Folk Psychology

This chapter first explains why folk psychology has played such an important role in recent philosophy of mind. It then distinguishes two different accounts of folk psychology, and argues that functionalists should prefer the mindreading account on which folk psychology is the rich body of information or theory that underlies people's skill in attributing mental states and in predicting and explaining behavior. It considers the challenge posed by simulation theory, that there is no such thing as folk psychology; and presents reasons for accepting a hybrid account of mindreading in which some aspects of that skill are explained by appeal to information-rich processes, while other aspects are explained by simulation.