8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 1/16

Mental states and folk

psychology

Eugene Wong ST5

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 2/16

Contribution to recent

disillusionment?• Is psychiatry a real specialty?

• Clinical neuroscience?

• ‘brain specialists to treat brain disease?’ 

• Popularity decreasing

• DSM-V ‘biology never read DSM-V’ (NIMHopposition)

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 3/16

What is folk psychology? (Stich)

• Psychology – a branch of science, thestudy of the human mind

• Folk psychology – folklore regarding themind. The belief that mental states suchas beliefs, wants, hopes, etc. exist (that

these are theoretical terms and refer to theposits of an empirical theory about themind).

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 4/16

Example

• Tom is hit on the head

• He screams and hits his assailant

Common sense conclusion: Tom screamed

because he felt pain when hit on the head.

He was possibly angry. He hit his assailantas an act of revenge.

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 5/16

How we attribute mental states

 A causal theory:

• Perception

• Inference

•  Action

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 6/16

Example (psychiatry)

• Tom appears distracted and looks around

suspiciously, talking to an unseen person.

It is hard to interview him.

Conclusion: he’s possibly hallucinating. 

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 7/16

What are mental states?

• Descartes – substance dualism

• But how is it that something non-physical(mental states) has such a significant

impact on the physical?

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 8/16

Neurological events?

• Step on my toe neurons fire cause other

neurons to fire, etc. muscles contract and my

toe moves out from under your foot.

•  All this happens without the interference ofanything non-physical

• So pain, decisions, etc. are not located in a

nonphysical domain (superfluous in the

causation of behaviour).

• We are not scientifically advanced enough!

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 9/16

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 10/16

Implicit definitions

• Theoretical terms might get their meaning

in virtue of being embedded within an

empirical theory

• Example of the detective and X, Y, Z

• We know a lot about these terms despite

not knowing who they areLewis 1972

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 11/16

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 12/16

Theoretical posits

•  An entity not directly observable but

whose existence is posited as part of an

empirical theory

- eg. Genes, phlogiston

These terms aredefined

by theories whichposit them.

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 13/16

cf Folk physics

•  Ability to make predictions about the

movement of middle-sized physical

objects and offer explanations of why

objects behave as they do

•  An unobservable internal force (impetus)

which maintains motion and slowly

dissipates.

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 14/16

McCloskey 1993

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 15/16

McCloskey 1993

8/10/2019 Folk Psychology

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/folk-psychology 16/16

Folk physics vs modern physics

• Modern physics has clearly superseded folk

physics (and informed current tech)

• We’re using the same FP as the Ancient Greeksdid (c.f. folk physics) – scope for improvement?

• Is there an equivalent for the attribution ofmental states waiting to be discovered? If so,

what’s wrong with our current framework?