Pulcinella and Pinocchio: Toward a Comic Hermeneutics of Other Minds (Human and Artificial)

Abstract

The problem of other minds—whether human or artificial—is typically framed as an epistemic question: how can we know that another being has a conscious experience like our own? This paper argues that the epistemic framing is itself a product of a tragic conception of agency, where actions are expected to reveal fixed and final truths about character. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben's readings of two comic figures—Pinocchio (the marionette who may or may not be conscious) and Pulcinella (the mask who is neither alive nor dead)—and on Donald Davidson's principle of charity and radical interpretation, we develop a comic hermeneutics of other minds. In comedy, unlike tragedy, the demand for definitive knowledge about the other is suspended; interpretation becomes play, and the other is accepted as a living mask whose inner life, whether present or absent, does not need to be settled for us to engage with them. This comic hermeneutics does not solve the problem of other minds but renders it irrelevant to action—a conclusion with profound implications for how we might relate to advanced artificial intelligence.