York University

Faculty Member, Philosophy

About

Typically, folk psychology is understood narrowly as mindreading—attributing beliefs and desires to others.  In my book Do Apes Read Minds? Toward a New Folk Psychology (out this summer with MIT Press), I defend a new way of understanding folk psychology that is more empirically adequate than the alternatives.  On the view I develop, the folk do not understand one another primarily as receptacles of propositional attitudes, but rather as whole persons with histories, social contexts, personalities, moods, emotions, and so forth. I discuss the implications this view has for theories of human uniqueness and the empirical investigation into nonhuman ape mindreading.

I am currently working on a book contracted with Routledge, tentatively titled The Critter Mind, which will discuss some key questions in the philosophy of mind as they relate to the scientific study of non-human animal minds. Topics include belief, consciousness, concepts, communication, moral psychology, and mindreading.

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