Established wisdom in cognitive science holds that the everyday folk psychologicalabilities of humans--our capacity to understand intentional actions performed for reasons--areinherited from our evolutionary forebears. In Folk Psychological Narratives,Daniel Hutto challenges this view (held in somewhat different forms by the two dominant approaches,"theory theory" and simulation theory) and argues for the sociocultural basis of thisfamiliar ability. He makes a detailed case for the idea that the way we make sense of intentionalactions essentially involves the construction of narratives about particular persons. Moreover heargues that children acquire this practical skill only by being exposed to and engaging in adistinctive kind of narrative practice. Hutto calls this developmental proposal the narrativepractice hypothesis (NPH). Its core claim is that direct encounters with stories about persons whoact for reasons (that is, folk psychological narratives) supply children with both the basicstructure of folk psychology and the norm-governed possibilities for wielding it in practice. Inmaking a strong case for the as yet underexamined idea that our understanding of reasons may besocioculturally grounded, Hutto not only advances and explicates the claims of the NPH, but he alsochallenges certain widely held assumptions. In this way, Folk PsychologicalNarratives both clears conceptual space around the dominant approaches for an alternativeand offers a groundbreaking proposal.
