ABSTRACT
‘Folk psychology’ is a term used by philosophers and psychologists to refer to our understanding of minds. Some philosophers and psychologists have questioned the way in which folk psychology is usually framed. Standard folk psychology maintains that the function of folk psychology is to allow us to explain and predict other people’s behaviours. Challengers to standard folk psychology do not deny that prediction plays an important role in social cognition. The Direct Matching Hypothesis makes no claim to folk psychological explanations and predictions. The Simulation theory, Infant Mindreading Hypothesis and modularity theory of mindreading each hold the commitment that infants can attribute propositional attitudes to others. Both Constructivism and the two-system account of mindreading face the challenge of articulating the relation between folk psychology and minimal mindreading. The assumption that folk psychological explanations have the deductive-nomological structure thus goes a long way to accounting for the widespread focus on prediction in folk psychology.
