Abstract

A developing orthodoxy in the philosophy of mind makes two fundamental claims: that ordinary explanation of action is a species of causal explanation, and that mental states are the theoretical posits of a proto-scientific theory of the mind embodied by our common sense psychological practices. I contend that this approach is wrong on both counts. In the first part of the dissertation I argue against the causal theory of action, and I propose an alternative, teleological construal of ordinary action explanation. In the second part of the dissertation, I claim that it is a mistake to see our common sense psychological practices as amounting to a proto-scientific theory of the mind. I here argue, first, that mental state terms do not function as natural kind terms, as one would expect if the proto-scientific theory were correct. Second, I argue that the teleological account of action explanation defended in the first part of the dissertation provides strong grounds for rejecting functionalism--the paradigm theory of mental states as the theoretical posits of a proto-scientific common sense psychology. I suggest, moreover, that from the perspective of the teleological account of action explanation, it is not at all clear why we should feel a need for a theory of the nature of mental states