Regulation, Normativity and Folk Psychology

• Published in: Topoi 2020-02, Vol.39 (1), p.57-67
• Main Author: Fernandez Castro, Victor
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cognition & reasoning; Education; Philosophy; Philosophy of Science; Philosophy of Technology
• ISSN: 0167-7411; 1572-8749
• DOI: 10.1007/s11245-017-9511-7

Recently, several scholars have argued in support of the idea that folk psychology involves a primary capacity for regulating our mental states and patterns of behavior in accordance with a bunch of shared social norms and routines (Andrews, Do Apes Read Minds? Toward a new folk psychology, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2012; Andrews, Southern Journal of Philosophy 53:50–67, 2015; McGeer, Folk psychology re-assessed, Springer Press, Dordrecht, 2007; McGeer, Philosophical Explorations 18(2):259–281, 2015; Zawidzki, Philosophical Explorations 11(3):193–210, 2008; Zawidzki, Mindshaping: A new framework for understanding human social cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2013). This regulative view shares with the classical Dennettian intentional stance (Dennett, Brainstorms: Philosophical essays on mind and psychology, Harvester Press, Brighton Sussex, 1981, 1987) its emphasis on the normative character of human socio-cognitive capacities. Given those similarities, it makes sense to assess the regulative view by considering some of the classical arguments against the normative nature of the intentional stance (Goldman 2006 ; Fodor, Mind 94(373):76–100, 1985; Stich, Philosophical Topics 12(1):39–62, 1981; Stich, The fragmentation of reason: Preface to a pragmatic theory of cognitive evaluation, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1990). The aim of this paper is to argue that the priority that the regulative view lays on the pluralistic and regulative character of folk psychology leaves the theory well-placed to resist these arguments. In this sense, the regulative view possesses better theoretical options to defend the normative character of human social cognition.