Abstract
The role of culture in shaping folk psychology and mindreading has been neglected in the philosophical literature. This paper shows that there are significant cultural differences in how psychological states are understood and used by (1) drawing on Spaulding’s recent distinction between the ‘goals’ and ‘methods’ of mindreading (2018) to argue that the relations between these methods vary across cultures; and (2) arguing that differences in folk psychology cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the cognitive architecture that facilitates our understanding of psychological states. The paper concludes that any good account of social cognition must have the conceptual resources to explain how culture affects our understanding of psychological states, and that this explanandum should not be an after-thought but instead a guiding feature for those accounts.
Highlights
There is, so far, no human group that doesn’t explain behaviour by imputing beliefs and desires to the behaviour. (And if an anthropologist claimed to have found such a group, I wouldn’t believe him.) (Fodor 1989, p. 132).So proclaimed the late Jerry Fodor, ardent defender of propositional attitudes and their explanatory value in understanding the causes of our own behaviours
This paper shows that there are significant cultural differences in how psychological states are understood and used by (1) drawing on Spaulding’s recent distinction between the ‘goals’ and ‘methods’ of mindreading (2018) to argue that the relations between these methods vary across cultures; and (2) arguing that differences in folk psychology cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the cognitive architecture that facilitates our understanding of psychological states
The paper concludes that any good account of social cognition must have the conceptual resources to explain how culture affects our understanding of psychological states, and that this explanandum should not be an after-thought but instead a guiding feature for those accounts
Summary
There is, so far, no human group that doesn’t explain behaviour by imputing beliefs and desires to the behaviour. (And if an anthropologist claimed to have found such a group, I wouldn’t believe him.) (Fodor 1989, p. 132).So proclaimed the late Jerry Fodor, ardent defender of propositional attitudes and their explanatory value in understanding the causes of our own (and other people’s) behaviours. There is, so far, no human group that doesn’t explain behaviour by imputing beliefs and desires to the behaviour. (And if an anthropologist claimed to have found such a group, I wouldn’t believe him.) Synthese (2021) 198:6351–6374 from non-intentional behaviours, and there is growing evidence that we attribute some psychological states to others even when we are not aware of doing so (see Schneider 2017 for a review). If this is the case, appeal to a folk-explanation of behaviour is not sufficient to support the claim that no psychological states are attributed to another in a given social interaction
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
