Habits and Explanation Essay -- Psychology Science Papers

Habits and ExplanationHabits form a crucial part of the everyday conceptual object used to explain normal human activity. However, they have been neglected in debates concerning folk-psychology which have concentrated on propositional attitudes such as beliefs. But propositional attitudes are on the preciselyton one of the many mental states. In this paper, I seek to expand the debate by considering mental states other than propositional attitudes. I conclude that the case for the familiarity and plausibility of the folk-psychological explanation is strengthened when one considers an example from the non-propositional-attitude mental states habits. My main target is the radical eliminativist program. As regards habits, eliminativists could argue in two distinct but related ways. They can either abandon the concept habit altogether or retain the folk-psychological term habit by reducing it to the causal bowed stringed instrument of the observed behavior pattern, as is sometimes d one in social theory. I contend that both of these strategies are defective. The correct way to talk approximately habits is in terms of manifestations and activating conditions, not in terms of causal chains. Hence, if eliminativists take up either of the two arguments given above, they will not succeed. Correspondingly, by the added generality gained through the consideration of habits, the case for folk-psychology is strengthened. If you do something often and in a way which appears settled, you are normally described as having a habit. We presume we have habits as parts of skills, habits of social behaviour, and also deeper ones, like habits of thought. Even those who are good at using Ockhams razor confess sometimes their acceptation of habits. Hume admits that we all have a habit of j... ...s folk science, and belief versus opinion, in The Future of Folk-Psychology Intentionality and Cognitive information, ed. J.D. Greenwood, Cambridge Cambridge University Press, pp. 135- 148.Jackson, F., and Pettit, P., 1990, Program Explanation a general perspective, Analysis, vol. 50, pp. 107-117.Pettit, P., 1993, The Common Mind, Oxford Oxford University Press.Stich, S.P., 1983, From Folk-Psychology to Cognitive Science The Case against Belief, Cambridge Mass. MIT Press.Terrence, H., and Woodward, J., 1985, Folk psychology is here to stay, The Philosophical Review 94, reprinted in The Future of Folk-Psychology Intentionality and Cognitive Science, ed. J.D. Greenwood, Cambridge Cambridge University Press, pp. 149-175.Turner, S., 1994, The Social Theory of Practices Tradition, Tacit Knowledge and Presuppositions, Oxford Polity Press.