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Cognition and Perception Commons

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Cognitive Psychology

Selected Works

Ethnopsychology

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Full-Text Articles in Cognition and Perception

Telling Stories Without Words, Kristin Andrews Apr 2015

Telling Stories Without Words, Kristin Andrews

Kristin Andrews, PhD

I will argue here that we can take a functional approach to FP that identifies it with the practice of explaining behaviour -- that is, we can understand folk psychology as having the purpose of explaining behaviour and promoting social cohesion by making others’ behaviour comprehensible, without thinking that this ability must be limited to those with linguistic abilities. One reason for thinking that language must be implicated in FP explanations arises from the history of theorizing about the nature of scientific explanation. I will show that there are other models of explanation that are free from the metaphysical linguistic …


How To Learn From Our Mistakes: Explanation And Moral Justification, Kristin Andrews Dec 2003

How To Learn From Our Mistakes: Explanation And Moral Justification, Kristin Andrews

Kristin Andrews, PhD

A new approach to developing models of folk psychology is suggested, namely that different models exist for different folk psychological practices. This point is made through an example: the explanation and justification of morally heinous actions. Human folk psychology in this area is prone to a specific error of conflating an explanation for behaviour with a justification of it. An analysis of the error leads me to conclude that simulation is used to generate both explanations and justifications of heinous acts. It is needed in both these cases because most of us lack theoretical information about evil actors. I will …