Critter Psychology: On the Possibility of Nonhuman Animal Folk Psychology

Abstract

Humans have a folk psychology, without question. Paul Churchland used the term to describe “our commonsense conception of psychological phenomena” (Churchland 1981, p. 67), whatever that may be. When we ask the question whether animals have their own folk psychology, we’re asking whether any other species has a commonsense conception of psychological phenomenon as well. Different versions of this question have been discussed over the past 25 years, but no clear answer has emerged. Perhaps one reason for this lack of progress is that we don’t clearly understand the question. In asking whether animals have folk psychology, I hope to help clarify the concept of folk psychology itself, and in the process, to gain a greater understanding of the role of belief and desire attribution in human social interaction. To start, we can construct a simple argument in favor of animal folk psychology, based on a standard definition of the term. According to what I am calling the standard view, humans attribute specific mental states to a target, using a folk psychological theory, a mental simulation, or some combination of the two in order to generate predictions of intentional behavior. To count as a proper target for folk psychological analysis, the agent must engage in behavior that is predictable through the attribution of beliefs and desires. We see this commitment in Daniel Dennett’s intentional stance, for