ENSO Seminar Series
Annemarie Kalis, August Christensen & Sam Langelaan
Folk psychology, or the everyday practice of interpreting each others’ behaviour in terms of mental states, is a common feature of many social communities. The existence of such practices of ascribing beliefs, desires and intentions to one another, raises important philosophical questions. For example, why do we ascribe mental states to each other? And: to what extent do folk psychological practices in different social communities share similar features? Even though valuable insights are being gained by employing methods from experimental philosophy, we will show that the data provided by such methods are not sufficiently informative to answer such philosophical questions about folk psychology. Instead, we will argue that to explore the aims of folk psychology and to investigate similarities and differences between various practices, philosophers should rely on what Gilbert Ryle called thick descriptions of the particularities of folk psychological practices found in different communities. Moreover, in order to develop thick descriptions, philosophers should engage more seriously with the discipline of anthropology, which employs methods specifically geared towards generating thick descriptions of ‘ordinary life’ in various social practices.
Link to join/watch the seminar: https://youtube.com/live/kNkkMibRzM0
