Abstract

In this work, I discuss how our psychological concepts relate to those pertaining to public language. On the account that I propose, folk psychology has a behavioristic core that provides sufficient conditions for having beliefs and desires, and so a grasp of folk psychological concepts consists fundamentally in understanding how facts about behavior license our applying such concepts. ;In the behavioristic core, semantic concepts applying to public language and psychological concepts have an equally fundamental role to play. On the one hand, psychological concepts are essential to our grip on semantic concepts. First, the concept of belief is fundamental to our sense of the line between a creature that uses a language and one that does not, since we take declarative language use to be, fundamentally, a means of expressing beliefs. It follows that any language user will have to be a fit subject for folk psychology. Second, psychological concepts play a crucial role both in our understanding of what it is to communicate and in communicative activity itself. On the other hand, semantic concepts are crucial to our understanding of what it is to be a believer. I argue for this conclusion by showing that only where there is structured linguistic behavior can we be licensed to ascribe beliefs and desires on the basis of how someone is disposed to behave. ;We should distinguish those psychological concepts that describe inner episodic thinkings from those that do not. The concepts of belief, goal and intention, which fall into the latter category, are conceptually more fundamental then the former, since it is they that belong to the behavioristic core of folk psychology. ;Folk psychology makes room for edpisodic inner thinkings, but our grasp of how to discern inner thinkings both from a third and first person point of view is parasitic on our grasp of what it takes for public language to have content. This thesis gains increased plausibility once one ceases to view public language as a mere instrument for communication and recognizes its role as a tool for cognition.