Graduate Seminar
Alternative Approaches to Folk Psychology
Summer 2008
May 6, 2008 to June 12, 2008
Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-4
This seminar will focus on alternative theories of folk psychology. Students should read the on-line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on Folk Psychology as Theory and Folk Psychology as Simulation prior to the beginning of the seminar.
We will be looking at challenges to these views from a number of different perspectives, including social psychology, neuroscience, developmental psychology, animal cognition research, and phenomenology.
We will begin with a clear statement of one hybrid theory of folk psychology presented in Alvin Goldman's recent book Stimulating Minds. We will also read some recent articles by simulation theorist Robert Gordon. We will then look at my account of folk psychology as person perception. Students will be reading from my manuscript Understanding Folk Psychologies.We will also examine model accounts of folk psychology suggested by Peter Godfrey-Smith and Heidi Maibom. Finally, we will turn to the narrative theories of folk psychology offered by Daniel Hutto and Shaun Gallagher. We will read articles or excerpts from Hutto's book Folk Psychological Narratives: The Sociocultural Basis of Understanding Reasons and Gallagher's How the Body Shapes the Mind.
Students will be required to give course presentations for which they develop a handout, and two papers appropriate to submit to a conference (no more than 3500 words accompanied by an abstract of less than 300 words) OR one paper appropriate to submit to a journal (between 6500 and 9000 words accompanied by an abstract of 300 words or less).