Abstract

When we attempt to understand a person we make use of a body of practices called 'folk psychology'. After clarifying the status and the content of folk psychology, the paper focuses on the current debate about its form. A version of the 'theory theory' is sketched that tries to do justice to the holism of the mental and to the constraining role of presumptions of coherence for the ascription of intentional states. Against this background, it is argued that radical simulationism, the main competitor of the 'theory theory', is untenable. Understanding a person cannot be solely a matter of mental simulation