Putting the Folk Back in Folk Psychology: The Social, Cultural, and Moral Character of Folk Psychology

This project provides a critical analysis of how philosophers have traditionally characterized and understood folk psychology, what I call the traditional construal of folk psychology. On the basis of a growing and diverse body of empirical evidence regarding how folk psychology is deployed in situ by the folk, I argue that we must reject this traditional construal and embrace a new understanding of folk psychology.

Two crucial and related assumptions regarding the function of folk psychology have been taken for granted in the contemporary debate regarding the mechanisms that underlie our folk psychological competence. More specifically, philosophers have assumed that the primary function of folk psychology is to explain and predict behaviour and that folk psychology is a quasi-scientific enterprise, whereby these goals are shared with science.

However, an empirical investigation into how the folk use folk psychology reveals a different story. Instead, we find that we often fail to accurately explain and predict behaviour and that our folk psychological discourse functions so as to satisfy a number of social, cultural, moral goals or purposes. In this way, there are a number of normative functions to our folk psychological practices.

These observations, I argue, are inconsistent with the traditional construal of folk psychology and therefore warrant that we take a skeptical position with respect to the traditional construal and re-examine the assumptions that underlie it. However, I argue that attempts to reconcile the traditional construal with the empirical evidence are unlikely to be successful and that the right way forward is to reject the tradition and embrace a new understanding of folk psychology. The traditional construal, I argue, is too narrow in scope to adequately address this empirical evidence and we must embrace a more comprehensive and empirically informed understanding of folk psychology that can embrace the normative interests that shape and drive this practice. While much work will remain, this new landscape will be a significant departure from the traditional construal and we will leave this project having put the folk back into folk psychology.