# Direct Social Perception **Opening (not a real abstract):** Defenders of a direct perception approach to other minds—​what I’ll here refer to as direct social perception (DSP)—​argue that we directly perceive mental states.1 I see my partner’s sadness in her slumped shoulders, furrowed brow, and quiet speech; my niece’s joy in her unrestrained laughter and sprightly gait; a friend’s desire for a beer as he opens the refrigerator door and reaches for a bottle. In these and other cases, emotions and desires aren’t hidden away behind behavior. They are concretely embodied in behavior. And when I see this behavior, I see these mental states directly, without inferential mediation. I see mind in action. DSP challenges a dominant supposition about the hiddenness of mental states in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Call this supposition the “unobservability **Authors:** [[Kruger]]