Folk psychology (sometimes called naïve 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. Look up belief in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up desire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Fear is a powerful biological feeling of unpleasant risk or danger, either real or imagined. ... [[Image:Spes or Hope. ... A propositional attitude is a relational mental state connecting a person to a proposition. ...

Field development

The question whether folk psychology can, or should, be considered a fully developed psychological theory has been the subject of intense debate.^{[citation needed]} 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. Psychology (from Greek: ψυχή, psukhē, spirit, soul; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is an academic/ applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. ... The word theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion. ... Eliminativists argue that our modern belief in the existence of mental phenomena is analogous to our ancient belief in obsolete theories such as the geocentric model of the universe. ... Paul Churchland (born 1942) is a philosopher working at the University of California, San Diego. ... Patricia Smith Churchland (born July 16, 1943) is a Canadian-American philosopher working at the University of California, San Diego since 1984. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Controversy

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.^{[citation needed]} According to the theory-theory, a typical causal or counterfactual generalization (or law) of folk psychology would be characterized schematically as follows: Wittgenstein and Hitler in school photograph taken at the Linz Realschule in 1903. ... Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (May 20, 1912 - July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher. ...

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. Daniel Clement Dennett (b. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Logical biconditional. ...

Alternate views

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.

Examples

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. Experimental research designs are used for the controlled testing of causal processes. ... Naïve physics or folk physics is the untrained human perception of basic physical phenomena. ... A ten-pin bowling ball and two pins A bowling ball is a round ball made from rubber, urethane, plastic, reactive resin (solid, particle, or pearl) or a combination of these materials which is used in the sport of bowling. ...

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. Average maximum, minimum and range of monthly air temperatures recorded in Campinas, Brazil, between January 2001 and July 2006 Average maximum, minimum and range of monthly air temperatures recorded in Aracaju, state of Sergipe, Brazil, between January 2001 and July 2006 Temperature range is the numerical difference between the minimum... -1...

Folk physics

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. An anomalous phenomenon is an observed event (phenomenon) which deviates from the standard or expected (anomaly). ... A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ...

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. Jerry Alan Fodor (born 1935) is a philosopher at Rutgers University, New Jersey. ... Eliminativists argue that our modern belief in the existence of mental phenomena is analogous to our ancient belief in obsolete theories such as the geocentric model of the universe. ... Paul Churchland (born 1942) is a philosopher working at the University of California, San Diego. ... Patricia Smith Churchland (born July 16, 1943) is a Canadian-American philosopher working at the University of California, San Diego since 1984. ... Stephen Stich is a professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. ...

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. Daniel Clement Dennett (b. ... The Intentional Stance is a theory of mental content proposed, developed and championed by the American philosopher Daniel C. Dennett. ... Middle ground off the harbour. ... Human behavior is the collection of activities performed by human beings and influenced by culture, attitudes, emotions, values, ethics, authority, rapport, hypnosis, persuasion, coercion and/or genetics. ...

See also

• Belief
• Eliminative materialism
• Folk biology
• Instrumentalism
• Propositional attitude
• Psychobabble

Look up belief in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Eliminativists argue that our modern belief in the existence of mental phenomena is analogous to our ancient belief in obsolete theories such as the geocentric model of the universe. ... Folk biology or folkbiology is the cognitive study of how people classify and reason about the organic world. ... In the philosophy of science, instrumentalism is the view that concepts and theories are merely useful instruments whose worth is measured not by whether the concepts and theories are true or false (or correctly depict reality), but by how effective they are in explaining and predicting phenomena. ... A propositional attitude is a relational mental state connecting a person to a proposition. ... Psychobabble is a customarily pejorative term to denote technical jargon that is used outside of its intended purpose in psychology. ...

References

Further reading

• Geary, D. C. (2005). Folk knowledge and academic learning. In B. J. Ellis & D. F. Bjorklund (Eds.), Origins of the social mind (pp. 493-519). New York: Guilford Publications. Full text

David C. Geary received his Ph. ... David F. Bjorklund is a professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University. ...

External links

• Folk Psychology as Mental Simulation
• Folk Psychology as a Theory