How to be realistic about folk psychology

Philosophical Psychology 1 (1):69-81 (1988)
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Abstract

Folk psychological realism is the view that folk psychology is true and that people really do have propositional attitudes, whereas anti-realism is the view that folk psychology is false and people really do not have propositional attitudes. We argue that anti-realism is not worthy of acceptance and that realism is eminently worthy of acceptance. However, it is plainly epistemically possible to favor either of two forms of folk realism: scientific or non-scientific. We argue that non-scientific realism, while perhaps unpopular among philosophers of mind, is a distinct form of realism from scientific realism, and that it is not yet knowable whether scientific or non-scientific realism is true. We also outline how adopting realism, but remaining neutral between scientific and non-scientific realism, offers fresh insights into such topics as instrumentalism, supervenience, the language of thought hypothesis, and elimin-ativism.

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Author Profiles

George Graham
Georgia State University
Terry Horgan
University of Arizona

References found in this work

The Language of Thought.Jerry A. Fodor - 1975 - Harvard University Press.
How the laws of physics lie.Nancy Cartwright - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Brainstorms.Daniel C. Dennett - 1978 - MIT Press.

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