Beliefs and Desires

Abstract

So far, I have argued that much of social life can proceed quite happily without belief-desire psychology. Perception of people’s activities, embedded in shared situations, is often all we need to facilitate the level of understanding required for successful interaction and coordination. Even when we explain actions in terms of reasons, we often do so by referring to aspects of situations, rather than to psychological states. In addition to this, I have argued that FP is a misleading description of any truly personal understanding, in so far as it characterises a participant appreciation of people as a detached appreciation of complex mechanisms.