ABSTRACT
In this chapter I shall prepare the ground for the ‘sociophilosophy of folk psychology’ that will be developed in the next chapter. I shall begin by providing a summary of the current debate over the nature of folk psychology. This debate concerns a number of different issues that can conveniently be grouped around two main questions. First, is our ability to understand others and ourselves based upon the possession of a folk theory of human mental life? And second, assuming that the answer to the first question is ‘yes’, is it conceivable that this folk theory is empirically false, and thus deserving of ‘elimination’ in favour of some scientific theory of the mind-brain? I shall report the various answers to these two questions separately. Subsequently, that is in the last section of this chapter, I shall identify what I take to be the central individualistic biases of the key positions in the debate.
