ABSTRACT
Ask a layperson for an explanation for the criminal, generous, successful or futile actions of others, and it is very likely that he or she will refer you to psychological causes (Heider 1958; Sutton and McClure 2001). The kids busted up the shop because they were bored, or because they had no respect for authority; auntie does not go out at night because she’s afraid to. These kinds of explanations appear, cheerfully, to ignore a profound epistemological problem: the psychological states and properties that people impute to each other cannot directly be observed or verified. Nor, for that matter, can we directly observe or verify other people’s claims about their own psychological states.
