In this article, we argue that the growth of research in cognitively and experimentally oriented pragmatics in the last two decades has rested on two epistemological assumptions: that theoretical-pragmatic notions such as ‘implicature’, ‘metaphor’ and ‘irony’ correspond to distinct types of pragmatic inferences, and that each theoretical-pragmatic characterization of a certain type of inference corresponds to one and only one cognitive model of processing in the mind. We review the foundations of these assumptions and we problematize them based on (i) a conceptual argument that notions such as ‘implicature’ and ‘irony’ are originally meant as relations between propositions rather than types of inferences, and (ii) on recent experimental evidence which suggests that whether mentalizing is employed in pragmatic processing or not is not a function of the type of pragmatic relation, but rather it depends on situation-specific considerations and characteristics of the interlocutor, such as age and neurotype. These considerations call for a new understanding of the role of experimental evidence in the evaluation of pragmatic theories. This article is part of the theme issue ‘At the heart of human communication: new views on the complex relationship between pragmatics and Theory of Mind’
