Folk Psychology Re-Assessed

This is a truly groundbreaking work that examines today's notions of folk psychology. Bringing together disciplines as various as cognitive science and anthropology, the authors analyze the consensual views of the subject. The contributors all maintain that current understandings of folk psychology and of the mechanisms that underlie it need to be revised, supplemented or dismissed altogether. That's why this book is essential reading for those in the field.



This is a truly groundbreaking work that examines today's notions of folk psychology. Bringing together disciplines as various as cognitive science and anthropology, the authors analyze the consensual views of the subject. The contributors all maintain that current understandings of folk psychology and of the mechanisms that underlie it need to be revised, supplemented or dismissed altogether. That's why this book is essential reading for those in the field.

From the reviews: "Traditionally folk psychology is understood as our ability to predict and explain the behavior of other people by attributing intentional states (beliefs, desires, etc.) to them. Debates about the status of folk psychology have been going on for decades. ! Folk Psychology Re-Assessed contributes some interesting angles to the mainstream folk-psychology debate. ! the volume will appeal to work in philosophy of mind, neuroscience and experimental psychology ! . I think the volume is probably most useful ! in advanced undergraduate or graduate courses." (Christina Behme, Metapsychology Online Reviews, Vol. 12 (11), 2008)

List of Contributors		vii
1. Introduction		1
Matthew Ratcliffe and Daniel D. Hutto
PART I. EMOTION, PERCEPTION, AND INTERACTION
2. Expression and Empathy		25
Dan Zahavi
3. We Share, Therefore We Think		41
R. Peter Hobson
4. Logical and Phenomenological Arguments against Simulation Theory		63
Shaun Gallagher
5. Persons, Pronouns, and Perspectives		79
Beata Stawarska
PART II. REASONS, NORMS, NARRATIVES AND INSTITUTIONS
6. There are Reasons and Reasons		103
Peter Goldie
7. Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation		115
Daniel D. Hutto
8. The Regulative Dimension of Folk Psychology		137
Victoria McGeer
9. Folk Psychology: Science and Morals		157
Joshua Knobe
10. Folk Psychology and Freedom of the Will		175
Martin Kusch
PART III. THE FRAGMENTATION OF FOLK PSYCHOLOGY
11. Critter Psychology: On the Possibility of Nonhuman Animal Folk Psychology		191
Kristin Andrews
12. Folk Psychology does not Exist		211
Adam Morton
13. From Folk Psychology to Commonsense		223
Matthew Ratcliffe
Name Index		245
Subject Index		249

Matthew Ratcliffe is Reader in Philosophy at Durham University in England. Most of his recent work addresses issues in phenomenology, philosophy of psychology and philosophy of psychiatry. He is author of Rethinking Commonsense Psychology: A Critique of Folk Psychology, Theory of Mind and Simulation (Palgrave, 2007) and Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality (Oxford University Press, 2008).