‘Folk psychology’ refers to the notion that humans can explain and predict the mental states of themselves and others. For most people, the idea that we can ‘mind-read’ in this way is so engrained in our experience of the world that we take it for granted. For example, if someone reaches for then begins to eat a doughnut, we might assume that they possess the mental states of hunger and desire for food. And if we were reaching for a doughnut to eat, we would likely attribute those same mental states to ourselves. As obvious as these conclusions may seem, and as necessary as folk psychology may be for moving through everyday life, some neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers argue that it’s an inadequate and antiquated framework for understanding human behaviour. This animation from Wireless Philosophy offers a short primer on a radical theory known as ‘eliminative materialism’, which posits that, just as modern biochemistry has no need for spirits, a modern scientific framework for understanding human behaviour should move beyond such immaterial concepts as ‘desire’ and ‘belief’.
Video by Wireless Philosophy
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Food and drink
Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border
14 minutes
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Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
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Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
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Technology and the self
How the magic of photography brought Victorian England closer to the spirit realm
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Neuroscience
Dog vision is a trendy topic, but what can we really know about how they see?
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Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
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Art
Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist
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War and peace
A century later, can poetry help us make sense of the First World War’s horrors?
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Language and linguistics
The little Peruvian guide to public speaking that conjures up a grandiose world
7 minutes