Folk psychology
Folk psychology (sometimes called
naive psychology or
common sense psychology) is the set of background assumptions, socially-conditioned prejudices and convictions that are implicit in our everyday descriptions of others' behavior and in our ascriptions of their mental states. It includes concepts such as
belief ("he thinks that Peter is wise"),
desire ("she wants that piece of cake"),
fear ("Alex is afraid of spiders") and
hope ("she hopes that he is on time today"). Such ascriptions are collectively known as
propositional attitude ascriptions.
The question whether folk psychology can, or should, be considered a fully developed
psychological theory has been the subject of intense debate.
Eliminative materialists, such as
Paul and
Patricia Churchland, insist that "folk psychology" is a full-blown theory which makes generalizations ("laws") over a broad range of events, organizes mental events taxonomically, has empirical consequences which are subject to verification or falsification, and makes predictions about the future. This position is called the theory-theory, since it is a theory about the existence of a theory. This idea has been criticized on a number of grounds. First, many philosophers, under the influence of
Wittgenstein and
Sellars, have denied that the alleged
theoretical entities posited by folk psychology ("beliefs", "desires", etc.) have any causal status. According to the theory-theory, a typical causal or counterfactual generalization (or
law) of folk psychology would be characterized schematically as follows:
If X wants that Y and believes that Z is necessary for Y, then X will do Z.
If, as the Wittgensteinian claims, propositional attitudes are not causes, then this would turn out to be meaningless. However, it is not clear on this analysis what properties such mental states do have, if not that of causality.
In the view of
Daniel Dennett, X wants that Y and believes that Z is necessary for Y just in case it can be predictively attributed these beliefs and desires. He maintains this even if it is a simple animal, such as a frog, or a non-living object, such as a robot. In this, he declines to identify beliefs or desires with specific natural kinds. Thus, our folk-psychological talk about beliefs and desires is essential and frequently true, but does not concern entities in the brain.
Others claim that what we actually do when we attempt to mentally describe and explain other's behavior is simulate the behavior and the mental states of the other person within our own mind. On this view, folk psychology is not an explicit theory, but rather a practice based on this ability to simulate.
Those who reject eliminativism but accept that folk psychology is a theory may argue that this theory developed over time, or the course of evolution, into a successful tool for predicting the behavior of other humans and animals.
Folk theories, i.e. theories that are based on common, everyday experiences, but not subjected to rigorous experimental techniques, may underlie many of our actions. For instance, a fairly sophisticated folk physics (the theory of the behavior of middle-sized, common objects, such as tables, chairs and bowling balls) is essential to our everyday interactions with the surrounding environment. Just think of all the assumptions you make about the clothing you are currently wearing, for example, that it is not going to melt, that it stays at a certain temperature range in standard conditions, that it will not protect you from bullets and so on. Similarly, folk psychology is considered the basis for many of our social actions and judgments about the psychology of others. It encompasses all of the assumptions we make about the correlations between people's behavior, mental states, and surrounding conditions.
Folk physics has been, to a large extent, discredited and shown to be thoroughly inadequate in providing robust explanations of various physical phenomena. This, of course, raises the question of how folk psychology would fare in this respect and this matter is a subject of lively debate in the
philosophy of mind.
Philosophers take various attitudes toward the possibility of vindicating / extending folk psychology by allowing its theoretical terms (e.g. 'belief' 'desire' etc.) to play a role in serious scientific theorizing.
Among the advocates of such a possibility,
Jerry Fodor is surely the most famous (for a defense of this view see his 1987 book
"Psychosemantics"). The other extreme is exemplified by
eliminative materialists, such as
Paul and
Patricia Churchland and
Stephen Stich. Although Stich no longer considers himself an eliminativist, his book,
"From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief" generated much attention for eliminative materialism.
Daniel Dennett's Intentional Stance theory can be viewed as a middle ground, as he concedes some aspects of eliminativism (arguing that folk psychological entities can not be reduced to natural kinds in the brain) whilst still seeing the value of folk psychological concepts as both essential to our understandings of and dealings with other people, and as grounded in real regularities in human behavior.
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Belief*
Eliminative materialism*
Instrumentalism*
Propositional attitude* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
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Folk Psychology as Mental Simulation**
Folk Psychology as a Theory
