Actions for Do apes read minds? : toward a new folk psychology
Do apes read minds? : toward a new folk psychology / Kristin Andrews
- Author
- Andrews, Kristin, 1971-
- Published
- Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, [2012]
- Copyright Date
- ©2012
- Physical Description
- 1 online resource (xi, 294 pages)
Access Online
- Contents
- Acknowledgments; I. Identifying the Problem; Chapter 1. Do Apes Read Minds?; Social Apes; Standard Views of Folk Psychology; A Pluralistic Folk Psychology; Chapter 2. Baby Humans and Adult Chimpanzees: Propositional Attitude Attribution in Philosophy and Psychology; From Philosophy to Psychology; Belief Attribution in Philosophy; Belief Attribution in Psychology; Theory of Mind in Children; Infant Belief Attribution; Children's Changing Understanding of Other Minds; Chapter 3. The Asymmetry of Folk Psychological Prediction and Explanation., Standard Folk Psychology Emphasizes Prediction (and Assumes Explanation Follows)The Symmetry Thesis; Criticisms of the Symmetry Thesis; An Asymmetric Folk Psychology; II. Prediction; Chapter 4. How Do You Know What I'm Going to Do? You Know My Beliefs; Prediction and the Propositional Attitudes; Predicting Behavior; Accuracy of Predicting Behavior by Relying on the Attitudes; Propositional Attitude Attribution Is Not Sufficient for Accurate Predictions; Propositional Attitude Attribution Is Not Necessary for Accurate Predictions; Prediction in Theory Theory and Model Theory., Prediction in Simulation TheoryLeaving the Armchair; Chapter 5. How Do You Know What I'm Going to Do? You Know Me; Mental Content and Intentionality; Methods of Prediction; Predicting from the Situation; Predicting from Self; Predicting from Stereotypes; Predicting from Traits; Other Factors Involved in Predicting Behavior; Chapter 6. The Role of Propositional Attitudes in Behavior Prediction; Predicting Behavior and Mental Content; Does Trait Attribution Require Attribution of Mental Content?; How Accurate Is Standard Folk Psychology?, What Place Is There for Traditional Folk Psychological Prediction?Predicting Behavior without Attributing Propositional Attitudes; III. Explanation; Chapter 7. What Is Folk Psychological Explanation?; A Preliminary Account of Folk Psychological Explanation; Explanation and Prediction; Four Questions about FP Explanation; Explanation in Theory Theory; Explanation in Simulation Theory; Explanation in Model Theory; My Answers to the Four Questions; Chapter 8. The Science of Folk Psychological Explanation; Aspects of Explanation; Explanation Seeking in Children; Explanation Generating in Children., and The Purposes of FP ExplanationExplanation Types and Contents; Explanatory Pluralism; Chapter 9. Worries about Explanation and Mental State Attribution; Explaining Behavior without a Theory of Mind; Nonverbal Explainers; Automatic Mental State Attribution; Explanations, Reasons, and Causes; Toward a New Way; IV. The Solution; Chapter 10. Folk Psychological Pluralism: Reading People, Not Minds; The Principles of a Pluralistic Folk Psychology; Folk Psychological Pluralism; How Do the Traditional Accounts of Mind Reading Stack Up?; Reading People, Not Minds; V. Implications of the Account.
- Summary
- An argument that as folk psychologists humans (and perhaps other animals) don't so much read minds as see one another as persons with traits, emotions, and social relations. By adulthood, most of us have become experts in human behavior, able to make sense of the myriad behaviors we find in environments ranging from the family home to the local mall and beyond. In philosophy of mind, our understanding of others has been largely explained in terms of knowing others' beliefs and desires; describing others' behavior in these terms is the core of what is known as folk psychology. In Do Apes Read Minds? Kristin Andrews challenges this view of folk psychology, arguing that we don't consider others' beliefs and desires when predicting most quotidian behavior, and that our explanations in these terms are often inaccurate or unhelpful. Rather than mindreading, or understanding others as receptacles for propositional attitudes, Andrews claims that folk psychologists see others first as whole persons with traits, emotions, and social relations. Drawing on research in developmental psychology, social psychology, and animal cognition, Andrews argues for a pluralistic folk psychology that employs different kinds of practices (including prediction, explanation, and justification) and different kinds of cognitive tools (including personality trait attribution, stereotype activation, inductive reasoning about past behavior, and generalization from self) that are involved in our folk psychological practices. According to this understanding of folk psychology--which does not require the sophisticated cognitive machinery of second-order metacognition associated with having a theory of mind--animals (including the other great apes) may be folk psychologists, too.
- Subject(s)
- ISBN
- 9780262305761 (electronic bk.)
0262305763 (electronic bk.)
9780262017558
0262017555 - Digital File Characteristics
- text file
- Bibliography Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
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