Folk-psychology is the human-made conceptual framework for attributing mental states — beliefs, desires, intentions, fears, and goals — to oneself and other agents. Its parameters are: (1) the attribution of unobservable inner states to explain observable behaviour; (2) the assumption that agents act rationally given their beliefs and desires; (3) the predictive function of inferring future actions from ascribed mental states. It persists through language (verbs like 'believe', 'want', 'think'), social teaching (theory-of-mind training in development), and cultural narratives (stories, moral judgments, legal attribution of intent). It is not the natural cognitive capacity to read minds — humans have no such capacity — but the map built to approximate it. [formal: philosophia vulgaris | substrate: mind | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.98]
Accepted ontology entry
folk-psychology
Folk-psychology is the human-made conceptual framework for attributing mental states — beliefs, desires, intentions, fears, and goals — to oneself and other agents. Its parameters are: (1) the attribution of unobservable inner states to ex…
Definition
Why it is in scope
The human-made framework for attributing mental states — beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions — to oneself and others. Not the natural capacity for empathy (that is territory), but the conceptual map: the categories, rules, and theories humans invented to predict and explain behaviour by positing inner states. Persists through language, teaching, and cultural transmission.
Names and aliases
- folk-psychologyen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmr784qq1000ks126wltnuaxhDEPENDS_ON →
Remove language — does folk-psychology stop working? Yes. Folk psychology is the human capacity to attribute mental states to others, and this attribution is articulated and transmitted through language. The conceptual framework of mental state attribution (belief, desire, intention) persists via language — without language, the map of folk psychology ceases to operate. Constitutive, not merely facilitative.
Relations to this entry
- cmrvau5fi00ky2cei43yja17h← DERIVED_FROM
Folk psychology existed long before theory of mind as a formal concept. Folk psychology — our everyday capacity for attributing mental states to others — is the pre-scientific predecessor that fed into the academic concept of theory of mind (which emerged in cognitive science in the 1970s-80s). Which-came-first test: folk psychology came first.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 18, 2026, 11:07 PM UTC
- Content hash
- 43429f6beae9ec41127986e46f649862cc6c2ebcceadab3a77757ea62a5a24e2