Folk Psychology Research Articles

Overcoming Descartes' representational view of the mind in nursing pedagogies, curriculaand testing.

Currently, Nursing Education draws on a commonly taken-for-granted folk psychology of a representational view of how the mind works and how human beings learn. Descartes' representational view of the mind strongly influences pedagogies, theories of learning, curricula, and approaches to testing nursing knowledge and more broadly in academia. A representational view of the mind holds that perception occurs in the mind only through representations in the mind through ideas, concepts, templates and schema. Situated, embodied, and socially embedded cognition is presented as a counter view to a representational view of the mind.

On unifying psychology: A view from the trenches; and what's wrong with pluralism anyway?

This paper addresses, from the perspective of a psychotherapist, a proposal for unifying psychology under some form of conceptual umbrella, as advanced by Salvatore and colleagues in this current issue of Rivista di Psicologia Clinica. My response raises conceptual and practical questions. The unhappy history of universal models in psychoanalysis illustrates personal, social, and political dynamics that interfere with finding and implementing such models. There is no neutral meta-position; any meta-position is subject to challenge according to its angle, methods, and interests. The question may not be whether, a priori, psychology should be unified, but whether it will turn out to be so. Generalized scientific models applied to psychotherapy may not be close to how people understand and talk about themselves. Psychotherapists are likely to incorporate general principles and models without much rigor and as metaphors to justify and shape change in accord with cultural values rather than to describe or explain. Given different conceptual categories in psychology, natural/causal and humanistic, universal principles or models could be so general and abstract as to constitute philosophy more than science. Balancing assimilation and accommodation, or general stability with local level instability, allow for complexity, flexibility, and responsiveness to unique local conditions for human meaning systems - individual and collective, and for the academic disciplines that study them. Pluralism or polyphony may be an alternative meta-position which allows therapists to flexibly draw from scientific and humanistic perspectives, and from folk psychology, along with personal training and life experience, soft-assembled at the moment of contact with the messy subjectivity of the other.

Against ‘Against Slagle's Reading’

AbstractSerdal Tümkaya has argued that my critique of eliminative materialism makes several missteps. He argues that eliminativism should be taken as a methodology not a settled conclusion, and the final product may well retain some folk psychology concepts. I respond that methodological eliminativism does avoid self‐defeat but does not pose a problem for the folk psychologist. Plus, insofar as eliminativism is not eliminating the propositional attitudes but accomodating or translating them, it is not distinct from other, less extreme forms of materialism.

From Tree of Life to the Sun of Life

Using the Tree of Life as an example, this paper presents folk psychology as a decolonising practice that elevates the experience, history and wisdom of individuals and collectives, rather than privileging the theories and standards of professional practice. It also demonstrates the possibilities that can emerge when we invite people’s own folk psychology metaphors to guide our practice.

명리학의 학문적 정체성 확립에 관한 연구

The Saju Myeongli get more popular in modern times as its culture still gets active. Accordingly, it is important to check out the Classification of Academic Research Fields set by National Research Foundation of Korea as the requirements for establishing the academic identity of Myeongli Science. The Saju Myeongli shall be the process in which the possibility contained in one Saju shall be analyzed to expand that person’s potential in a more positive way instead of the necessity and determinancy. It means that the Saju Myeongli shall play a role of consultant for people by communicating with that person based on the logical and systematic inference. The reason why Myeongli Science has been considered as fake science up to now is more attributable to the field of Myeongli Science not preparing the academic requirements rather than the external error or prejudice. Therefore, though it is late, it is absolutely necessary for the in-depth academic review and criticism for the Myeongli Science itself. Even though, in early 2000s, there were almost no academic and systematic researches on the Myeongli Science itself, the academic papers on Myeongli Science started to be posted on the registered (candidate) academic journals in 2006. The number of academic papers started to rise from 2011 and made the continuous increase from 2016. For the continuous publications of in-depth academic papers and the systematic researches on Saju Myeongli, there need the granting of proper classification code and classification name to the Myeongli Science at the Classification of Academic Research Fields. Considering all kinds of requirements, it is most appropriate for Myeongli Science to be large classified as an ‘interdisciplinary science’ and then is assigned to ‘interdisciplinarity’ rather than oriental philosophy in humanities or consulting psychology in sociology. So, the classification of ‘interdisciplinary science (large classification) - interdisciplinarity (middle classification) - Myeongli Science (small classification)“ is suggested. For the total access to Saju Myeongli, the interdiciplinarit of folk study, religion, psychology, philosophy, astronomy, sociology and history are very important in terms of consilience with related studies.

Transcript of discussion on: "Active inference models do not contradict folk psychology"

Transcript of discussion on: "Active inference models do not contradict folk psychology"

Delusions and madmen: against rationality constraints on belief

According to the Rationality Constraint, our concept of belief imposes limits on how much irrationality is compatible with having beliefs at all. We argue that empirical evidence of human irrationality from the psychology of reasoning and the psychopathology of delusion undermines only the most demanding versions of the Rationality Constraint, which require perfect rationality as a condition for having beliefs. The empirical evidence poses no threat to more relaxed versions of the Rationality Constraint, which only require only minimal rationality. Nevertheless, we raise problems for all versions of the Rationality Constraint by appealing to more extreme forms of irrationality that are continuous with actual cases of human irrationality. In particular, we argue that there are conceivable cases of “mad belief” in which populations of Lewisian madmen have beliefs that are not even minimally rational. This undermines Lewis’s claim that our ordinary concept of belief is a theoretical concept that is implicitly defined by its role in folk psychology. We argue that introspection gives us a phenomenal concept of belief that cannot be analyzed by applying Lewis’s semantics for theoretical terms.

Adopted Utility Calculus: Origins of a Concept of Social Affiliation

To successfully navigate their social world, humans need to understand and map enduring relationships between people: Humans need a concept of social affiliation. Here I propose that the initial concept of social affiliation, available in infancy, is based on the extent to which one individual consistently takes on the goals and needs of another. This proposal grounds affiliation in intuitive psychology, as formalized in the naive-utility-calculus model. A concept of affiliation based on interpersonal utility adoption can account for findings from studies of infants’ reasoning about imitation, similarity, helpful and fair individuals, “ritual” behaviors, and social groups without the need for additional innate mechanisms such as a coalitional psychology, moral sense, or general preference for similar others. I identify further tests of this proposal and also discuss how it is likely to be relevant to social reasoning and learning across the life span.

False-belief task know-how

This paper assumes that success on false-belief tasks requires a kind of folk psychological know-how, i.e. gradable knowledge how to perform skilful social cognitive acts. Following Ryle (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1946, The Concept of Mind, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949), it argues the folk psychological know-how required for success on a false-belief task cannot be reduced to conceptual knowledge as this would lead to an infinite regress. Within the skilled performance literature, Intellectualists (Stanley and Williams in Journal of Philosophy 98:411–444, 2001) have attempted to solve Ryle’s regress by appealing to automatic mechanisms similar in kind to some Theory-of-Mind explanations of folk psychology. Exploring this similarity, the paper examines the epistemic commitments of two recent pragmatic Theory-of-Mind accounts (Westra and Carruthers in Cognition 158:165–176, 2017; Fenici in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2020) of cross-cultural false-belief task data (Shahaeian et al. in Developmental Psychology 47:1239–1247, 2011). By drawing on Fridland’s (Philosophical Studies 165:879–891, 2012) argument against Intellectualist explanations of know-how, it is argued that neither of these pragmatic Theory-of-Mind accounts can adequately explain gradable folk psychological know-how and escape Ryle’s infinite regress objection if these accounts are indeed committed to Intellectualism. The paper ends by supplementing Fenici’s (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2020) account with the enactive framework to both bolster Fenici’s explanation of false-belief task know-how and avoid Ryle’s regress objection.

Religion as a Testing Ground for Cognitive Science

Research at the intersection of cognitive science and religion can illuminate the cognitive underpinnings of religious thought and behavior, as White (2021) persuasively demonstrates in her comprehensive synthesis of CSR research, but this research can also constrain broader theories of cognition. Here, I examine CSR research relevant to a prominent theory of how we represent minds and bodies: intuitive dualism. This theory, which posits that folk psychology and folk physics are not initially integrated in our representations of intentional agents, makes predictions about god concepts and afterlife beliefs that are not supported by empirical research on these topics. Rather, CSR research suggests that dualism varies by culture and context and must be learned. This case study highlights the reciprocal relation between cognitive science and the study of religion and points to the mutual benefits of their integration.

On Freedom and Responsibility in an Extra-Moral Sense: Nietzsche and Non-Sovereign Responsibility

AbstractInterpreting Nietzsche’s writings on agency and responsibility through the lens of non-sovereignty generates interpretive and political-theoretical contributions. More specifically, I advance three arguments. First, Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of moral responsibility denaturalizes modernity’s conception of individual sovereignty and responsibility, by providing a naturalistic account of agency. Agency and responsibility are neither Kantian presuppositions of practical reason nor pieces of folk psychology to be abolished, but are normative, social, and historical achievements, and thus non-sovereign. Second, this implies a theory of responsibility that is simultaneously more and less demanding than moralistic accounts: while, because agents are not autonomous, they do not bear sole responsibility for their lives, they are called upon to be responsible to and for the world, by maintaining the conditions of possible agency and flourishing. Third, Nietzsche provides both generative resources and cautionary tales for political theories of non-sovereign agency. While non-sovereign responsibility holds emancipatory and potentially democratic implications, Nietzsche’s explicit political writings demonstrate the risk that, rather than tempering existential resentment, this account could generate and intensify a resentful anti-political authoritarianism. Just as non-sovereignty provides a useful framework for making sense of tensions within Nietzsche’s thought, Nietzsche’s post-moral theory of agency and responsibility brings forward tensions, provocations, and paradoxes that must be engaged by theorists of non-sovereignty.

Active inference models do not contradict folk psychology

Active inference offers a unified theory of perception, learning, and decision-making at computational and neural levels of description. In this article, we address the worry that active inference may be in tension with the belief–desire–intention (BDI) model within folk psychology because it does not include terms for desires (or other conative constructs) at the mathematical level of description. To resolve this concern, we first provide a brief review of the historical progression from predictive coding to active inference, enabling us to distinguish between active inference formulations of motor control (which need not have desires under folk psychology) and active inference formulations of decision processes (which do have desires within folk psychology). We then show that, despite a superficial tension when viewed at the mathematical level of description, the active inference formalism contains terms that are readily identifiable as encoding both the objects of desire and the strength of desire at the psychological level of description. We demonstrate this with simple simulations of an active inference agent motivated to leave a dark room for different reasons. Despite their consistency, we further show how active inference may increase the granularity of folk-psychological descriptions by highlighting distinctions between drives to seek information versus reward—and how it may also offer more precise, quantitative folk-psychological predictions. Finally, we consider how the implicitly conative components of active inference may have partial analogues (i.e., “as if” desires) in other systems describable by the broader free energy principle to which it conforms.

William James on Attention. Folk Psychology, Actions, and Intentions

ABSTRACT This paper addresses three main concerns about William James’s understanding of attention. In the first section, I will consider the question whether or not James’s famous claim that “every one knows what attention is” should be understood as implying that his theory is a folk psychological theory of attention. After arguing against this interpretation, the second part of the paper spells out four main tenets in James’s theory: attention is presented as transcendental, active, structuring, and embodied. Particular emphasis will be laid on the key role of bodily movements. The third and final section draws some conclusions concerning the intentionality of agency. According to James, the genesis of the intentions to act has to be located in attentional movements and comportments towards the surrounding world. At variance with some readings of James as a full-fledged phenomenologist, I suggest to complement his essentially pragmatist approach with the aid of phenomenology as providing useful input for further inquiries.

The representation of “fate” in the folk mythology in Serbia and in China

The study is devoted to the notions of fate in the traditional folk mythology of China and Serbia. The article analyzes the folk rites and the related terminology, the name and image of mythological characters denoting the fate of a person. Folk customs, native and funeral rites, folklore (proverbs, songs, riddles) became the material for considering the mythological image of fate. The work shows how the mythological perception of fate is reflected in the cultural code and in the linguistic image of the world. The article demonstrates how the mythological perception of fate is reflected in the linguistic images of the world of different peoples. Serbs believe that the fate of a person is given by God and other supernatural powers, in particular, the fate of a newborn child is determined by three mythological characters. In the Chinese tradition, fate is influenced by the heavenly will, the time of birth, an amulet, the lord of hell etc. In folk mythology, the soul will be reborn and will receive the fate, determined by the deeds of the person during the lifetime. The article is mainly devoted to the comparative analysis of the linguocultural meaning of fate in Chinese and Serbian mythology. The article compares the typological similarities and differences reflected in the mentality, ethnic memory, folk psychology. As a result, linguistic and extralinguistic factors have been identified that have unambiguously influenced the terminology of the perception of fate (for example, the names of mythological characters). The purpose of the study is to examine the logical-semantic and linguistic features of the appeal to the mythologeme of fate in the Chinese and the Serbian languages, in the reconstruction of folk spiritual culture.

Learning about others and learning from others: Bayesian probabilistic models of intuitive psychology and social learning.

How do infants and young children reason about other people? What inferences do they make when they learn from teachers and whom do they choose to learn from? Past research in developmental psychology has demonstrated infants' and young children's competence in making these inferences. However, the mechanisms underlying these inferences and how these mechanisms change across development are less clear. In this chapter, we review a growing body of Bayesian probabilistic models on intuitive psychology and social learning. We integrate these models with past and new empirical studies within the framework of rational constructivism. These models showed that infants and children have intuitive theories about others (agents, teachers, and informants). When given new evidence, they rationally update their beliefs about others and their beliefs about the world based on these intuitive theories. Developmental changes can be explained by advances in children's intuitive theories. Finally, we propose future directions for both empirical and modeling work in these domains.

Inhibition of Return (IOR): Is it Consciousness of an Object without Attention or Attention without an Object and Consciousness?

The crux of the dispute on the mutual relations between attention and consciousness, and to which I have referred in this paper, lies in the question of what can be attended in spatial attention that obviously resonates with the phenomenological issue of intentionality (e.g., the noesis-noema structure). The discussion has been initiated by Christopher Mole. He began by calling for a commonsense psychology, according to which one is conscious of everything that one pays attention to, but one does not pay attention to all the things that one is conscious of. In other words, attention is supposed to be a condition which is sufficient but not necessary for consciousness, i.e., consciousness is a necessary concomitant of attention, but attention is not a necessary concomitant of consciousness. Mole seeks to validate his stance with data from psychology labs. His view is, however, partly confronted, for instance, by Robert Kentridge, Lee de-Wit and Charles Heywood, who used their experimental research on a neurological condition called blindsight as evidence of a dissociation between attention and consciousness, i.e., that visual attention is not a sufficient precondition for visual awareness. In this meta-theoretical state of affairs, I would like to focus on the cognitive phenomenon most often referred to as Inhibition of Return (IOR) and suggest that, following its micro dynamics from the perspective of micro-phenomenology, it can be used to actually showcase all of the options on both sides of the argument. One of my leading goals would be also to follow Mole’s attempt to link attention with agency but where we differ is that I wish to heuristically articulate the matter in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of embodied pre-reflective intentionality.

The Location of Anxiety

This essay elaborates an alternative to the Freudian and Lacanian conceptions of anxiety by tracing a middle ground between their accounts of linguistic acquisition and object-attachment. Both psychoanalysts overlook the importance of gestural expression while theorizing the eventual reliance on the symbolic with the onset of the Oedipal period. The essay turns to the folk psychology notion of the “theory of mind,” and a specific experiment called the “false belief task” to offer an alternative to how the encroachment of the symbolic is conceptualized in psychoanalytic history. Rather than framing the onset of the symbolic order as a swift entry into language, the essay proposes rethinking it as a process with a longer temporality and a more complex set of expressive behaviors (language, gesture, embodied expression). The comparative account of Freud and Lacan are supported with references to psychoanalysts and scholars of psychoanalysis such as Julia Kristeva, Elizabeth Grosz, and Donald Winnicott.

Public misconceptions about dyslexia: The role of intuitive psychology.

Despite advances in its scientific understanding, dyslexia is still associated with rampant public misconceptions. Here, we trace these misconceptions to the interaction between two intuitive psychological principles: Dualism and Essentialism. We hypothesize that people essentialize dyslexia symptoms that they anchor in the body. Experiment 1 shows that, when dyslexia is associated with visual confusions (b/d reversals)-symptoms that are naturally viewed as embodied (in the eyes), laypeople consider dyslexia as more severe, immutable, biological, and heritable, compared to when dyslexia is linked to difficulties with phonological decoding (a symptom seen as less strongly embodied). Experiments 2-3 show that the embodiment of symptoms plays a causal role in promoting essentialist thinking. Experiment 2 shows that, when participants are provided evidence that the symptoms of dyslexia are embodied (i.e., they "show up" in a brain scan), people are more likely to consider dyslexia as heritable compared to when the same symptoms are diagnosed behaviorally (without any explicit evidence for the body). Finally, Experiment 3 shows that reasoning about the severity of dyslexia symptoms can be modulated by manipulating people's attitudes about the mind/body links, generally. These results show how public attitudes towards psychological disorders arise from the very principles that make the mind tick.

G as Bridge Model

Psychometric g—a statistical factor capturing intercorrelations between scores on different IQ tests—is of theoretical interest despite being a low-fidelity model of both folk psychological intelligence and its cognitive/neural underpinnings. Psychometric g idealizes away from those aspects of cognitive/neural mechanisms that are not explanatory of the relevant variety of folk psychological intelligence, and it idealizes away from those varieties of folk psychological intelligence that are not generated by the relevant cognitive/neural substrate. In this manner, g constitutes a high-fidelity bridge model of the relationship between its two targets and, thereby, helps demystify the relationship between folk and scientific psychology.

Minds, bodies, spirits, and gods: Does widespread belief in disembodied beings imply that we are inherent dualists?

Belief in beings without physical bodies is prevalent in present and past religions, from all-powerful gods to demonic spirits to guardian angels to immortal souls. Many scholars have explained this prevalence by a quirk in how we conceptualize persons, intuitively representing their minds as separable from their bodies. Infants have both a folk psychology (for representing the mental states of intentional agents) and a folk physics (for representing the properties of objects) but are said to apply only folk psychology to persons. The two modes of construal become integrated with development, but their functional specialization and initial independence purportedly make it natural for people of all ages to entertain beliefs in disembodied minds. We critically evaluate this thesis. We integrate studies of both children and adults on representations of intentional agents, both natural and supernatural, beliefs about the afterlife and souls, mind transfer, body duplication, and body transplantation. We show that representations of minds and bodies are integrated from the start, that conceptions of religious beings as disembodied are not evident in early ages but develop slowly, and that early-acquired conceptions of religious beings as embodied are not revised by theological conceptions of such beings as disembodied. We argue that belief in disembodied beings requires cultural learning-a learned dualism. We conclude by suggesting that disembodied beings may be prevalent not because we are developmentally predisposed to entertain them but because they are counterintuitive and thus have a social transmission advantage. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).