0062-3]
Psychological Research on Joint Action (2011)
--- by Guenther Knoblich, Stephen A. Butterfill and Natalie Sebanz
in B. Ross (eds.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation (Vol. 51) , Burlington: Academic Press, pp. 59-101; ISBN: 978-0-12-385527-5
--- links: external [doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385527-5.00003-6]
A Minimal Architecture for Joint Action (2010)
--- by Cordula Vesper, Stephen A. Butterfill, Guenther Knoblich and Natalie Sebanz, Neural Networks
23(8-9), pp. 998-1003
--- links: external [doi: 10.1016/j.neunet.2010.06.002]
Children's Selective Learning from Others (2010)
--- by Erika Nurmsoo, Elizabeth Robinson, and Stephen A. Butterfill, Review of Philosophy and Psychology
1(4), pp. 551-561
--- links: external [doi: 10.1007/s13164-010-0043-y]
Cue Competition Effects and Young Children's Causal and Counterfactual Inferences (2009)
--- by Teresa McCormack, Stephen A. Butterfill, Christoph Hoerl and Patrick Burns, Developmental Psychology
45(6), pp. 1563-1575
--- links: external [doi: 10.1037/a0017408]
Review of Self-Knowing Agents by Lucy O'Brien (2009)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Philosophical Review
118(3), pp. 413-5
--- links: external [doi: 10.1215/00318108-2009-013]
Seeing Causes and Hearing Gestures (2009)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Philosophical Quarterly
59(236), pp. 405-428
--- links: external [doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2008.585.x]
Do Humans Have Two Systems to Track Beliefs and Belief-like States? (2009)
--- by Ian A. Apperly and Stephen A. Butterfill, Psychological Review
116(4), pp. 953-970
--- links: external [doi: 10.1037/a0016923]
Review of The Rational Imagination by Ruth Byrne (2008)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Mind
117(468), pp. 1065-1069
--- links: external [doi: 10.1093/mind/fzn127]
What are Modules and What Is Their Role in Development? (2007)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Mind and Language
22(4), pp. 450-73
--- links: external [doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00316.x]
Review of Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives. Edited by Quentin Smith and Aleksander Jokic (2005)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Philosophical Quarterly
55(219), pp. 373-375
--- links: external [doi: 10.1111/j.0031-8094.2005.00405.x]
Review of Thinking without Words by Jose Luis Bermudez (2004)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, Mind
113(452), pp. 733-736
--- links: external [doi: 10.1093/mind/113.452.733]
Two Kinds of Purposive Action (2001)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill, European Journal of Philosophy
9(2), pp. 141-165
--- links: external [doi: 10.1111/1468-0378.00133]
Awareness of Belief (2001)
--- by Stephen A. Butterfill
in Beckermann, Ansgar and Nimtz, Christian (eds.), Argument & Analyse, vol. 2 , Bielefeld: Mentis
--- links: [pdf]
How to Distinguish Two (Or More) Systems for Social Cognition
--- at The Nature and Origins of Human Cognition, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany, 31 March 2016
--- slides [html]
Core Knowledge, Phenomenal Expectations and Thought
--- at New Directions in Philosophical Psychlogy, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, 18 February 2016
--- slides [html]
Perceiving Mental States
--- University of Tuebingen, Germany, 16-24 December 2015
--- slides [html]
Purposive Action from Motor Representation to Intention
--- at How much mind do we need for responsibility?, Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, Germany, 12 November 2015
--- slides [html]
Acting Together: Motor Representation and Cooperation
--- at Kolloquium des Instituts für Philosophie II, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, 11 November 2015
--- slides [html], handout [pdf]
Acting Together & Acting as One
--- at Desire and Action, University of Antwerp, 23 September 2015
--- slides [html]
How Do Mindreaders Model Minds?
--- at Mindreading, an invited symposium at the European Soceity for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP), University of Tartu, Estonia, 15 July 2015
--- slides [html]
Only Phenomenal Expectations Connect Core Knowledge of Objects to Thought
--- at The Nature and Origins of Human Cognition, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany, 18 June 2015
--- slides [html], handout [pdf]
Introduction to the Workshop on Practical Reasoning and Motor Representation
--- at Practical Reasoning and Motor Representation, University of Warwick, UK, 1 June 2015
--- slides [pdf]
Acting Together and Acting As One
--- at Empathy, Group Membership and We-Intentionality, Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 22 May 2015
--- slides [html]
Commentary on Wolfgang Prinz and Michael Graziano
--- at Modelling Self on Other, Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, 19 May 2015
--- slides [html]
Systems, Models and Signature Limits
--- at Signature limits in implicit theory of mind: Evidence for two systems of mindreading? Workshop at the Society for Research in Child Development, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 20 March 2015
--- slides [html]
Naturalising Joint Actions
--- at Naturalising Action, University of Tuebingen, Germany, 13 December 2014
--- slides [html]
Minimal Models of the Physical and of the Mental: Processes, Representations and Signature Limits
--- at Minimal Mindreading, University of Magdeburg, Germany, 7 November 2014
--- slides [html], handout [pdf]
Joint Action without Mindreading
--- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany, 23 April 2014
--- slides [html], handout [pdf]
Joint Action
--- Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick, 28 February 2014
--- slides [html], handout [pdf]
Shared Agency Involves Changing Perspective
--- Department of Philosophy, University of Manchester, 19 February 2014
--- slides [html], handout [pdf]
Collective Intentionality and Social Intelligence
--- University of Vienna, Austria, 12 December 2013
Varieties of Joint Action
--- at Varieties of Shared Intentionality, Institute of Philosophy, London, 2-03 December 2013
Motor Representation in Joint Action
--- at Vision, Action and Concepts, University of Lille, France, 28-30 October 2013
--- slides [html]
Perceiving Anger and Sharing Smiles: The Roles of Perception and Social Interaction in Acquiring Knowledge of Others’ Mental States
--- at Emotion and Social Cognition, University of Manchester, 13 September 2013
Not Just Wide but Shared: Joint Action Is a Core Form of Social Intelligence
--- at Wide Cognition and Social Intelligence, Kazimierz Dolny, Poland, 19-23 August 2013
Collective Agency and Knowledge of Others’ Minds
--- at Aristotelian and Contemporary Perspectives on the Mind, University of Oxford, 6-7 August 2013
Planning for Collective Agency
--- University of Tuebingen, Germany, 24-24 July 2013
Planning for Collective Agency
--- at Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems, University of Stuttgart, Germany, 22-24 July 2013
Joint Action and the Emergence of Mindreading
--- at Origins of Social Cognition Lecture Series, University of Antwerp, 2 May 2013
Minimal Theory of Mind: How to Measure Mental States
--- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, 30 April 2013
How to Construct Cooperative Agents
--- at Cooperation: Why, How and With Whom?, University of Aarhus, 8-9 April 2013
Shared Agency with Parallel Planning
--- at Collective Intentionality, Center for interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, 2-4 April 2013
Two Systems and Two Theories of Mind
--- at Theory of Mind, Simulation and Meta-Cognition: Laureate's Colloquium with Josef Perner, Center for interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, 29 January 2013
--- slides [pdf], handout [pdf]
Monitoring and Controlling the Mental States of Others
--- at All Souls Metacognition Seminars, University of Oxford, 24 January 2013
--- slides [pdf], handout [pdf]
Shared Agency and Motor Representation
--- Department of Philosophy, Central European University, Budapest, 20 November 2012
--- slides [pdf], handout [pdf]
Interacting Mindreaders
--- Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, 5 September 2012
Motor Representation and Shared Intention
--- at Collective Intentionality VII, University of Manchester, 28-31 August 2012
--- slides [pdf], handout [pdf]
Intention and Motor Representation in Action Explanation
--- School of Psychology, University of Glasgow, 16 April 2012
Intention and Motor Representation in Explaining Action
--- at Reconceptions of Action, Ecole Normale Superieure, Lyon, 23-24 March 2012
Intention and Motor Representation in Joint Action
--- at Pre-Reflective and Reflective Processing in Social Interaction, University of Cambridge, 12-14 March 2012
--- slides [pdf], handout [pdf]
Intention and Motor Representation in Joint Action
--- Institut Jean-Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, 9 March 2012
Minimal Theory of Mind and Joint Action
--- University of Stirling, 17 November 2011
Joint Action and the Emergence of Mindreading
--- at Developmental Aspects of Joint Intentions and Actions, Institut Jean-Nicod, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, 3 November 2011
--- slides [pdf], handout [pdf]
How to Construct a Minimal Theory of Mind
--- CUNY Graduate Center, New York, 13 October 2011
The Problem of Other Minds
--- at The British Science Festival, Bradford, 12 September 2011
Which Joint Actions Ground Social Cognition
--- at Rational Agency, Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tuebingen, 6 June 2011
--- slides [pdf], handout [pdf]
Mindreading and Joint Action
--- at Das Gehirn - ein Beziehungsorgan, University of Heidelberg, 19 May 2011
--- slides [pdf], handout [pdf]
Talking About and Seeing Blue
--- at Colour and Sensory Knowledge, IUC Philosophy of Science Conference, Dubrovnik, 11-15 April 2011
--- slides [pdf]
Joint Action: Conceptual Tools for Scientific Research
--- Department of Philosophy, Università degli Studi di Milano, 15 February 2011
Joint Action and Knowing Others' Minds
--- at Mindreading, Radbound University Nijmegen, 28-29 January 2011
Social Cognition (2015-6)
--- Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick
Joint Action (2015-6)
--- Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick
Origins of Mind
--- Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick (2013-5)
--- Milan Version Department of Philosophy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy, September 2014
--- Tuebingen Version University of Tuebingen, Germany, December 2015
Joint Action and the Emergence of Mindreading (Summer 2011-2)
--- Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick
Mindreading and Joint Action: Philosophical Tools (Autumn 2011-2)
--- Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest
Logic 1 (current)
--- Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick
I research philosophical issues in cognitive and developmental psychology.
Most of my current research is on two topics, joint action and mindreading.
As well as writing alone on philosophical topics, I have some theoretical and experimental projects with scientific collaborators.
I am currently Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Warwick.
I have a DPhil and BPhil in Philosophy and a BA in Mathematics and Philosophy, all from the University of Oxford.
I live in Southampton, UK with my wife Elisabeth Schroeder-Butterfill and four kids. (I'm not related to a politician; I'm also neither Jeremy Butterfield nor David Buttelmann.)