What is it to understand another person? A popular view in philosophy of mind, cognitive science and various other disciplines is that interpersonal understanding is a matter of employing a 'commonsense' or 'folk' psychology, consisting primarily of an ability to attribute internal propositional attitudes on the basis of behavioural observations. The emphasis of recent debates has been on which mechanisms enable us to do this, how they arise during development and how they might have evolved, rather than on whether we actually do it at all. Ratcliffe disputes the shared premise on which these debates rest. He argues that 'folk psychology', as generally described, is a theoretically motivated, simplistic and misleading abstraction from social life, which is wrongly asserted to be 'commonsense' or 'what the folk think'. Drawing on phenomenology, neuroscience and development psychology, he offers an alternative account of interpersonal understanding. This account emphasizes a distinctive kind of bodily relatedness between people and the extent to which interpersonal interactions are regulated by shared social environments.
'Ratcliffe's book is a terrific survey of the entire debate about the adequacy of folk psychological theories of mind. It is careful, nuanced, fair, and well-argued' - Mark Johnson, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
'Many analytically trained philosophers suspect that something is missing in mainstream philosophy of mind, and would like to investigate the phenomenological tradition. Such philosophers face formidable obstacles, both stylistic and substantive. What they need is a book by someone with a strong grounding in both traditions, and who can explain phenomenology in a way that is accessible to analytic philosophers, and reveal its relevance to their own projects. Ratcliffe has written such a book.' - James Baillie, Philosophical Books
'Ratcliffe certainly knows his stuff and provides us with a powerful and phenomenologically sensitive corrective to certain misleading but sadly prevalent assumptions about the nature of our everyday understanding of action. This is a challenging book that anyone working on these topics ought to read and take seriously.' -Daniel Hutto, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Commonsense Psychology, Theory of Mind and Simulation
Where is the Commonsense in Commonsense Psychology?
The World We Live in
Letting the World do the Work
Perceiving Actions
The Second Person
Beliefs and Desires
The Personal Stance
MATTHEW RATCLIFFE is Reader in Philosophy at Durham University, UK. He is the author of Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality (2008) and co-editor of Folk Psychology Re-assessed (2007).
Description
What is it to understand another person? A popular view in philosophy of mind, cognitive science and various other disciplines is that interpersonal understanding is a matter of employing a 'commonsense' or 'folk' psychology, consisting primarily of an ability to attribute internal propositional attitudes on the basis of behavioural observations. The emphasis of recent debates has been on which mechanisms enable us to do this, how they arise during development and how they might have evolved, rather than on whether we actually do it at all. Ratcliffe disputes the shared premise on which these debates rest. He argues that 'folk psychology', as generally described, is a theoretically motivated, simplistic and misleading abstraction from social life, which is wrongly asserted to be 'commonsense' or 'what the folk think'. Drawing on phenomenology, neuroscience and development psychology, he offers an alternative account of interpersonal understanding. This account emphasizes a distinctive kind of bodily relatedness between people and the extent to which interpersonal interactions are regulated by shared social environments.
Reviews
'Ratcliffe's book is a terrific survey of the entire debate about the adequacy of folk psychological theories of mind. It is careful, nuanced, fair, and well-argued' - Mark Johnson, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
'Many analytically trained philosophers suspect that something is missing in mainstream philosophy of mind, and would like to investigate the phenomenological tradition. Such philosophers face formidable obstacles, both stylistic and substantive. What they need is a book by someone with a strong grounding in both traditions, and who can explain phenomenology in a way that is accessible to analytic philosophers, and reveal its relevance to their own projects. Ratcliffe has written such a book.' - James Baillie, Philosophical Books
'Ratcliffe certainly knows his stuff and provides us with a powerful and phenomenologically sensitive corrective to certain misleading but sadly prevalent assumptions about the nature of our everyday understanding of action. This is a challenging book that anyone working on these topics ought to read and take seriously.' -Daniel Hutto, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Contents
Commonsense Psychology, Theory of Mind and Simulation
Where is the Commonsense in Commonsense Psychology?
The World We Live in
Letting the World do the Work
Perceiving Actions
The Second Person
Beliefs and Desires
The Personal Stance
Authors
MATTHEW RATCLIFFE is Reader in Philosophy at Durham University, UK. He is the author of Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality (2008) and co-editor of Folk Psychology Re-assessed (2007).
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