Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation Daniel D. Hutto If commonsense intentional psychology really were to collapse, that would be, beyond comparison, the greatest intellectual catastrophe in the history of our species - Fodor 1987, p. xii 1. Folk Psychology Stricto Sensu Folk Psychology is dead. Long live Folk Psychology!! This could be the motto of many of the papers in this volume. I too endorse the need to reform the standard assumptions about the function, scope and basis of our capacity to understand others in terms of what might be called – accurately, if rather cumbersomely – propositionalattitude belief-desire psychology. Yet, I stop short of proposing a successor. I take it to be a datum that certain populations of psychologically normal, adult humans do, as a matter of fact, make sense of intentional action by appeal to reasons. In speaking of ‘reasons’ I mean precisely what philosophers have long understood to be the products of discrete episodes of means-end practical reasoning – processes that result in intentions to act (see, for example, Goldie, this volume). It is a commonplace than we make sense of actions in such terms (I say more about the reference of this ‘we’ in a moment). Sometimes we act for one reason and not another, decisively; though I am happy to grant that this may be a less frequent occurrence than is commonly supposed. Equally, determining for which reason an action was performed may be extremely difficult, even for an action’s author. Nevertheless, if an action is done for a reason it must be possible to explicate it, minimally, by appeal to a particular belief/desire pairing. As the essential components of reasons these psychological attitudes must each stand in relation to Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 2 distinct propositional contents. These contents connect the attitudes in virtue of their having certain overlapping elements. Maximally, reasons can be explicated – in more or less refined ways – by detailing yet other propositional attitudes (hopes, fears) and other more basic kinds of perceptions and emotions. Indeed, a complete explication would also need to give details of the person’s character, situation and history – in short, his or her ‘story’ (see also Gallagher, Goldie this volume). To keep things straight, when I talk of folk psychology I am solely concerned with the practice of predicting, explaining and explicating intentional actions by appeal to reasons understood in this way. At a bare minimum, folk psychology strictu sensu is belief/desire propositional attitude psychology.1 Without doubt the so-called friends of folk psychology have overstated and misunderstood its role in social cognition; typically they see it as (i) more basic and (ii) far more pervasive than it actually is. With respect to the question of primacy, folk psychology is not fundamental to social engagements; not even exclusively human ones. We have many other, more basic non-folk psychological means of engaging with one another socially and coordinating our interactions – these involve only enddirected intentional and not propositional attitudes. Our primary embodied modes of responding, by my lights, do not involve the manipulation of representations by inferential operations (let alone representations of propositional attitudes). Nor do such engagements result in predictions or explanations, understood as couched in subpersonal propositions. In such cases we get by with script-like patterns of recognitionresponse (some more flexible and complex than others): these are initiated and guided indexically and iconically by the expressive behaviour of others. These sorts of abilities – and not a capacity for ‘mindreading’ – best explain the embodied expectations of non-verbal creatures. In ‘normal’ contexts these modes of response are not only quicker, they are highly effective ways of interacting and navigating social dynamics (see Hutto 2006a, Hutto 2006b, and Hutto 2007a). In saying this, I fully support the conclusions of several contributors to this volume (Andrews, Hobson, Gallagher, and Zahavi). With respect to scope, I claim that folk psychology stricto sensu is the unique provence of certain linguistically competent human beings (Homo sapiens sapiens) – at least those who do not suffer from extreme autism.2 By my lights, reason-based understandings are not used by our close living cousins, the chimpanzees, nor were Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 3 they used by our ancient ancestors who hailed from the Pleistocene (with the possible exception of the early humans of Upper Palaeolithic – and this, as will soon be clear, depends on the nature of the discursive practices they had). Indeed, even with respect to contemporary human populations folk psychology may not be a universal good. It is not a given that all cultures engage in the practice of understanding actions in terms of reasons. Evidence gleaned from the handful of cross-cultural studies that have been conducted suggests that neither an understanding of folk psychology nor of the concept of belief come automatically or in equal measure to all unimpaired members of our species. Tests conducted with children from several non-Western cultures reveal that they do not employ the folk psychological schema as readily or with the same proficiency as Westerners do (Vinden 1996, 1999, Lillard 1997, 1998).3 This does not show that populaces of these cultures never make sense of one another in terms of reasons for acting (and its certainly does not show that they are incapable of doing so) but it does raise the question of whether they do or not.4 Also, looking carefully at the practices of other cultures, one finds heterogeneity in the explanatory tendencies and methods used in understanding action5 – in some parts of the globe greater emphasis is placed, for example, on the situational, trait-based and even supernatural explanations.6 The evidence, such as it is, should make us cautious of simply assuming that all human cultures share an understanding of belief/desire psychology. And it will become evident momentarily why we must be especially cautious in making this assumption about those cultures whose intellectual history and narrative practices differ significantly from those of the West (see also Kusch, this volume). As discussed in the introduction of this collection, for several decades the dominant view has been that folk psychology is either a kind of low-level theory about the propositional attitudes or a simulative ability involving their direct manipulation (or a mix of both). In place of these options I propose that we should understanding folk psychology as primarily being a particular kind of narrative practice: this would best accounts for its origins and various applications. According to the Narrative Practice Hypothesis (or NPH) it is through direct encounters with stories about reasons for acting, those supplied by responsive caregivers in interactive contexts, that children become familiar with (i) the core structure of folk psychology and (ii) the normgoverned possibilities for wielding it in practice (i.e. learning both how and when to Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 4 apply it). A distinct kind of narrative practice, one involving a particular kind of story, plays the central role in readying us to understand intentional actions folk psychologically. My proposal is that encounters with stories about those who act for reasons are what acquaint us with the forms and norms of folk psychology. I give full details of this conjecture and its implications elsewhere (Hutto 2007a, 2007b). My purpose in this paper is merely to spell out just how the NPH, if true, undercuts any need to appeal to either theory or simulation when it comes to explaining the basis of folk psychological understanding: these heuristics do not come into play other than in cases of in which the framework is used to speculate about why another may have acted. To add appropriate force to this observation, I first say something about why we should reject the widely held assumption that the primary business of folk psychology is to provide third-personal predictions and explanations. I then go on to demonstrate how the NPH can account for (i) the structural features of folk psychology and (ii) its staged acquisition without buying into the idea that it is a theory, or that it is acquired by means of constructing one. This should expose the impotence of the standard reasons for believing that folk psychology must be a kind of theory. In the concluding postscript, I acknowledge that we need more than the folk psychological framework to understand how we understand reasons, but I deny that this something more takes the form of a theory about propositional attitudes or simulative procedures for manipulating them. For example, I claim it rests in part on a capacity for co-cognition, inter alia, since that ability is necessary for understanding another’s thoughts. Nevertheless, I deny that co-cognition equates to simulation proper or that it plays anything more than a supporting role in understanding reasons for action. 2. The Primacy of Second Person Applications Folk psychological narratives function as ‘normalising’ explanations, allowing us to cope with ‘unusual’ or ‘eccentric’ actions, where possible, by putting them in context – this either helps us to see why they fall within the fold of the normal or it may extend the bounds of what is regarded as normal (failing this it will not be possible to make full sense of why the action was performed).7 5 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation The restorative accounts that such narratives provide need not issue from the person seeking the explanation. The greatest chance of obtaining a successful explanation – of deciding for which reason an action was performed – depends on the authors of actions identifying and explicating their reasons (Bruner 1990). Other conditions must hold too – i.e. the person must not be confabulating; he or she must not be engaging in post-hoc rationalistation; he or she must not be self-deceived, etc. Nevertheless, by way of comparison, asking the other for their reasons is vastly more reliable than trying to determine why they in fact acted as they did from distance of third-party spectator. Indeed, in such attempts the accuracy of an explanation is likely to be inversely proportional to the need to seek it at all (Hutto 2004). It is only in secondpersonal contexts that we confidently obtain true folk psychological explanations, by and large, as opposed to speculating about merely possible ones. When in doubt it is best to get one’s explanations from the ‘horse’s mouth’, as it were. Even though in some cases we will have legitimate reasons to doubt the other’s word, the ‘explanations’ that we generate on their behalf rarely rise above the status of mere supposition (at least in those cases where there is any interesting question about their reasons for acting in the first place). The stories others tell about their reasons are typically delivered, and indeed, fashioned in the course of on-line interactive dialogue and conversation – dialogue of the sort that is, with luck because of this, sensitive to questioner’s precise explanatory needs and requirements. The nature of such engagements is complex and deserves more attention than it has received to date (see Starwarska, this volume). That is not my focus here. The crucial point to recognise is that it is these second-person deliveries – these narrations – that do the heavy lifting in enabling us to understand and make sense of others with confidence. I call narratives of the kind that explicate actions in terms of reasons (as restrictively defined above) folk psychological narratives.8 Providing these is the primary work of folk psychology stricto sensu. Thus, by my lights, folk psychology in action is – at bottom – a distinctive kind of narrative practice.9 In a derivative way, its framework can be used for third-personal speculation as well – as in those cases in which we wonder why another may have acted on a particular occasion. This may be carried off by various means, but I want to stress that it is always a parasitic and peripheral business. I now turn to the question Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 6 of the origin of the folk psychological framework itself, which I take to have emerged from encounters with folk psychological narratives. The preceding observations about the importance of second-personal narrations concern not only our contemporary dealings, but also those of our ancient ancestors. I claim that the folk psychological framework not only has its primary application in second-personal engagements, it emerged (and emerges) from these as well. The above observations matter when it comes to assessing the standard conjectures about the ultimate origins of our folk psychological abilities, for they imply that thirdpersonal mindreading – of the sort involving the attribution of the core propositional attitudes – simply is not a reliable basis for sophisticated reason-based understanding of the actions of others. If so, this ought to cast serious doubt on the idea that the folk psychological framework was originally put in place because it served this purpose. And when seriously examined, by giving attention to the kinds of pre-linguistic social interactions in which our ancient ancestors are likely to have been engaged, the received wisdom about the origins of folk psychology looks deeply implausible. The relatively sophisticated activities of our forerunners are best understood in terms of a range of interactive, imaginative and mimetic capacities, none of which presuppose any ‘folk psychological’ understanding on their part at all. Indeed, when abductively compared with a different hypothesis about the imaginative and mimetic abilities of hominids, ‘mindreading’ proposals look exceedingly weak. As I argue elsewhere, pace Mithen, metarepresentational theory of mind abilities are not needed to explain hominid (i) tool-making; (ii) social cohesion; or even (iii) basic interpretative and language learning abilities (see Hutto 2007c Mithen 2000a). In this light, we would do well to rethink the role that such ‘explanations’ have in our lives, since their function is clearly not primarily to enable us to generate thirdparty speculations (not even in the form of gossip) about why others may have acted thus and so. This is no way diminishes – indeed it may well enhance – our understanding of the importance of folk psychology and its place in our activities and practices (see Andrews, Knobe this volume). In thinking about the prehistoric origins of folk psychology it is important to remember that the practice involves more than just the wielding of the mentalistic concepts of the attitudes; it requires that one has an appropriate way of characterising the propositional contents that serve to describe what it is that the other believes and 7 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation desires. It follows that any would-be folk psychologist must be capable of ‘representing representations’ – more precisely, representing representations which have propositional forms and contents. We can be sure of this because folk psychologists trade in reasons – minimally, belief/desire pairs – not just isolated thoughts or desires. When understanding action as performed for a reason it is not enough to appeal to a lonesome propositional attitude – the ascription of its relevant partner or partners is also required. Furthermore, these attitudes and their partners, so described, must be understood as directed at representations with appropriate logical forms – for it is in virtue of the formal properties of such representations that local inferences are made, yielding intentions to act. By implication, if one were restricted to understanding action using only holophrastic representations – those with no proper internal parts – it would be impossible to represent inference-based thinking at all (including basic practical reasoning, decision-making or planning). Such a creature could not understand or attribute reasons since doing so entails having the ability to represent a complex ‘state of mind’ in which multiple psychological attitudes (i.e. beliefs, desires, hopes, etc.) are directed at interlocking propositional contents, which in turn are linked by some overlapping internal elements. The propositional contents in question therefore must be composed of distinguishable, recurring semantic elements. For this reason, in order to model a mind capable of representing representations of the appropriate kind requires a commitment to some kind of sententialism. Sententialists claim that even the having of propositional attitudes should be understood as instantiating a three-place relation in which thinkers stand in relation to sentences – adopting various psychological attitudes towards them – and in turn, the contents expressed by these sentences themselves ‘picture’ some specific states of affairs. On the traditional analysis, the meaningful parts of these sentences refer to worldly objects and the expressed content of the sentence as a whole will be true if the world obliges – i.e. if the relevant state of affairs that the sentence describes, as picked out disquotationally, obtains (otherwise it is false). In this respect sentences have just the right kind of semantic properties of reference and truth required to be the appropriate relata of the attitudes. Sentences are purpose built for the required work. They have internal logical forms and syntax, and as such they are tailor-made for explaining the computational, inferential features that propositional attitudes exhibit, Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 8 assuming as we must that it is the propositions of propositional attitudes that do all the interesting logical work.10 Being spatio-temporal particulars, and not abstract objects, sentences have the added virtue of being the kinds of things to which one might be causally related.11 One way of accommodating sententialism – the one I favour – is to suppose that propositional attitude-based reasoning and its representation is conducted using the public vehicles of natural language (or surrogates derived from them).12 Accordingly, the structures provided by context-invariant linguistic symbols are the very basis for inferentially-based modes of reasoning. On this account, the symbol systems of natural languages, and the compositional semantics they provide, will have made bone fide inferential thinking possible for the first time. Such external formalisms are the necessary ingredients for genuinely logical reasoning (Clark 1989, p. 132–3). Although it seems that our non-linguistic hominid ancestors must have been capable of a kind of consequent-sensitive thinking, it would not have been of the strictly logical variety. Most likely, it would have been based in the manipulation of images supplied by the recreative imagination (Hutto 2007a). Only on acquiring complex natural language would our forerunners have come by the structures needed for unrestricted logical thinking of the sort that involves the manipulation of discrete propositional forms and their sub-components (Frankish 2004, ch. 6 & 7). For convenience, I follow Davies in labeling this the ‘Thinking in Natural Language’ hypothesis (or TNLH) (Davies 1998, p. 226). Its central idea is captured in the memorable slogan: “The language of thought is natural language” (Frankish 2004, p. 197).13 In explicating the TNLH it helps to call on Frankish’s handy distinction between the basic mind and supermind (Frankish 2004).14 As I characterise this divide, basic nonlinguistic cognition, of any variety, should not be understood in terms of the use of propositional representations at all.15 In direct contrast, supermental thinking takes the form of making active, conscious commitments – the adoption and maintenance of premising policies – policies concerning the use of propositions as premises in truthseeking and means-end reasoning. The supermind is thus a linguistically-based, softwired virtual machine that imposes structural regularities on our underlying mental hardware, substantively altering its habits and dispositions.16 9 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation Against this background, when it comes to explaining the origins of the folk psychological framework I take a leaf out of Sellars’ book; both in making clear the limit of my ambitions but also in offering much the same sort of account he offers about how our understanding of ‘inner episodes’ of thought was first forged. Sellars imagines a mythical Jones who models thoughts on overt speech acts. In a structurally similar way, I hold that reasons – minimally, logically interlaced belief/desire pairings – would have been initially modelled on overt, temporally extended, public accounts of episodes of practical reasoning – those involving the explicit manipulation of logically complex symbols with recurring internal parts – i.e. natural language sentences. For it is towards these (or their ‘inner speech’ proxies) that reasoners’ attitudes are directed. In the giving of such accounts acts of reasoning would have been put on exhibit, taking the form of third-personal representations. This would have taken place in second-personal dialogical contexts, within which these representations would have been complex objects of joint attention. Crucially, the arrival of such folk psychological narratives must have post-dated that of linguistically-based superminds. This for two reasons: (i) the capacity to reason practically requires facility with a compositional language (assuming the TNLH is true) and (ii) the capacity to describe the moves made in such reasoning also requires facility with a compositional language. If we accept the standard dates of the origin of such language, circa 3540,000 years ago, our folk psychological abilities cannot be explained by a more ancient endowment. Following Sellars’ line of reasoning, I propose that the very first psychological narratives, on this view, would have been related in public by practical reasonsers themselves. The authors of certain actions would have given accounts of the plans they constructed based on propositional beliefs and desires, at least. By listening to such narrations, the framework of folk psychology would have been discerned again and again, eventually becoming available for other potential uses. Third-personal folk psychological speculation would have followed on the heels of second-person folk psychological narration – and it looks likely that both of these practices were rather late developments in the socio-cultural history of our species. Allying myself with Sellars in this way may appear to be an odd move after all, he is frequently presented as an arch theory-theorist, indeed possibly even the first of the Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 10 kind. It is not uncommon to hear that “Early formulations of the notion of folk psychology stressed the idea that folk psychology is an explanatory theory. This is much to the fore, for example, in Sellars’ influential mythical account of how folk psychology might have emerged” (Bermúdez 2003, p. 47, emphasis added). But this reads much too much into the parallel that Sellars drew between the context in which non-observational ‘inner episodes of thought’ were first constructed and the context in which theoretical posits are constructed. Sellars only ever claimed that his “story helps us to understand that concepts pertaining to such inner episodes are primarily and essentially intersubjective, as intersubjective as the concept of a positron, and that the reporting role of these concepts – the fact that each of us has a privileged access to his thoughts – constitutes a dimension of the use of these concepts which is built on and presupposes this intersubjective status” (Sellars 1956/1997, p. 107). I too want to stress the intersubjective basis of our understanding of reasons, but clearly saying only this does not commit me, or anyone, to the idea that such an understanding is theory-based, theory-like or formed as a product of theorising. To think otherwise, would be to be confused about the scope and nature of the claim that both mentalistic concepts and theoretical constructs have an intersubjective basis – they need be alike in no other respect. The true genius Jones, of Sellar’s infamous myth, as I have remixed it, was not a theoretical mastermind after all but merely an attentive listener to the stories of his fellow practical reasoners (cf. Sellars 1956/1997, p. 102-3). His great innovation would have been to adopt the folk psychological framework, as revealed by secondpersonal dialogues of the specified type, putting it to (a rather degraded) work in third-personal speculation about why others may have acted thus and so on particular occasions. If this is right, we have no legitimate grounds for calling the core folk psychology framework, even so deployed, a ‘theory of mind’. Widespread, now well-established, social practices involving distinctive kinds of narratives play the role that many have postulated must be played by inherited mechanisms. It should therefore be possible to explain how budding folk psychologists come by a practical grasp of the core folk psychological concepts (as well as the ability to structurally represent how these relate in the context of reason explanations, schematically as it were), without postulating any hard-wired mechanisms that already contain this information in the form of a theory of mind or 11 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation by postulating mechanisms that allow the construction of one. This is the burden of the next section. 4. The Structure and Staged Acquisition of Folk Psychology He left the party because he believed the host had insulted him. She will head for the cabin in the woods because she wants peace and quiet. These are typical examples of reason explanations; one backward looking and the other future facing. Both imply more than they say. To leave a party because of a suspected insult suggests that one desires not to be insulted, or at least that that the desire to avoid insult is stronger than that for some other good on offer. Similarly, to seek tranquillity in isolated cabin implies that one believes that it can be found there, or at least more so than elsewhere. Despite that fact that these explications of the reasons for taking these actions are woefully under-described, they demonstrate that a major aspect of making sense of action in terms of reasons rests on a quiet understanding of the way propositional attitudes inter-relate. How do we come by this during childhood? The capacity to understand reasons for acting rests on a complex series of foundations – it is a multi-layered ability. Long before acquiring it, those children who develop normally are able to navigate the social world using embodied skills which require no understanding of reasons for action whatsoever. With a growing command of language, they acquire a practical grasp of the different kinds of propositional attitudes, individually. I will say more about this in a moment but for now it is only important to note that children come into the possession of all the pieces needed for playing the understanding-action-in-termsof-reasons game, before they can actually play it. Having all the pieces is necessary but not sufficient for such play. And it is well known that children make propositional attitude ascriptions before they are able to explicate, explain or predict actions in terms of reasons. At around two years of age, children are in secure possession of “an early intentional understanding of persons having internal goals and wants that differ from person to person” (Wellman & Phillips 2001, p. 130, Bartsch & Wellman 1995, ch. 4). Their understanding can be rather sophisticated: they refer to unfulfilled and future desires, exhibiting some fluency with counterfactuals. Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 12 But just as such desire ascriptions on their own should not be confused with belief ascriptions, so too belief ascriptions on their own should not be confused with reason ascriptions. Thus obtaining an understanding of metarepresentational thinking – getting a handle on the concept of belief – is not the final step in acquiring folk psychology abilities.17 One can ascribe beliefs using a simply inference rule of the following sort, if X says that P then X thinks that P. Knowing that X thinks that P is useful for certain coordinating purposes – for example, it serves as the basis for predicting what else X might think (on the assumption that X observes standard norms of rationality). I say more about this in the postscript discussion. An example of Millikan’s serves to underline the main issue: for many coordinating purposes it can be enough to know simply that John likes or wants yoghurt (Millikan 2004, p. 21-22). Young children are certainly capable of noting this sort of thing – this is what enables them to make certain low-level, inductively driven predictions. But doing so does not equate to understanding John’s action in terms of his reasons; for that, more is needed. In particular, the child would have understand that John’s action issued from a ‘complex state of mind’ one with a specific implicit structure: this structure is what is made explicit, at least partly so, when one says John is eating yoghurt for breakfast because he believes it will make him healthy – implying also that this is something he wants. Proficiency in making isolated propositional attitude ascriptions – attributing certain goals, desires thoughts and beliefs – is not the same as knowing how to combine these in order to understand actions in terms of reasons. This stronger condition must be satisfied if one is to be a folk psychologist. Not only must children have an understanding of the core propositional attitudes – belief and desire – they must also learn how these inter-relate with one another and other standard players in psychological dramas (for details see Hutto 2007b). The crowning requirement for acquiring folk psychology is that children must master the norms that detail the interplay between the various propositional attitudes – attitudes of which they already have a prior, discrete practical grasp. In essence, they must be familiar not only with all the elements in play but also with how they can be combined in appropriate ways. What is missing is therefore not another ingredient in the folk psychological cake, but instructions on how to mix the existing ingredients properly to make many such Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 13 cakes. But if such instructions are not built-in mechanically, how do children acquire them? Folk psychology is a complex skill; the full mastery of which only comes over time. Children gain it if they have the right inherited capacities and if they are appropriately supported by their elders while engaging in specific kinds of story-telling practices, i.e. folk psychological narrative ones. Mirroring my Sellarsian proposal about the ontogenesis of the framework of folk psychology in our pre-history, stories detailing the reasons for which protagonists act serve as exemplars that introduce the very same framework to individual children in ontogeny. It is through repeatedly interactively guided encounters with such stories that the forms and norms of folk psychology are revealed. During this process children call on a range of imaginative and embodied capacities and are directed in important ways by their carers. Importantly, the relations that hold between mentalistic concepts and the normal contexts in which they operate are laid bare, allowing children to become familiar with the folk psychological schema and the norms governing its practical application. Only certain types of narratives enable this: folk psychological narratives about reasons. There are two senses of ‘narrative’ to distinguish here – narrative in the sense of the third-personal object of focus – the folk psychological narrative itself – and acts of narration, the second-personal interactions that constitute the story-tellings through which children are introduced to such. Understanding both, without conflation, is crucial for understanding the NPH. As an object of co-attention the narrative or story itself might be spontaneous production, an autobiographical account or a bit of gossip, or the re-telling of a set text, usually taking the form of an established cultural artefact (of which there are, typically, multiple versions). Here’s one such narrative (As yet I have no data on how many of these children encounter in the normal course of their development: I leave it to the reader to speculate about this) Little Red Riding Hood learns from the woodcutter that her grandmother is sick. She wants to make her grandmother feel better [she is a nice, caring child], and she thinks that a basket of treats will help, so she brings such a basket through the woods to her grandmother’s house [beliefs and desires lead to actions]. When she arrives there, she sees the wolf in her grandmother’s Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 14 bed, but she falsely believes that the wolf is her grandmother [appearances can be deceiving]. When she realizes it is a wolf, she is frightened and runs away, because she knows wolves can hurt people. The wolf, who indeed wants to eat her, leaps out of the bed and runs after her trying to catch her (Lillard 1997, p. 268, emphases mine). Tales of this sort are the most reliable means of exhibiting how the core elements needed to understand reasons work together. Such stories include, inter alia, illustrations of: the relation of ends and means, the way projects stack, how one’s purposes can be at odds with those of others and so on. But, crucially, they have precisely the right form and content for showing how the core propositional attitudes interact in reasoning, revealing their proper inferential relations and roles.18 This provides the necessary framework for reflectively applying mentalistic concepts when understanding the unexpected intentional actions of others (and understanding one’s own) in terms of reasons. A major virtue of the NPH is that it upholds Lewis’s observation that the ‘meaning’ of mental predicates, at least when they cooperate in the context of reason explanations, is determined by their role in a structured framework. The caveat matters since I hold that children have a practical grasp of the individual propositional attitudes independently of their understanding ‘reasons’. But although Lewis was right about what is require for understanding reasons, we should not conclude that the folk psychological framework is a theoretical one. This is so even if having a framework structure should turn out to be an essential feature of theories – one that determines the ‘meaning’ of their constructs as well. It is worth recalling that Lewis originally illustrated his claim about the meaning constituting properties of such structures by appeal to the putative ‘suspect theory’ inherent in Cluedo (Lewis 1970, 1978). But as, a matter of fact, Cluedo doesn’t have an inherent ‘theory’. It has a set of rules which one must master in order to play the game. But these rules are not theoretically-grounded, they are conventional – to learn them is to learn the rules of a certain established social practice. I am not suggesting that the narrative practice of explaining ourselves by citing reasons is a rule-bound game like Cleudo. Rather I simply want to emphasis this: just having an inferential structure does not make something into a theory. 15 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation So, I agree with Lewis that our understanding of the mentalistic predicates that comprise ‘reasons for action’ are best understood in the way we understand other theoretically embedded vocabularies (i.e. talk of electrons, atoms and gravity). In both cases the meaning of such concepts is fixed, at least in part, by structural links. But again, this does not make such concepts theoretical. At best, they are similar in this one respect with theoretical terms. It is important to realize that this is only because theoretical concepts are a sub-set of the kind of concepts that gain their meaning holistically: it is not because the concept of ‘reasons for acting’ is a theoretical construct (the same holds for other mental predicates). Finally, the NPH is consistent with the fact that the folk psychological components needed for playing the folk psychological game are acquired separately and in stages. But to explain this we do not need to understand them as the products of dynamic theorising. Perhaps the major attraction of the ‘scientific theory theory’, especially for developmental psychologists, has been that it looks uniquely well suited to explain how mentalistic concepts are acquired (indeed, forged) in a punctuated way. Thus a burden of rival ‘modular’ accounts that postulate in-built theory of mind mechanisms has been to demonstrate that they too can accommodate this seeming fact, either by explaining it or explaining it away. Thus: The developmental evidence suggests that children construct a coherent, abstract account of the mind which enables them to explain and predict psychological phenomena. Although the theory is implicit rather than explicit, this kind of cognitive structure appears to share many features with a scientific theory. Children’s theories of the mind postulate unobserved entities (beliefs and desires) and laws connecting them, such as the practical syllogism. Their theories allow prediction, and they change (eventually) as a result of falsifying evidence (Gopnik 1993 p. 333, emphasis added).19 Yet, it is possible to understand how children acquire the relevant concepts in stages by concentrating on their growing range of practical – not their imagined theoretical – abilities. Making this our focus, we can interrogate the how these abilities develop and upon what they are based: i.e. what underwrites and engenders them. When it comes to understanding the acquisition of ‘mental concepts’, on the assumption that Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 16 their general character is already known to us, this type of investigation will yield a unique ability profile for each predicate – detailing the necessary pre-requisites for its acquisition, in terms of: 1. More basic abilities/capacities (whether nonconceptual or ‘conceptual’); 2. Scaffolding supports (e.g. cognitive tools that extend the possibilities for interaction such as linguistic constructions); 3. Engendering or enabling socio-cultural practices. Children gain a practical grasp of core mentalistic attitudes in piecemeal fashion. Not only does their grip on these tighten over time, the very nature of what they have hold of changes. This is a multi-staged process. Long before acquiring a practical grasp of the propositional attitudes, unimpaired children are able to navigate the social world using a range of embodied skills, interacting with others in ways which require no understanding of belief or reasons for action whatsoever. With a growing command of language they are able to make use of syntactical constructions, with embedded complement clauses which are new objects of attention and co-attention. In the first instance, this extends their understanding of the possible objects desire. Some time later, normally about six months or so, after exposure to another enabling practice – that of partaking in early conversations in which participants give expression to divergent cognitive takes on worldly offerings – children get a handle on a new kind of attitude, that of belief (and by implication, false belief) (Harris 1996). This requires the exercise of certain of their recreative imaginative abilities, specifically that of visual perspective shifting – only it is employed in a novel context, that of discursive conversation where it is asked to manipulate complex linguistic objects as opposed to non-propositional perceptions (Currie & Ravenscroft 2003, Prinz 2002). Thus around the ages of three and four, children – at least those with the relevant interactional and imaginative abilities and who have taken advantage of the right developmental opportunities – acquire basic capacities to attribute propositional attitudes and to make limited predictions based on such ascriptions. In line with ‘supermentalism’ it follows that children only come to have propositional attitudes and the ability to represent them after they have master certain linguistic complexities. 17 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation This is only the briefiest thumbnail sketch of the stages and processes by which how children come by the components of folk psychology. Due to pressures of space, I cannot go in more detail here (I do so elsewhere, Hutto 2006c, 2007a). But even this skeletal account suffices to demonstrate that we do not need to postulate a theory of mind of any kind in order to account for the stages through which our understanding of the mental develops. For all of the reasons cited above (and many others not discussed in this essay), I hold that using the label ‘theory of mind’ as byword for the practice of understanding intentional actions in terms of reasons – even when no explanatory proposal is attached – is vastly misleading. Given the bad effects it has had and continues to have on the imaginations of many philosophers, psychologists and other researchers it should be completely avoided. Postscript: The Supporting Role of Co-Cognition I admit that it may be that when we speculate about possible reasons for action we must use a low-grade theory or some kind of simulative heuristic or a mix of both. However, it is a major mistake to focus on these peripheral uses of the framework of folk psychology treating them if they told us about what lies at the heart of the practice. There is no place for ‘theories’, ‘theorising’ or ‘simulation’ when it comes to understanding the primary basis of that ability. Let me be clear, that by ‘simulation’ I specifically mean these versions that propose that we understand reasons for action by the direct manipulation of the propositional attitudes – at least, beliefs and desires. For I fully accept that when we use the framework of folk psychology in understanding others we must also call on a range of embodied, imaginative abilities that involve non-propositional varieties of ‘simulation’ (for details see Hutto 2006b, 2006c). Although the NPH tells how we become acquainted with the forms of and norms of folk psychology in a way that shows how we overcome the ‘folk psychological’ variant of the frame problem, it still only provides part of the story of how folk psychology is practically applied (Hutto 2007b). It is thus the tip of much larger iceberg. One crucially important background capacity is that of co-cognition – for it is implicated in the digestion of accounts actions that are done for reasons. But this does Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 18 not presuppose any ‘theory of mind’ or ‘simulative’ abilities proper. I will explain the role co-cognition needs to play before returning to this point. Consider what is involved in understanding McX’s explanation that he reached for the glass of water because he was thirsty (to avoid any accusations that this is a ‘canned’ example, let us suppose that there was an equally good alternative explanation in the air as to why McX might have done this in the circumstances). If his answer is to dispel my curiosity, I must know what anyone can be expected to know about the relevant properties of water. Yet, since the content of any thought is constrained by the content of other thoughts, knowing such things seems to entail a standing capacity to somehow work through an impossibly large sum of inferences (potentially infinite in number). Spelling out what ‘anyone can be expected to know about a particular topic’ would require explicitly stating all the possible inferential liaisons. In sum, this would constitute a description of the whole of our commonsense knowledge on all topics, on the assumption that it could be laid out in the form of a series of rules and representations. Thus when it comes to understanding reasons, apart from calling on the core principles of folk psychology one would be calling on knowledge of an indefinite number of additional principles – principles detailing both commonsense and specialised knowledge of every possible domain of thought. The mere fact that any such ‘theory’ would require an infinite number of principles is enough to cast its possibility into doubt.20 Yet even if we were prepared to countenance its possible existence, questions would loom large about how anyone could possibly wield it sensitively in real-time, practical applications. For only a small sub-set of the possible inferences would ever matter in any given case. So, in making sense of McX’s answer I somehow just know which ones are the relevant ones on which to focus. There is no formula for achieving this. How would a theory or theory-driven mechanism determine such things? Deciding which thoughts ought to go together, as relevant to a particular judgement made in specific circumstances, is not something that can be specified in advance or once and for all: It is deeply context sensitive. Judgements of this sort need to be formed on the spot – they are a posteriori. There is simply no algorithm, however complex, that would enable us to anticipate such possibilities. This feature of central cognition is, by its very nature, too unconstrained to be explained computationally. This 19 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation conclusion is unavoidable if we observe – as we ought – that the non-demonstrative inferences of central cognition are holistic. Indeed, Fodor who has done the most to highlight this difficulty has gloomily pronounced that if a great deal of cognition really were holistic in this way then cognitive science has seen the harbinger of doom (Fodor 1983, part IV, Fodor 2000, ch. 2).21 But such holism is only threatening to those who think that in making sense of the thoughts of others we must be operating with a tractable theory of relevance. In response to this problem, which we can call ‘Heal’s challenge’, theory theorists have wisely confirmed the modesty of their position, clarifying the true scope of their commitments (Heal 1998a, 1998b). They have been quick to concede that their proposals only concern the core principles of the theory of mind, what I have been calling the folk psychological framework. And they acknowledge that it “is all very well as a framework, but it plainly needs to be supplemented in some way if one is to be able to provide fine-grained intentionalistic predictions and explanations” (Carruthers 1996, p. 24, see also Nichols & Stich 2003, p. 86, 104). Thus even hardcore theory theorists typically respond to Heal’s challenge by adopting her own account of thought replication, according to which we are able to understand and decide what another is likely to think about any given topic by cocognising with them. In doing so, we use our own thoughts and all their typical implications as initial guides to the thinking of others, making interpretative adjustments as necessary (see Hutto 1999b, ch. 5). Essentially, co-cognition involves replicating the target’s deliberative processes, using the one’s own thoughts to fuel this activity – thus no principles are involved (cf. Heal 1998b, p. 491).22 To achieve an understanding of what another should infer about a given topic we need only call on our own first-order commonsense knowledge about the world.23 For example, provided that X has reliable information about Y’s initial thoughts and that both are reasoning in line with accepted norms, the conclusions X reaches about what Y thinks (or will think) ought to be in good order. Clearly, the products of this kind of thought replication process could used in conjunction with the applications of the folk psychological framework in the course of making sense of intentional actions. But why isn’t a pure co-cognition account enough on its own for making sense of the action of others? The answer is quite simple. The folk psychological framework is necessary for understanding reasons, Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 20 not just the inter-relations between thoughts. And to understand a reason minimally entails an understanding the interrelations between beliefs and desires (along with many other of their familiar partners). It is surely an exaggeration to say that the loss of folk psychology would be ‘the greatest intellectual catastrophe in the history of our species’. Still, for those who rely on it in order to make sense of intentional actions (our own and those of others), for those who have based so many important practices on it, I don’t doubt that its loss would be catastrophic. So: Long live Folk Psychology! References Bartsch, K., and H. Wellman. 1995. Children Talk about the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Bartsch, K., and H. Wellman. 1989. “Young Children’s Attribution of Actions to Beliefs and Desires.” Child Development 60: 946-64. Bermúdez, J. 2003 “The Domain of Folk Psychology.” In Minds and Persons, edited by A. O'Hear. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Botterill G., Carruthers P. 1999. The Philosophy of Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Bruner J. 1990. Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Carpendale J. L. M., Lewis C. 2004. “Constructing an Understanding of the Mind: The Development of Children's Social Understanding within Social Interaction”. Behavioural and Brain Sciences: 79-151 Carruthers P. 1996a. “Simulation and Self-Knowledge: A Defence of TheoryTheory”. In Theories of Theories of Mind, ed. P Carruthers, P Smith, pp. 22-38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Carruthers P. 1996b. Language, Thought and Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Carruthers P. 1998. “Thinking in Language? Evolution and a Moduralist Possibility”. In Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes, ed. P Carruthers, J Boucher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Carruthers P. 2003. “Moderately Massive Modularity”. In Minds and Persons, ed. A O'Hear. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Carruthers P. 2004. “Practical Reasoning in a Modular Mind”. Mind and Language 19: 259-78 Clark A. 1989. Microcogniton. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Clark, A. 1997. Being There. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Clark A. 1998. “Magic Words: How Language Augments Human Computation”. In Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes, ed. P Carruthers, J Boucher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Currie, G., and I. Ravenscroft. 2003.Receative Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 21 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation Davies, M. 1998. “Language, Thought and the Language of Thought (Aunty's Own Argument Revisited)” In Language and Thought: Interdisiplinary Themes, edited by P Carruthers and J. Boucher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dennett D. C. 1998. Reflections on Language and Mind. In Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes, ed. P Carruthers, J Boucher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Frankish, K. 2004. Mind and Supermind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fodor J. A. 1983. The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Fodor J. A. 1987. Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Fodor J. A. 2000. The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Gallagher S. 2006. “The Narrative Alternative to Theory of Mind”. Consciousness and Emotion: Special Issue on Radical Enactivism. vol. 7 Gallagher S., Hutto D. D, 2007. “Primary Interaction and Narrative Practice: From Empathic Resonance to Folk Psychology”. In The Shared Mind: Perspectives on Intersubjectivity, ed. J Zlatev, T Racine, C Sinha, E Itkonen. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Garfield J. L, Peterson CC, Perry T. 2001. “Social Cognition, Language Acquisition and the Development of the Theory of Mind”. Mind and Language 16: 494-541 Gigerenzer G. 1997. “The Modularity of Social Intelligence”. In Machiavellian Intelligence II: Extensions and Evaluations, ed. RW Byrne, A Whiten. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Goldie P. 2006. “Emotional Experience and Understanding”. Consciousness and Emotion: Special Issue on Radical Enactivism. 7 Gopnik A. 1993. “How we know our own minds: The illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality”. In Readings in the Philosophy of the Cognitive Sciences ed. A Goldman. Cambridge: MIT Press. (Originally published in Brain and Behavioural Sciences. 16. 1-14. 1993). Guarjardo N. R., Watson A. 2002. “Narrative Discourse and Theory of Mind Development”. The Journal of Genetic Psychology 163: 305-25 Harris, P. 1996. “Desires, Beliefs and Language.” In Theories of Theories of Mind, edited by P. Carruthers and P Smith, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 200-20. Heal, J. 1998a. “Understanding Other Minds from the Inside.” In Current Issues in Philosophy of Mind, edited by Anthony O'Hear. New York: Cambridge University Press, Heal, J. 1998b “Co-Cognition and Off-Line Simulation: Two Ways of Understanding the Simulation Approach.” Mind and Language: 13(4) 477-98. Heal, J. 1995 “How to Think About Thinking.” In Mental Simulation, edited by M. Davies. Cambridge: Blackwell. Heal, J. 2000 “Other Minds, Rationality and Analogy.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, no. LXXIV: 1-19. Hobson P. 2006. “From Feeling to Thinking (through others)”. Consciousness and Emotion: Special Issue on Radical Enactivism. 7 Hutto D. D. 1999a. “A Cause for Concern: Reasons, Causes and Explanations”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: 59(2) 381-401 Hutto D. D. 1999b. The Presence of Mind. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 22 Hutto D. D. 2003. “Folk Psychological Explanations: Narratives and the Case of Autism”. Philosophical Papers 32: 345-61 Hutto D. D. 2004. “The Limits of Spectatorial Folk Psychology”. Mind and Language 19: 548-73 Hutto D. D. 2006a. “Unprincipled Engagements: Emotional Experience, Expression and Response”. Target paper in Consciousness and Emotion: Special Issue on Radical Enactivism. vol. 7 Hutto D. D. 2006b. “Embodied Expectations and Extended Possibilities: Reply to Goldie”. In Consciousness and Emotion: Special Issue on Radical Enactivism. Vol. 7. Hutto D. D. 2006c. “Four Herculean Labours: Reply to Hobson”. In Consciousness and Emotion: Special Issue on Radical Enactivism. Vol. 7. Hutto D. D. 2006d. “Narrative Practice and Understanding Reasons: Reply to Gallagher”. In Consciousness and Emotion: Special Issue on Radical Enactivism Vol. 7 Hutto D. D. 2006e. “Knowing What?: Radical versus Conservative Enactivism”. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Hutto D. D. 2007a. Folk Psychological Narratives: The Socio-Cultural Basis of Understanding Reasons. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Hutto D. D. 2007b. “The Narrative Practice Hypothesis”. In Narrative and Understanding Persons. ed. Hutto. D. D. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hutto DD. 2007c. “First Communions: Mimetic versus Theory of Mind Abilities”. In The Shared Mind: Perspectives on Intersubjectivity, ed. J Zlatev, T Racine, C Sinha, E Itkonen. Amerstdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Lamarque P. 2004. “On Not Expecting Too Much From Narrative”. Mind and Language 19: 393-408 Lamarque, P., and S. Olsen. 1994. Truth, Fiction and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lewis, D. 1970. “How to Define Theoretical Terms.” Journal of Philosophy 67. 42746. Lewis, D. 1978. “Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50: 249-58. Li, C. N., and J. Hombert. 2002. “On the Evolutionary Origin of Language.” In Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language, edited by M. Stamenov and V. Gallese. Amsterdam/Philadelphia. Lillard A. 1997. “Other Folk’s Theories of Mind and Behaviour”. Psychological Science 8: 268-74 Lillard, A. 1998. “Ethnopsychologies: Cultural Varations in Theories of Mind.” Psychological Bulletin 123, no. 1: 3-32. Losh, M., U. Bellugi, J. Reilly, and D. Anderson. 2000. “Narrative as a Social Engagement Tool: The Excessive Use of Evaluation in Narratives from Children with Williams Syndrome.” Narrative Inquiry 10, no. 2: 265-90. Millikan RG. 2004. Varieties of Meaning: The 2002 Jean Nicod Lectures. Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press Mithen S. 2000a. “Paleoanthropological Perspectives on the Theory of Mind”. In Understanding Other Minds, ed. S Baron-Cohen, H Talgar-Flusberg, D Cohen. Oxford: Oxford University Press Mithen S. 2000b. “Mind, Brain and Material Culture: An Archeological Perspective”. In Evolution and the Modern Mind: Modularity, Language and 23 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation Meta-Cognition, ed. P Carruthers, A. Chamberlain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Morris, M.W., and K. Peng. 1994: “Culture and Cause: American and Chinese Attributions for Social and Physical Events.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67: 949-71. Nichols, S., and S. Stich. 2003. Mindreading: An Integrated Account of Pretence, Self-Awareness and Understanding of Other Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Over, D. 2002. “Rationalty of Evolutionary Psychology.” In Reason and Nature: Essays in the Theory of Rationality, edited by J. Bermúdez and A. Millar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Papineau, D. 2003. The Roots of Reason: Philosophical Essays on Rationality, Evolution and Probability. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peterson C., Siegal M. 2000. “Insights into Theory of Mind from Deafness and Autism”. Mind and Language 15: 123-45 Prinz J. 2002. Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and Their Perceptual Basis. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press Richner E. S, Nicolopoulou A. 2001. “The Narrative Construction of Differing Conceptions of the Person in the Development of Young Children’s Social Understanding”. Early Education and Development 12. Scholl B.J., Leslie A. 1999. “Modularity, Development and 'Theory of Mind'”. Mind and Language 14: 131-53 Sellars, W. 1956/1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press. Varela F.J., Thompson E., Rosch E. 1991. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press Vinden, P. 1999. “Children's Understanding of Mind and Emotion: A Multi-Culture Study.” Cognition and Emotion. 13, no. 1. pp. 19-48. Vinden, P. 1996. “Junin Quechua Children’s Understanding of Mind.” Child Development 67, no. 4. pp. 1707-16. Wellman, H., and A. Phillips. 2001. “Developing Intentional Understandings.” In Intentions and Intentionality, edited by Bertram Malle, L.J. Moses and D.A. Baldwin. Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press. 1 Terminology – or rather its associated effects – matters. Although many researchers from many different fields talk of ‘folk psychology’ and ‘theory of mind’ as if these labels had fixed designations, in fact they do not. Some only use them to denote a certain kind of practice or ability, while others are refer to what putatively underlies and explains such practices and abilities. Thus it is often quite unclear exactly what one is committed to by saying that we get by in our everyday affairs by using folk psychology or a theory of mind. Loose talk sinks ships, so they say, but it can also keep them afloat. As long as our talk is unregulated it is impossible to assess claims properly. Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 2 24 I have attempted to explain what lies at the root of folk psychological inabilities of sufferers with autism who fail to ‘grasp the concept of belief’ in Hutto 2006c. 3 Vinden’s cross-cultural studies, which employ four variants of locationchange and false-belief tests, reveal significant variations in the understanding of belief between the children of certain cultures: “the response patterns vary from culture to culture, with the Western children the only ones who were at ceiling on all questions” (Vinden 1999, p. 32). In fact, in coping with the false-belief task – where children were asked what the protagonist would ‘think’ – those from the Mofu of Cameroon were only marginally above chance and those from the Tolai and Taine populations of Papua New Guinea were at chance. These results are even more remarkable given that the ages of the children involved included those of up to 8-years old (due to problems finding participants of the desired younger ages). Similar results of cross-culture comparisons concerning ‘person’ conceptions of a more general sort have “directly challenged the assumption of a single, universally applicable conception of the person and, perhaps, even more fundamentally, the view that treats the development of this conception as a straightforwardly individual and socioculturally dexcontextualized process” (Richner & Nicolopoulou 2001, p. 402). 4 On its own this evidence does not provide a secure basis for an effective argument against the existence of Theory of Mind Mechanisms (or ToMMs). Drawing a comparison with culturally diverse folk theories of vision, Scholl and Leslie insist that “Even specific beliefs about the concept of belief are not necessarily relevant: the concept of belief could be universally grounded in a module even though most cultures do not recognize the ‘modular account’ in their own folk psychology” (Scholl & Leslie 1999, p. 137, see also Mithen 2000b, p. 490). However, this cross-cultural divergence takes on new importance if independent arguments against the existence of ToMMs can be 25 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation successfully mounted. It is a primary ambition of my recent book to supply such arguments (Hutto 2007a). 5 As long as we do not equivocate in our use of terms, saying this does not imply that these others have a different folk psychology (stricto sensu). Claims about inter-cultural heterogeneity with respect to folk psychological practice must not be confused with claims that folk psychology is polymorphic, varying from culture to culture: it is not found in different forms elsewhere. The practice of making sense of intentional action in terms of reasons (strictly defined) simply could not be different in different parts of the world. This is, of course, wholly consistent with the possibility that the practice is not universal. 6 In some cases the differences may be to do with frequency with which the folk psychological schema is used rather than the possibility of its use. For example, it has been shown that unlike North Americans, the Chinese are less prone to explain events in terms of a person’s reasons for acting or even by appeal to their personal character traits. Instead they prefer to make appeal to social-situational factors (Morris & Peng 1994). Thus when it comes to understanding what caused another to act the Chinese are more likely to cite such things as their ‘being a victim of the Students’ Educational Policy’ or having ‘recently been fired’ rather than to cite features of the person’s character or individual beliefs and desires (Lillard 1997, p. 271). Hence, it appears that favoured modes of action explanation, just like children’s ‘models of personhood’, take “shape in an active interplay with culturally available models of personhood, which are not uniform either between or within societies” (Richner & Nicolopoulou 2001, p. 401). 7 There are, of course, other non-folk psychological normalizing explanations, but if the action was performed for reason only explanations that bring the folk psychological framework will do Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 8 26 It is worth saying something about the defining features of narratives per se. A very minimal definition will suffice. Larmarque tells us that for something to be a narrative “at least two events must be depicted in a narrative and there must be some more or less loose, albeit non-logical relation between the events. Crucially, there is a temporal dimension in narrative” (Lamarque 2004, p. 394, see also Lamarque & Olsen 1994, p. 225). This neutral characterisation easily lends itself to the idea that there are different types of narratives and that these can be classified by such common features as their constituents and subject matter. Folk psychological narratives – such as Little Red Riding Hood – are distinguished by being about agents who act for reasons. And, for my purposes, ‘acting for reasons’ is to be defined narrowly, as per tradition, as implying a belief/desire pairing constituting an intention. 9 The practice of providing (or generating) narratives about reasons – the application of the derived framework – just is the practice of explicating and explaining action in terms of reasons. The success or otherwise of such explanations depends largely on who is doing the explaining. 10 For example, within certain limits, propositional attitudes are subject to standard logical implications. If we know that ‘X believes that P & Q’, it can be safely assumed that ‘X believes that P’. And propositional attitudes, or at least beliefs, are generative: It is possible to produce an indefinite number of new propositional attitudes by manipulating those one already has. This happens in a small way in every act of practical reasoning when new beliefs, desires or intentions are formed. If beliefs and desires stand in relation to sentences of some kind, all of this is easy to account for. Thus Fodor is on the side of the angels in his long campaign for ensure that we recongise the “independence of content from functional role” (Fodor 1987, p. 71). 11 Or, for fans dualistic approaches, that we can be related to sentences or that we can ‘grasp’ thoughts by means of them presents no interaction problem. 27 12 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation Another way to achieve this would be to endorse the Language of Thought Hypothesis (or LOT). I argue elsewhere that we should not go down that road (Hutto 2007a). Supporters of TNL accounts typically hold that it is only after we achieve facility with the external symbolic forms of natural language – after we are practiced as engaging in ‘pubic thinking’ – that we eventually learn to ‘think in our heads’, using inner speech as a medium. This is an achievement not a given (Dennett 1998, p. 284). Private thinking requires replicating auditory and visual images of the structures used in overt speech acts and linguistic forms. Apparently school children do something similar when they first learn how to manipulate mathematical symbols publicly before being able to perform feats of ‘mental mathematics’. Perhaps, the most remarkable example of this the proficiency certain well trained Japanese children have for calculating enormously large sums using only a ‘mental abacus’. The important point is that, on this account, it is either public natural language sentences or their internal proxies that serve as mediums for conducting propositional thinking. 13 The idea of the supermind takes its inspiration from Dennett’s model of the conscious mind as having a stream-of-consciousness or Joycean character. On my rendering, like Frankish’s, it is cast in a more dynamic role of a premising machine. Thus although its processing is still serial, is used for engaging in deliberative acts of explicit practical or theoretical reasoning, those of the classical deductive, inductive and abductive variety. Thus Frankish stresses it is “not just to speak as if the proposition were true but to reason as if it were – to take it as a premise” (Frankish 2004, p. 91). Thus supermental thinking involves “consciously and deliberatively calculating some of the consequences of one’s premises. And acceptance – that is having a policy of premising – involves committing oneself to doing this, on appropriate occasions, in appropriate contexts” (Frankish 2004, p. 91). For this reason he recommends that Dennett’s proposed alias for conscious mind ‘the Joycean machine’ should be altered to that of ‘the premising machine’ in order to underscore its primary role. As this kind of reasoning activity is conducted consciously, it is easily accessible and familiar to us. This may Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 28 also account for our mistaken tendency to see it everywhere, casting all cognition in its mould (Clark 1998, p. 180-182). 14 I diverge from Frankish’s understanding of the basic mind because I deny that it should be understood in propositional attitude terms. Whereas he promotes a duplex approach – in which there are two types of propositional attitude at work – I retain his understanding of the supermental, but propose that it is only at in arena of ratio-discursive thinking that propositional attitudes are involved in cognition. 15 A kind of instrumental thinking is possible without language, but augmenting our cognitive toolkit with a premising machine that makes use of linguaform structures would have constituted a major addition – one with truly transforming effects; not just a modest extension but a radical transformation of the cognitive possibilities. Nevertheless, the exercise of the recreative imagination would have prepared the grooves for and oiled the wheels of instrumental thinking using only non-sentential vehicles. This suggests a plausible explanation of how the wetware of the ancestral brain – which is not ready-made for logical reasoning but only imagistically-grounded protological thought – so easily accommodates supermental thinking. And this matters because the mere appearance of complex natural language forms is simply not sufficient to explain the ontogenesis of logical reasoning abilities. As Carruthers observes, it is “quite obscure how the evolution of a grammarfaculty could, by itself, confer capacities for non-demonstrative social, causal, or explanatory reasoning” (Carruthers 1998, p. 108, emphasis original). But if the basis of such reasoning was already familiar to certain non-verbal minds it is easy to see how using public symbols with stable forms and content would have transformed it radically. Iconically-based thinking has inherent from which truly symbolic-based cognition does not suffer. Casting thoughts into a sentential format is precisely what is required for engaging in topicneutral, domain-general reasoning. Even so, the capacity to perform supermental tasks does not come automatically; humans gain it only after having mastered the use of public language symbols. Clark is right to suppose that the acquisition of language allows for the ‘ultimate upgrade’ (Clark 1998 29 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation p. 177, 179, 180). That said, it is important to stress that even in the human case, supermental thinking does not wholly usurp our more basic nonlinguistic modes of ‘reasoning’ – it is not as if the acquisition of a premising machine effects a complete cognitive re-fit. Indeed, our older ways are likely to dominate in many circumstances with supermental capacities only being called on a fraction of the time. Basic minds, which come in different varieties, are good enough for getting most organisms through most situations, provided they are in their home environments. In the human case, they often allow us to navigate by autopilot as it were, but sometimes they are thwarted. Tackling problems that the basic mind cannot handle is a job for the supermind. However, contrary to what might be expected, going over to ‘manual control’ is to switch into low-gear thinking. It is a shift to a slow, careful deliberative mode that is serial, sequential and fragile. Clearly, the TNLH is therefore in line with dual-process theories of reasoning that have been advanced in order to make sense of the independent empirical data which shows that although sometimes people reason logically “sometimes they do not” (Gigerenzer 1997, p. 282, Over 2002, p. 201-204). Speculatively, if reasoning by means of natural language structures did constitute such as vast improvement our ancestors’ cognitive possibilities this might potentially explain why modern humans are almost unique in the animal kingdom as having so completely out-competed all other species within its taxonomic family (Li & Hombert 2002, p. 176). 16 One can endorse this account without taking sides in the debate about the ‘location’ of such cognitive processing. There is disagreement within the extended mind camp about whether or not supermental cognition involves an internal reconfiguration of procedures to which our biological brains are accustomed or merely the manipulation of external vehicles (Clark 1998, Dennett 1998, Mithen 2000a). What matters is that, on either account, by endorsing supermentalism one can be a ‘realist’ about beliefs and desires – accepting that there is a real difference between really acting for a reason and merely appearing to do so (e.g. by acting on the basis of intentional attitudes or even reflexively). Only those capable of bone fide practical reasoning using linquaform vehicles can act for reasons (non-verbal animals give the Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 30 appearance of doing so, but this is an appearance: they are not ‘true believers’, still less ‘true reasoners’). Hence, there is a way of agreeing with Davidson over Dennett without becoming Fodor: reasons genuinely figure in the causal explanation of intentional action (with some qualifications, see Hutto 1999a). There are ‘facts of the matter’ about whether one has acted for a reason or not – and indeed about for which reason it was that one acted. It is an entirely different issue whether in any given case an interested onlooker or the person themselves might be in a position to say accurately whether they acted for a reason or for which reason they acted. 17 It is easy to be misled on this score since the developmental psychology literature gives almost exclusive attention to the moment that children begin to pass false belief tasks. This can give the erroneous impression that folk psychological development culminates with an understanding of belief (Richner & Nicolopoulou 2001, p. 395). But folk psychological abilities do not spring into being complete as soon as children come by a basic understanding of belief. Indeed, the mere fact that we know that children reliably manage to pass false-belief tests at a certain age, under certain experimental conditions does not tell us to what degree of they understand that concept – nor anything about the true scope of their ability to apply it outside of such contexts. The myopia surrounding this particular experimental phenomenon has tended to blind researchers to development of bone fide but nuanced folk psychological skills that only emerge after ages 4 and 5, as children hone their abilities. Thus “Proponents of the dominant theories have been notably quiet about what happens in development after the child’s fifth birthday. However research that explores whether 5-year-olds can use simple false belief knowledge to make inferences about their own and other’s perspectives finds that they singularly fail to do so” (Carpendale & Lewis 2004, p. 91). 18 Culturally established texts of this sort are the most secure medium of introducing children to the folk psychological schema and training children it 31 Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation its application. Yet any story about reasons for action, even those related through causal conversations has the potential to reinforce this understanding. And, of course, folk psychological narratives are most regularly relayed through conversation, despite the fact that the latter are less regimented and structured than the canonical texts used in much pre-school story-telling. Like the well-constructed, familiar fairy tale cited above, conversations about reasons make mention of the labels of the attitudes and their appropriate object complements they serve to introduce these already familiar lexical terms and verbs in a new context. Nevertheless, everyday conversations describing reasons for action, unless they are well focused and extended, do not always reveal the full structure of reasons in the way more polished and detailed folk psychological narratives do. This is because our workaday folk psychological narratives are often truncated, in line with the rules of conversational implicature. 19 A basic non-metarepresentational theory of mind, inherited along with rational theory construction mechanisms are fundamental to this theory, which holds that our understanding of intentional actions done for reasons “appears to be constructed between 3 and 4” (Gopink 1993 p. 332). 20 The problem is well known to defenders of traditional, classical cognitivist approaches to artificial intelligence. It is widely accepted that if one requires explicit theoretical knowledge of the full range of possibilities that might obtain in a given domain in order to take appropriate action then – to sum up the worry with a slogan – agents would need to know practically everything in order to be able to do almost anything. As Varela et al. observe “after two decades of humblingly slow progress, it dawned on many workers in cognitive science that even the simplest cognitive action requires a seemingly infinite amount of knowledge, which we take for granted” (Varela et al. 2000, p. 148). More pithily, as Clark remarks “a little reflection suggests that there would be no obvious end to the ‘common-sense’ knowledge we would have to write down to capture all that an adult human knows” (Clark 1997, p. 6). Folk Psychology without Theory or Simulation 21 32 Fodor speaks of the ‘ruinous holism’ that follows from assuming “the units of thought are much bigger than in fact they could possibly be” (Fodor 2000, p. 33). In failing to face up to this challenge he accuses cognitive scientists of being in “deep denial” (Fodor 2000, p. 39). In an even gloomier assessment he writes “cognitive science hasn’t even started; we are literally no farther advanced than in the darkest days of behaviourism” (Fodor 2000, p. 129). Carruthers is unimpressed by Fodor’s arguments for the holistic character of domain general cognition. He claims they rest on a poor comparison with a rather specialised branch of cognition: scientific knowledge (Carruthers 2003, p. 76-8). He also argues that the mind is much more modular than Fodor supposes. 22 Heal maintains that co-cognition involves seriously held beliefs entertained in hypothetical contexts, not ‘pretend beliefs’ (Heal 2000, p. 12). 23 A consequence of co-cognition is that in understanding the thoughts of others we are afflicted with the ‘Dr. Watson constraint’ (Botterill & Carruthers 1999, p. 90). At best, we are only ever able to downgrade our understanding of what others are likely to think, never upgrade it. Watson (not to mention LeStrade) always falls short of working out what Holmes thinks about any particular topic because of his limited deductive capacities and knowledge. It follows that if we understand the thoughts of others by using this method will always be constrained by the limits of our own intellectual capacities (and our ability to sensitively adjust these).