The folk are doing fine (but the philosophers are in trouble)

Abstract

In his book Unreal Beliefs: An Anti-Realist Approach in the Metaphysics of Mind (2024b), Krzysztof Posłajko proposes to separate the question whether beliefs exist from the question whether beliefs are real, and defends the view that whereas beliefs exist, they should not be considered real. He goes on to argue that his anti-realist position implies that our folk psychological understanding of belief is in need of revision, as this common sense understanding at least implicitly builds on an unfounded commitment to realism. In this commentary I raise some objections to the latter claim. Specifically, I question the assumption that common sense notions of believing in Western folk psychology is grounded in specific metaphysical assumptions about mental states. Also, I will review anthropological work in various cultural and linguistic communities showing that there exist many practices of interpersonal understanding in which the ascription of inner mental states hardly plays a role. My claim is that the folk are doing fine: folk psychological practices are multifaceted and fluid phenomena that serve a wide variety of goals. I conclude by arguing that the ones in trouble might be the philosophers, as Posłajko’s arguments have a lot of critical potential against causalist accounts in the philosophy of mind.