Folk psychology and network theory: Fact or gamble? A reply to Kalis and Borsboom

Abstract

Kalis and Borsboom (2020) defend their realism about folk psychology against my challenge to provide a grounding argument for the correctness of folk psychological explanation (Oude Maatman, 2020). In this reply, I show how their clarified realism in fact vindicates this challenge, as it heavily relies on the predictive success of folk psychology. I then proceed by describing how their realist interpretation of “intentional content” complicates the usability of network theory, and show that both their antireductionism and realism are grounded in an empirical gamble against alternatives. I end with a brief defense of my own version of network theory.