The status of vernacular psychology.

Since Wilfred Sellars' "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind," it has been st and ard philosophical fare to conceive of vernacular psychology as an empirical theory of mind and behavior. I argue that vernacular psychology is not best understood as an empirical theory of mind and behavior. If you do view vernacular psychology as an empirical theory you must vindicate it. I argue that this amounts to demonstrating that intentional content can play a role in the science of psychology. I investigate two narrow content strategies: Those of Brian Loar and Jerry Fodor. I argue that the first is unmotivated and makes incomprehensible vernacular psychological practice. The second strategy founders on the problem of misrepresentation; such an individualist psychology is a neurology. I turn to Tyler Burge's non-individualist psychology, and point out that it cannot serve to vindicate vernacular intentional psychology. Non-individualism can make no good sense of mental causation. Finally, we face the following difficulty: There is no science of the intentional; no science makes a comfortable place for intentional content. I argue that we should conclude, not that eliminativism is true, but that vernacular psychology is not a causal theory of mind and behavior. Intentional characterization makes possible the normative evaluation of subjects. Here I argue that (1) there would be no justification for appeal to content without the coherent possibility of such evaluation; and (2) where the possibility of such evaluation exists, so are attributions of determinate intentional content dem and ed.PhDPhilosophyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161859/1/8812984.pd