Folk psychology and the Bayesian brain

Abstract

Whilst much has been said about the implications of predictive processing for our scientific understanding of cognition, there has been comparatively little discussion of how this new paradigm fits with our everyday understanding of the mind, i.e. folk psychology. This paper aims to assess the relationship between folk psychology and predictive processing, which will first require making a distinction between two ways of understanding folk psychology: as propositional attitude psychology and as a broader folk psychological discourse. It will be argued that folk psychology in this broader sense is compatible with predictive processing, despite the fact that there is an apparent incompatibility between predictive processing and a literalist interpretation of propositional attitude psychology. The distinction between these two kinds of folk psychology allows us to accept that our scientific usage of folk concepts requires revision, whilst rejecting the suggestion that we should eliminate folk psychology entirely. In section 1 I will introduce predictive processing, giving a quick summary of the framework that focuses on the details most relevant for my comparison with folk psychology. I will also introduce folk psychology and define the distinction between propositional attitude psychology and folk psychological discourse. In section 2 I will consider the relationship between predictive processing and propositional attitude psychology, and in section 3 I will consider the relationship between predictive processing and folk psychological discourse. Finally, in section 4 I will argue that the distinction between propositional attitude psychology and folk psychological discourse makes space for us to revise our scientific usage of folk psychological concepts without thereby eliminating folk psychology altogether.