ABSTRACT
In ordinary situations, these notions play a critical role in explaining, justifying, and predicting behavior (→ACTION, CAUSALITY AND MENTAL CAUSATION, THEORY OF MIND). But are they acceptable in naturalistic scientific psychology (→NATURALIZATION)? The current debate pits philosophers such as Paul Churchland, Willard Quine, Dan Dennett, and Stephen Stich, who refuse to grant a scientific status to propositional attitudeseven though some of these philosophers nevertheless acknowledge the practical utility of attitude attributions in interpreting behavior-against realist philosophers such as Jerry Fodor, Fred Dretske, and Ruth Millikan, who argue that propositional attitudes are real mental states that, by virtue of their content, play a causal role in explaining behavior (→INTERPRETATION, REALISM). From a naturalistic perspective, realist philosophers need to explain how the physical states that realize these mental states can have representational properties (→REPRESENTATION) and can have a causal efficacy that is a function of their content.
