Folk Psychology and Mental Simulation

Summary

This paper is about the contemporary debate concerning folk psychology – the debate between the proponents of the theory theory of folk psychology and the friends of the simulation alternative. At the outset, we need to ask: What should we mean by this term ‘folk psychology’?

Shall we perhaps say that folk psychology is just what the folk know (or believe) about psychological matters? The problem with this putative definition is that, if folk psychology is a body of known or believed propositions about psychology, then it may be said that folk psychology is a psychological theory. This would threaten to render invisible even the possibility of an alternative to the theory theory of folk psychology.

Someone might respond to this problem by saying that not just any collection of propositions about psychology deserves to be called a theory. Only a set of propositions organized around generalizations that support counterfactuals and are appropriately objective will earn that title. So, folk psychology will be a theory only if what the folk know or believe about psychology has something of the character of a science. This response has some plausibility. There is surely something to be said for this restrictive use of the term ‘theory’, and it will be important in Section III of this paper, when we consider explanation and understanding. But many of the participants in the debate between the theory theory and the simulation alternative have used the term ‘theory’ in an extremely inclusive way.