In Defense of Folk Psychology (Essay Sample)

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9th November 2012
In Defense of Folk Psychology
Introduction
The use of folk psychology has been practiced by people since civilization. However, the folk psychology has not found its rightful place in the academic circles since many scholars differ on the applicability of folk psychology using scientific methods. Invariably, discussions on folk psychology has revolved around the terms belief and desire and in the process overshadowed other terms that could lead to better understanding and even applicability of the field to everyday life. This paper is an argument in the favor of folk psychology as an important part of academic fields that need to develop like any other field.
The Issue
The recent past has seen increased debate on the issue of folk psychology among philosophers and developmental psychologists. However, there is a strong feeling among the scholars that folk psychology is not well-anchored in the literature and academic circles as it has continued to elicit mixed reactions among the scholars themselves. Arguments have been advanced for and against the development of folk psychology in regard to the applicability and use in the psychology. Evidently, the confusion engulfing folk psychology has been extrapolated by the folk psychology scholars themselves as they continue to argue for and against folk psychology. My purpose for this essay is to show that folk psychology is significant in contributions to the scientific study.
Method and Presuppositions
In the study of folk psychology, the question has always been to enquire the extent to which scientific approaches can protect commonsense as the foundation of folk psychology (Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Cohen, 7). The most obvious and immediate answer has always been that the scientific understanding of commonsense has precipitated the exemption of folk psychology a scientifically sound study.
The current understanding of what constitutes folk psychology underlines the work that was done by the first philosophers who theorized about the field. As time elapses and more philosophers and academicians become interested in the field, folk psychology has continued to gather variant names with some suggesting that folk psychology is actually cognitive psychology. Those who hold such views opines that folk psychology should be dropped as it is now swallowed up by more scientific psychology fields owing to their experiment ability and measurability of what constitutes as evidences.
On one side of this argument are those scholars like Fodor and Dretske, who argue that the justification of folk psychology as a science will be done by the science itself (Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Cohen, 7). In other words, their argument is founded on the fact that folk psychology itself contains inherent elements that makes it a science even if those elements are not clear to a layman observer.
On the other hand, there are eliminate materialists like Churchland and Stich who argue that the empiricism of folk psychology makes it susceptible to replacement by a more scientific approach to the understanding of human behavior with far much better conceptual resources. The proceeding arguments have been that just like folk biology has been shelved, thanks to the lack of scientific evidences to back it up. As such, Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Cohen (7) observe that calls have been upfront to abandon folk psychology in favor of more scientifically oriented theories. This therefore, forms the basis on which there has been increased calls to abandon folk psychology as science will not justify the continued application of folk psychology.
In order to folk psychology is significant in the contribution to scientific study, I shall attempt to show that folk psychology encompasses items and models that can lead to measurements and experiments to prove assertions. I also intend to show that folk psychology is a wide area and the perceived similar branches are simply nothing but branches of the larger folk psychology. Finally, I intend to show that the current controversy on the applicability of folk psychology in scientific study is simply a result of terminological misunderstandings between philosophers and developmental psychologists. I presuppose that Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Cohen (7) rightly identifies necessary and relevant conditions that must be met by an area of study like folk psychology, before becoming a scientific area of study.
The Text's Argument
According to Cooney (3), folk psychology is hinged on the three pillars that determine its applicability in the understanding of human behaviors. The three pillars are that folk psychology is a set of practices that are common to human practices. The second pillar is that folk psychology itself accounts for what initiates human being to engage in certain practices at a given time. And the final pillar is that which underlies the ability to engage those activities and practically account for the occurrence of those activities. Cooney (3) claims that a scientifically sound branch of study involves experiment and measurements that can be quantified to bring about concrete evidences that show that something is tangible. Many people view a scientific study to be viable and feasible when the evident produced has undergone through an agreed process and mechanism that makes its findings absolute and that which is beyond any challenge. Folk psychology is therefore considered only as the everyday way of understanding people without any input from the person that seeks to understand the other.
Thus, for Cooney (4), folk psychology only consists of predicates that help be to understand the human behaviors without paying attention on how they get to conceive and process that information. The act of understanding human behaviors therefore is placed in the mind of the people as it can only be conceived by the person who is seeking to understand but not the one who seeks to understand why the other person understand.
As argued by Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Cohen (7) the study of folk psychology does not depend on whether the human practices are determined by the human engagement or what comes in between the practices. This is because the two are always intertwined as philosophers in folk psychology continues to invariably to refer to it as commonsense and use of similar and almost primary terms of beliefs, desires, and propositional attitudes. The challenge in this case is the lack of delimitation of the human practices that folk psychology seeks to bring to light the issue of folk psychology in the scientific terms.
Ultimately, the argument that Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Cohen (7) advance is that folk psychology does not present any evidence whether really or assumed that can make it to qualify a scientific study of the human behaviors. I argue that the conception of folk psychology as a science is inherently presented in the methods and models that have been developed and which can be subjected to analysis in order to come up be absolute observations an analysis.
Analysis of the Text's Argument
In relation to the above claims, it is necessary therefore to present the argument that shows that the arguments for the exclusion of folk psychology as a science are only limited to the extent argued by Cooney (3). Evidently, folk psychology presents a number of empirical and theoretical foundations that makes it a more science than even some of the well established sciences known to scholars. In the first part I argued that folk psychology encompasses elements that can be subject to measurement and experiment. Apparently, these are the main instruments that are used to determine whether something can be explained in scientific terms or not. To claim that understanding of human behavior presents the hard question is to be myopic and limited in scope.
Several philosophers have explored ways through which human beings conceive behavior and feelings thus enabling the description of such behaviors and personality in terms under stable to themselves. What follows is that in order to qualify as a scientifically agreeable behavior of description and understanding, there is the element of universality that need to be accomplished before the behavior or action can be accepted. One of the main factors of the evidences that science presents is that the facts about the evidence remains constant no matter where the evidence is present on the world.
For instance, no matter where one is standing or dwelling, the human blood will always consists of common blood elements of red cells white blood cells, and plasma. This can be scientifically proven through experiments. However, it is difficult to quantify the beliefs and desires of people across the world as such vary from one society to the other. However, the one thing that seems to be universal therefore does not need to be subjected to the conventional scientific methods for it to qualify as a scientific element. This is another reason why the science of folk psychology is inherently contained in the understanding and interpretation that people attach to the practice in question.
Much of what is known to constitute as folk psychology today is based on the different interpretation folk psychology depending on the biasness of the person interpreting it. Generally, folk psychology has come to be associated with the reading of mind. This act can take place without the need to subject the process of reading or the final analysis that comes around because of the act of reading to scientific standards. The argument by Cooney (3), that folk psychology fails to meet the scientific threshold on this ground does not suffice because science, being a field of study, just like sociology or art does not set the rules itself. ...