Folk Psychology: The Theory of Mind Debate

With little or no formal teaching, human beings develop the capacity to deploy psychological concepts in predicting and explaining the actions and mental states of other members of the species. What is the basis for this capacity? Many philosophers and psychologists argue that normal adult human beings possess a primitive or "folk" psychological theory. Recently, however, this theory has come under challenge from the simulation alternative. This alternative view says that human beings are able to predict and explain each others′ actions by using the resources of their own minds to simulate the psychological etiology of the actions of others. The 13 essays in this volume present the foundations of theory of mind debate, and are accompanied by an extensive introduction. Accompanion volume, Mental Simulation: Evaluations and Applications, edited by Tony Stone and Martin Davies, Blackwells (1995) contains thirteen further essays, most of which appear there for the first time. Taken together, the two volumes offer a richly woven fabric of philosophical and psychological theory, which promises to yield real insight into the nature of mental lives.

List of Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction: Martin Davies and Tony Stone. 1. Replication and Functionalism: Jane Heal. 2. Folk Psychology as Simulation: Robert M. Gordon. 3. Interpretation Psychologized: Alvin I. Goldman. 4. The Simulation Theory: Objectives and Misconceptions: Robert M. Gordon. 5. Folk Psychology: Simulation or Tacit Theory?: Stephen Stich and Shaun Nichols. 6. ′He thinks He Knows′: And more Development Evidence Against the Simulation Role Taking Theory: Josef Perner and Deborah Howes. 7. Reply to Stich and Nichols: Robert M. Gordon. 8. Reply to Perner and Howes: Robert M. Gordon. 9. In Defense of Simulation Theory: Alvin I. Goldman. 10. From Simulation to Folk Pyschology: The Case for Development: Paul L.Harris. 11. Why the Child′s Theory of Mind Really is a Theory: Alison Gopnik and Henry M. Wellman. 12. Reading the Eyes: Evidence for the Role of Perception in the Development of a Theory of Mind: Simon Baron–Cohen and Pippa Cross. 13. Theory, Observation, and Drama: Simon Blackburn. References. Index of Names. Index of Subjects.

Martin Davies is Wilde Reader in Mnetal Philosophy in the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. He was formerly a Lecturer and then Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, London. He has published widely in the areas of philosophy of language, mind and psychology, and from 1989 to 1995 was Executive Editor of the Journal Mind and Langusge (Blackwell Publishers). Tony Stone is Head of the Psychology Group and Director of the Modular Programme at King Alfred′s College of Higher Education, Winchester. He has published papers on the philosophy of psychology, and is currently working on a book on the philosophical issues raised by cognitive neuropsychology.