Physical Science and Common-sense Psychology

Scott Sehon argues for a complex view about the relation between commonsense psychology and the physical sciences.1 He rejects any sort of Cartesian dualism and believes that the common-sense psychological facts supervene on the physical facts. Nevertheless he asserts that there is an important respect in which common-sense psychology is independent of the physical sciences. Despite supervenience, we are not to expect any sort of reduction of common-sense psychology to physical science, nor are we to expect the physical sciences to conflict with common-sense psychology. He argues that physical science and common-sense psychology are different kinds of enterprise. In particular, where physical science is nonnormative, objective, and causal, common-sense psychology is normative, interpretive, and teleological. Common-sense psychology explains what people do in terms of their goals rather than by what causes them to act as they do. Assignment of goals and beliefs is an interpretive matter. It is also normative in at least two respects. First, goals and beliefs are assigned at least in part by considering what people normatively ought to believe and how they ought normatively to act, given their situations. Second, and correlatively, attributing certain goals and beliefs to people has implications for what they ought to believe and how they ought to act. In these comments, I begin by asking what are included in the physical sciences and in particular whether scientific psychology is included. I then mention ways in which biology and scientific psychology are normative, ways in which scientific psychology challenges aspects of common-sense psychology, and how contemporary scientific psychology treats goals. I say something about Sehon’s discussion of supervenience and reduction and then make a few remarks about objectivity and interpretation. Inevitably, I will