Folk psychology is a name traditionally used to denote our everydayway of understanding, or rationalizing, intentional actions inmentalistic terms. This quotidian competence is known by other namesin the philosophical literature: commonsense psychology; naïvepsychology;Homo sapiens psychology; the person theory ofhumans; the intentional stance; propositional attitude psychology;belief-desire psychology (see, e.g., Churchland 1979; Dennett 1987;Goldman 2006; Bogdan 2009). As some entries on this list suggest, folkpsychology can be conceived of in wider or more narrow terms, pickingout different extensions accordingly.

There is great interest in folk psychology not only because of itsstatus as a familiar way of making sense of our actions and those ofothers but also because it is thought to underwrite a range of moral,legal, educational, clinical, and therapeutic practices (Fodor 1987;Baker 1988). For this reason, a great deal of work in analyticphilosophy has been devoted to better understanding folk psychologyand its cognitive basis.

This entry reviews reasons for and against thinking that folkpsychological competence entails or is best explained by having somekind of theory of mind—a view known as theory theory.

The first two sections of this entry seek mainly to explicate theorytheory and its possible variations. Section 1 describes the corecommitments of theory theory, and the traditional reasons offered forbelieving in it—noting the assumptions that theory theoriststraditionally embrace about the primary function of folk psychology,and the various, heavier or lighter, options they have for construingits ontological commitments. Section 2 details three varieties oftheory theory, looking at where they disagree about such things as:what kind of theory folk psychology is; whether it is concept-based ormodel-based; whether and how it is acquired; and whether and how itdevelops.

Section 3 discusses a body of noteworthy empirical findings—fromcomparative psychology, developmental psychology, neuroscience, andcross-cultural psychology—which must be accommodated or dealtwith by any credible account of folk psychology.

Section 4 focuses on philosophical challenges that have been raisedagainst theory theory. This section sketches eliminativist argumentsfor thinking that folk psychology is a theory, but one that the maturesciences of the mind should supersede, rejecting its central posits.It considers the challenge raised by the main rival to theorytheory—the simulation theory, which assumes the core processesby which we understand others in mentalistic terms are not grounded inany kind of theory. It explicates the concerns of phenomenologicalcritics of theory theory, who argue that to characterize folkpsychology as any kind of theory systematically misconstrues thetarget explanandum. It reviews pluralist reasons for thinking thatfolk psychology has many varied uses—a possibility that, on themost extreme renderings, casts doubt on folk psychology’s beingprimarily theoretical in nature. Finally, the concluding sectionintroduces the hypothesis that core structural and other features offolk psychological competence are best understood and explained bythinking of that competence as being rooted in special kinds ofnarrative practice as opposed to being grounded in theory.

Section 5 considers the practical implications of whether we conceiveof folk psychology as a theory or not across different domains. Ithighlights how this stance matters for clinical practices, especiallyin relation to neurodiversity; for our understanding of the evolvingnature of the law, and whether and to what extent it relies upon andcan expand folk psychological concepts and practices; and for how bestto understand the folk psychological capacities of current and futureartificial intelligence systems, particularly large languagemodels.

• 1. Theory Theory
• 2. Varieties of Theory Theory
  • 2.1 Modular Theory Theory
  • 2.2 Scientific Theory Theory
  • 2.3 Model Theory Theory
• 3. Empirical Findings
  • 3.1 Comparative Psychology
  • 3.2 Developmental Psychology
  • 3.3 Neuroscience
  • 3.4 Cross-Cultural Psychology
• 4. Philosophical Challenges to Theory Theory
  • 4.1 Eliminativism
  • 4.2 Simulation Theory
  • 4.3 Phenomenological Critiques of TT
  • 4.4 Mental Fictionalism
  • 4.5 Pluralism
  • 4.6 Mindshaping
  • 4.7 The Narrative Practice Hypothesis
• 5. Practical Implications
  • 5.1 Neurodiversity and Clinical Contexts
  • 5.2 The Law and Legal Practice
  • 5.3 Artificial Intelligence and LLMs
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Theory Theory

A mainstream view in analytic philosophy is that folk psychology, orFP, is a theory and that FP abilities centrally involve theorizing insome sense or at some level. These ideas have deep roots in theanalytic tradition and have shaped much received thinking on thetopic. The general view is known as theory-theory, or TT, inphilosophical and psychological circles—a name first introducedby Morton (1980) to highlight the fact that the thesis that “FPis a theory”is itself a theory, and not obviously atrue one. Others, such as Rosenberg, maintain that FP

is so simple and mind-numbingly obvious, it seems almost preposterousto call it a “theory”. (2018: 36)

Many of today’s philosophers and psychologists maintain that FPabilities simply constitute, or are otherwise sponsored by, a Theoryof Mind, or ToM (see Baron-Cohen, Lombardo, & Tager-Flusberg2013). This thesis is usually coupled with a familiar explanatoryhypothesis about how FP understanding is achieved, namely, FPunderstanding is underwritten by capacities to mentalize or“mindread”. On the standard interpretation, mindreadingminimally requires:

1. Representing and attributing mental state attitudes (minimallybelief and desire, but possibly other mental states too);
2. Representing and attributing the contents of such attitudes;
3. Appreciating how such attitudes structurally interrelate.

Conditions 1–3 can be weakened in various ways, allowing for thepossibility of mindreaders with less than fully-fledged folkpsychological capacities. For example, it is possible to represent andattribute mental state concepts and contents other than only those of,say, beliefs and desires, and still qualify as a mindreader.

TT about FP is distinctive in assuming that when we understand mindsin daily life we use the same sorts of tools that we use to understandother non-mental phenomena, specifically, we use the same sort oftools we use in the sciences—namely, theories that aim to tellus about the unobservable, hidden causal structure of the world.

ToM is a particular kind of theory: it is assumed to have adistinctive sort of content. A ToM operates with mental state conceptsthat feature in theoretical postulates that comprise the core generalprinciples of a theory of everyday psychology. The content of the ToMthat normally developing humans use is, for TTists, what enables mostof us to navigate our everyday social world fluidly and with ease. TTholds that we succeed in understanding ourselves and others if wemanage to infer the mental states responsible for particular actionscorrectly by applying a ToM, thereby bringing the laws of everydaypsychology to bear on particular cases. As such, TTists hold that, formost of us, the heavy lifting in daily social cognition is done by ouracquaintance with, and use of, laws of a folk ToM.

According to TTists, engaging in FP involves the deployment of therelevant mentalistic concepts by making use of a distinctive set ofprinciples—a network of laws or propositions about mentalisticattitudes and their relations to other states of mind. This system ofinferences allegedly constitutes the core framework for making senseof and rationalizing actions in terms of reasons, even though it mustbe supported by further auxiliary generalizations about what peopletypically do in a range of circumstances.

Several philosophical considerations conspire to make TT a compellingview of FP. In his seminal “Empiricism and the Philosophy ofMind” (1956), Wilfrid Sellars aired the idea that ourunderstanding of mental states is, essentially, theoretical. In anengaging bit of philosophical anthropological fiction, he famouslymused about how our Rylean ancestors, who were as yet behaviorists,might have first fashioned an understanding of thoughts as innerepisodes. He invented a mythical Jones who modeled inner thoughts onovert speech acts, imagining that the former could, just like thelatter, be cited in the explanation of action. Assuming that reasonsare the inferred causes of action, it is but a short step to thinkingthat explaining action using a schema that goes beyond what is merelygiven in another’s outward responses is necessarily a kind oftheoretical activity.

This way of understanding is a natural partner for the idea thatgenuinely intelligent engagements with aspects of the world aremediated by representations of one sort or another. It is a small stepfrom accepting a representational theory of mind to assuming that ourFP understanding of minds requires representing the representations ofintelligent creatures—thus taking a theoretical, orspectator’s, stance towards them. Understanding and interactingwith other minds, according to this view, requires formulatinghypotheses as to what exactly is “going on in” those mindssince those workings are not directly open to view.

Some philosophers are attracted to TT because they maintain that themeanings of FP mental state concepts show signs of being theoreticalin character—namely, that such meanings are fixed by theirhaving appropriate links or relations to other concepts in astructured theory. On this view, the meaning of mental states terms isdefined holistically by the special roles the entities such termsdenote play within a wider inferential network. Accordingly, the verymeaning of a mental concept is taken to be determined by thedistinctive role it plays within a network of principles. In thisrespect, our familiar mentalistic vocabulary (viz. our talk ofthoughts, feelings, and expectations) would be similar in importantrespects to other theoretically embedded vocabularies (e.g., talk ofelectrons, atoms, and gravity).

In a series of influential papers, David Lewis (1970, 1972) defended aparticular approach to the semantics of theoretical terms. He appliedthat same approach to everyday psychological vocabulary (e.g.,“belief” and “desire”), and thereby obtained afunctionalist theory of mental states. Accordingly, when thinkingabout the semantics of everyday psychological vocabulary, Lewis treatsthe conjunction of commonsense platitudes about mental states as aterm-introducing theory. It is possible to identify folk psychologywith that conjunction. Alternatively, we could think of folkpsychology as a systematization of a set of platitudes. Either way,Lewis’s approach lends credence to the idea that FP isstructured in the same way as other kinds of theory.

Lewis also held that claims about the platitudes are empiricalclaims—they are claims about what is commonly believed aboutmental states. However, Lewis’s intuitions about mental stateswere likely influenced by his theoretical stance. Consequently, thereis little reason to think that Lewis’s own intuitions are a goodguide to what people typically believe about the mind.

Lewis simply assumes that common sense is resolutely committed to theidea that mental states are characterized by causal role; as a result,his functionalist conclusion drives his characterization of theplatitudes. No doubt Lewis has philosophical arguments for denyingthat mental states are substances that possess their causal powersnon-essentially or substances that lack causal powers altogether. Butthat is beside the present point. Lewis aimed to capture what the folkthink about mental states, not what the philosophicalliterati think.

A unifying idea that motivates all TT proposals is that the primaryjob or function of folk psychology is that of third-personalprediction and explanation. The standard TT assumption is thatprediction and explanation are symmetrical: predicting how anothercreature might act or, on the flip side, explaining why it acted,requires representing its complex state of mind—namely, the waycertain of its mental states relate to one another. Putting all ofthis together can promote the appearance that FP is in the samegeneral line of business as scientific theories that are used tounderstand other phenomena.

An important question for proponents of TT is: What are FP’sprecise ontological commitments? Putatively, FP theorizes about whatgoes on inside our heads—in the black box that lies betweenperceptual stimuli and behavioral responses. If so, FP posits innerentities that causally explain outward behavior. Taken at face value,FP would appear to be theoretically committed to the entities andproperties that it speaks of as being causally responsible for ouractions. Those who understand FP as having these transparentcommitments assume that it is committed to explaining actions byappeal to causally efficacious contentful mental items, such asbeliefs and desires (see, e.g., Fodor 1987, see also Rosenberg 2018).TTists of a realist bent assume that FP is committed to an unqualifiedrealism about the entities and their properties that it quantifiesover.

So construed, FP comes with built-in “heavy-duty”, asopposed to “light-duty”, ontological commitments(Langland-Hassan 2020). Light-duty TTists actively eschew or areotherwise agnostic about whether FP is committed to the existence ofentities with the properties that are referred to in our everyday FPattributions. Several variants of TT, including instrumentalist andfictionalist variants, assume our everyday sense-making practice hasonly light-duty ontological commitments (Egan 1995; Graham &Horgan 1988; Schwitzgebel 2002, 2013; Demeter 2013).

One of the best known “light-duty” versions of TT proposesthat FP should be understood as nothing more than an intentionalstance or heuristic we employ for quick and dirty predictions of thebehavior of a wide variety of systems (Dennett 1985, 1987). FPascriptions are, on the intentional stance view, irredeemablyindeterminate. As such, we have no grounds for taking FP attributionsontologically seriously above and beyond the limited practicalleverage they give us in enabling us to make such predictions andexplanations.

Dennett (1985, 1987) assumes that, in principle, an ideal physicstrades in non-probabilistic laws capable of yielding perfectforward-facing predictions and perfect backward-looking explanations.By comparison, FP, though of great practical value, can never comeclose to the predictive and explanatory successes of the hardsciences: hence we have no reason to take FP’s posits asontologically seriously as we take those found in the hard sciences.Thus, for Dennett, FP constructs can be treated as only capturingmildly real patterns: they are to be regarded as no more and no lessreal than numbers, centers of gravity, or other“calculation-bound” entities (Dennett 1991).

To adopt a light-duty TT view of FP’s ontological commitments isto hold that, however useful FP is in everyday contexts, the crudepredictions and explanations it sponsors are not the sort that canseriously predict or explain the behavior of others. If we wish to getat the underlying mechanics and drivers of behavior—its truecauses—we must look to mature cognitive science, not FP.

Recent work has also emphasized the limited character of FPexplanations. InExplaining Our Actions (2025), Carruthersargues that the standard belief–desire model fails to dealadequately with whole classes of action, including habits, speededskilled performances, and many affect-driven responses. Moreover, itfails even to properly characterise its own main constructs, forexample, failing to recognise, if Carruthers is right, that there canbe such things as beliefs that are not propositional attitudes.Carruthers’s assessment of the limitations of FP depends on hisassumption that its theoretical core has been accurately codified by asmall group of Anglophone analytic philosophers. Assuming Carruthersis right about that claim, it raises questions about the plausibilityof another of his claims, namely, that FP’s ultimate source isan innate, implicit, species-wide theory of mind. For, why, if weaccept that FP is a theory of that latter sort, is it only certainphilosophers working within a particular Western tradition, and notany others from around the globe, who have been able to articulateFP’s core contours accurately?

2. Varieties of Theory Theory

2.1 Modular Theory Theory

A popular explanatory proposal in cognitive science is that ToM lawsor principles are instantiated or contained in a mental module, whichis understood to be a special kind of cognitive device, gadget, ormechanism. A ToM module is solely dedicated to the special work ofenabling us to predict and explain the actions of others by accuratelyattributing mental state contents to them. The common denominator inall TT modularist accounts is that ToM abilities, and by extension ourFP competence, are best explained by a cognitive architecture with aparticular design and a dedicated, domain-specific function (Fodor1995; Segal 1996; Leslie, Friedman, & German 2004; Carruthers2006; Heyes 2018).

For some, the most important feature of modules, which separates themfrom other humdrum psychological mechanisms, is that they are assumedto be cognitive through and through. Fodor (1983), for example,maintains that the knowledge base of ToM modules is conceptually basedand has the structure and content of a set of semantically connected,propositionally articulated principles. In line with this view, Fodor(1994, 1998) proposes that the core mentalistic concepts get theirmeaning denotationally by means of special mechanisms that “lockon” to the relevant extensions. These concepts each playdistinctive roles in constituting the principles that make up thenetwork of laws comprising our folk theory of mind.

A defining feature of mental modules, as per Fodor’s (1983)original formulation, is that they are informationally encapsulated.Information contained in each module is encapsulated from othermodules and encapsulated from the information available in thecognitive system. Modules have limited cognitive interests andconcerns: they operate on a strictly need-to-know basis. Because oftheir informationally encapsulated limited interests, ToM modules arenot informed and updated by the subject’s wider set ofbackground knowledge. It is assumed that modules work better andfaster by restricting their concerns to specialized dealings with onlycertain topics.

Accordingly, each type of mental module is assumed to be restricted todealing only with the subject matter of its specialist concern.Modules are domain-specific in the sense that only a circumscribedclass of inputs will activate them. Because they are thought to dosuch specialized work, ToM modules are dissociable: they can beselectively impaired, damaged, or disabled without affecting theoperation of other systems and vice versa. Some argue that thisfeature of ToM modules makes them particularly well suited to explainimpaired mindreading abilities exhibited by those with specificconditions. Such atypical cognitive profiles are hypothesized to berooted in the damaged or malfunctioning neurocognitive machinery of aToM module. It has been hypothesized that impaired ToM modules areresponsible for the specific profiles of FP abilities displayed bycognitively diverse individuals — those with specificpsychopathologies such as autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, andborderline personality disorder (e.g., Baron-Cohen, Leslie, &Frith 1985; Ozonoff, Pennington, & Rogers 1991; Frith 1992;Baron-Cohen 1995, 2000; Corcoran 2000; Brüne 2005; Sprong et al.2007, Fonagy & Luyten 2009; Arntz et al. 2009; Franzen et al.2011).

Several practitioners and theorists question the explanatory value ofattempts to explain various psychological conditions in terms ofimpaired ToM modules (see, e.g., Hobson 1991, 2002; Williams 2004;Shanker 2004; Belmonte 2009). Neurodiversity advocates argue that theentire framework of appealing to ToM deficits to explain putativepsychopathological disorders is offensive. They hold that the atypicalcognitive differences which are designated as psychopathologies shouldnot be characterized as cognitive deficits or disorders at all.Instead, we should merely recognize that there are diverse cognitivestyles associated with particular atypical cognitive profiles and thatsome of these profiles have special advantages (see Yergeau 2013, andalso Rosqvist, Chown, & Stenning [eds] 2020 for a set of criticalpapers along these lines).

A common denominator for those who posit the existence of ToM modulesis that they assume that these mental devices are the means by whicheveryday social cognition is normally conducted by unimpaired membersof our species. Beyond this point of agreement, advocates ofModularist TT propose importantly different theories about the originsof ToM modules and how they are acquired.

Some TT modularists are nativists. They assume that a ToM is aspecies-universal, biologically inherited device forged in ourpre-history. Such modularists hold that a ToM comes with core conceptsbuilt-in as standard for all normally developing members of ourspecies (Fodor 1983, Baron-Cohen 1999, Mithen 1996, 2000—seeFenici & Garofoli 2017 for an alternative reading of thepre-historic evidence).

ToM nativism is compatible with the possibility that the developmentof ToM modules is shaped by environmental input. There are versions ofmodular ToM theory that emphasize the role of the developmentalenvironment in shaping children’s ToMs. However, such versionsof modularism hold that children are pre-set to acquire mentalisticconcepts automatically through a process of triggering and tuning whenappropriately stimulated (Segal 1996; Scholl & Leslie 1999).

Other TT modularists hold that ToM modules are acquired duringontogeny, proposing that FP is enabled by an “acquiredmodule”—one that forms through the interaction of variousin-built abilities with the social environment during development(Karmiloff-Smith 1995; Garfield, Peterson, & Perry 2001).

The idea of an acquired module opens up the possibility that oureveryday ToM is a specialized neurocognitive mechanism, a cognitivegadget, that is embedded in our nervous systems through culturallyinherited processes rather than by processes of natural selection(Heyes & Frith 2014; Heyes 2018). This proposal builds on theniche construction hypothesis that sociocultural practices constructand modify our environments in ways that are cognitivelyconsequential. To understand ToM as a culturally acquired module is tothink of it as akin to our culturally inherited capacities for printreading or literacy. These too cannot be explained by direct appeal tocognitive devices that may have been forged in the Pleistocene bynatural selection. Thinking of ToMs as culturally acquired cognitivegadgets opens up the possibilities that FP may not be pan-cultural,and that Lewis’s platitudes may not be species universal.

2.2 Scientific Theory Theory

Scientific TT, henceforth STT, holds that folk psychology is theresult of evidence-driven scientific theorizing on the part of youngchildren (Gopnik & Wellman 1992; Gopnik 1996; Gopnik &Meltzoff 1997). It proposes that each normally developing child forgesand revises their own theory of mind using the same rationaltheory-construction methods that adults use when forging and revisingmature scientific theories.

Advocates of STT acknowledge that children’s theories have thecharacteristic static features of mature scientifictheories—e.g., internal coherence, causal implication, andontological import. Yet, their proposal focuses on the possibilitythat children, like adult scientists, engage in the dynamic activityof theorizing to produce their ToM through processes of collecting,evaluating, and responding to evidence in a rational, truth-seekingmanner (Gopnik & Meltzoff 1997). Ex hypothesi, ToMs are thehard-won products of sustained observation, statistical analyses,experimental trial-and-error, and learning from others (Gopnik 2003,2004; Gopnik & Meltzoff 1997). For these reasons, this brand of TThas sometimes been dubbed the“child-as-little-scientist-view”, although Gopnik came toprefer the slogan “scientist as big child view” (Gopnik1996).

Emphasizing the dynamic character of theorizing, STT maintains that westart life with a basic theory of mind which we actively developthroughout our childhood and adolescence. In particular, the conceptof belief is thought to be constructed by each child, individually,during ontogeny (Gopnik 1988, 1990). In most cases, children whofollow a typical developmental pattern succeed in adding the conceptof a false belief to their ToMs by around the age of four and theycontinue to enhance their understanding of belief even beyond thisstage—making further, less radical, changes to their ToM as theybecome young adults (Gopnik 2004). Empirical findings arising fromfalse belief studies and methodological questions about such protocolsare extensively discussed inSection 3.2.

Supporters of STT take the appearance of conceptual development inontogeny at face value; they claim that genuine conceptual changeoccurs as children fashion their ToMs. In particular, they hold thatthe conceptual change this theory development putatively involves isdriven by their activities of theory construction. On this version ofTT, our FP understanding of minds is theoretical in the strongestpossible sense—both in its nature and its mode ofacquisition.

2.3 Model Theory Theory

The core TT assumption that FP is a kind of theory leaves open whetherour everyday ToM is a set of conceptually articulated, propositionalrepresentations that detail the core FP laws or whether it takes theform of a more flexible dynamic modeling of worldly structures.Several TTists, inspired by Giere (1988), maintain that our FPabilities are best explained by the tacit or unconscious processes ofbuilding and utilizing models at the subpersonal level rather than byappeal to the use of an inherited and fixed set of FP laws (Maibom2003, 2007, 2009; Godfrey-Smith 2005).

Godfrey-Smith (2005) proposes that elements of models of a givendomain have structural similarities with items in their target domainand that the modeling of specific domains exploits aspects of thosestructural similarities for particular purposes. Going by thisdefinition, if theorizing is understood as modeling, then a ToM may,but need not be, thought of as intrinsically propositional,representational, or contentful (e.g., Maibom 2009; see also Egan2014, 2018).

To think of FP as best explained by the use of subpersonal modelsassumes the existence of a set of structures targeting specificmentalistic elements—beliefs, desires, actions, emotions, and soforth. The Model TTist assumes that FP models can be elaborated invarious ways to serve different purposes in different circumstances.FP models can be thought of as prediction devices: What will Fred dowhen he discovers the cafe is closed? Or a model might be used toarrive at FP explanations of action: Why did Fred go to the cafe? Orthe model might be elaborated upon to yield explanations seeking todetail both proximate and distal causes of behavior. Models also admitother kinds of elaboration. For example, a distinction between degreesof belief and desire might be introduced, and rationality constraintsimposed.

Maibom (2009) argues that Model TT is well-placed to explain how wemanage to apply a ToM sensitively by adjusting to supporting,context-sensitive knowledge that cannot be supplied by a core ToMitself. In her view, Model TT can explain how it is possible to applyour ToM sensitively in ways that address the particularities ofspecific cases.

The idea that our everyday ToM abilities depend on the use of a set ofadjustable subpersonal models, as opposed to a fixed set ofpropositions describing FP laws, fits well with predictive processingaccounts of cognition (Gopnik & Glymour 2002). Predictiveprocessing accounts of perception hold that—at itscore—such cognitive activity always takes the form of makinginferences concerning the hidden causes of sensory phenomena (Hohwy2013; Clark 2016). Advocates of the predictive processing variants ofTT hold that the processes used in FP are of the same basic kind usedelsewhere in every other variety of cognition, including acts of basicperception; the only difference is that in the case of FP the targetof the activity is to infer how other minds cause actions (see, e.g.,Gopnik & Wellman 2012; Bowers & Davis 2012; Koster-Hale &Saxe 2013; Hohwy & Palmer 2014; Palmer, Seth, & Hohwy 2015;Pezzulo 2017; Zednik & Jäkel 2016; Jara-Ettinger et al. 2016;Jara-Ettinger 2019).

Making inferences about other minds can be understood as a matter ofsolving an inverse problem, that of using observable evidence, in thiscase, behaviors, to infer the invisible causal structure that producesit, in this case, presumably, mental states. Proponents of Model TTare free to assume that the models used in this process are complex,operating simultaneously on multiple scales and levels. In line withpredictive processing assumptions, it is assumed that models improveover time through the sustained effort of minimizing prediction errorby adjusting predictions in response to mismatches between the contentof top-down hypotheses and bottom-up information.

Like all other versions of TT, an animating idea behind Model TT isthat the subpersonal work of brains is roughly analogous to whatscientists do when making inferences in their efforts to best explainphenomena. The assumption is that brains develop generative modelsthat enable them to advance hypotheses—and those hypotheses arefurther developed, refined, and improved by being tested against whatthe world has to offer.

For all their promise, Model TT raises important questions that needfurther attention. These include: What is the evidential support forsuch accounts (Stuhlmüller & Goodman 2014)? What should wemake of their metaphysics? How seriously should we take the idea thatbrains actually advance hypotheses and perform subpersonal modelingoperations?

Slors (2012), for example, warns of a tendency to think that ToMattributions are ubiquitous even in the face of challenges posed bythose who believe that the best explanations of our FP abilities donot involve theorizing of any kind, at any level (seesection 4.3). According to Slors’s diagnosis, those who fall foul of thistemptation commit the model-model fallacy. He holds, the model-modelfallacy occurs when a theorist systematically uses ToM models todescribe what are, in fact, non-mentalizing social-cognitiveprocesses. Though doing so may be valuable for various usefultheoretical or practical purposes, those who fall foul of this fallacysystematically conflate features of the ToM models themselves withwhat goes on subpersonally when exercising our FP competence.

3. Empirical Findings

3.1 Comparative Psychology

An important topic that has been hotly investigated is whether FP isan exclusively human ability or one shared with other non-human animalspecies. Empirical studies investigating ToM capacities have beenconducted with many species, including bottlenose dolphins,corvids—ravens, scrub jays—and dogs (Dally, Emery &Clayton 2006; Tomonaga et al. 2010, Bugnyar & Heinrich 2006;Bugnyar, Reber, & Buckner 2016; Whiten 2013; Maginnity & Grace2014; see Lurz (2011) for a book-length overview of mindreading inanimals). The most sustained experimental work on animal FP capacitieshas centered on the social intelligence of non-human primates. In1978, when the debate was just kicking off, Premack and Woodrufflaunched a small industry by asking in their seminal paper,“Does the Chimpanzee have a theory of mind?”.

Early assessments gleaned from anecdotes of the behaviors ofindividual animals seemed to return a positive answer to the titularquestion (Byrne & Whiten 1991). Subsequent, more controlled,experiments raised questions about that verdict. In naturalisticsettings, non-human great apes exhibit impressive social intelligence(Byrne & Whiten 1997, Suddendorf & Whiten 2003). Despite this,experimental findings are equivocal about whether, to what extent, andin what ways they are aware of other minds. Initially, there was onlynegative evidence that chimpanzees and orangutans understand theconcept of belief, even when tested by simplified non-verbal versionsof the “location change” false belief tasks (Povinelli& Eddy 1996; Povinelli 1996, 2003; Call & Tomasello 1999; Penn& Povinelli 2007).

Switching from a cooperative to a competitive design in their taskprotocols marked a turning point in the field (Hare, Call, &Tomasello 2001). This change of testing regime yielded evidence thatapes may be aware of simpler mental states other than beliefs, such asseeing. Even so, that evidence is equivocal: the results are“decidedly mixed” (Call & Tomasello 2005: 61). A saferconclusion at this stage of inquiry is that simian capacities forengaging with other minds exhibit signature profiles that differ inimportant respects from that of adult human beings, and even that ofhuman infants.

The dismal performance of chimpanzees on the standard human variantsof nonverbal false belief tasks—which test the subject’scapacity to understand that beliefs can be false—galvanized awidespread agreement that the social cognition of great apes does notdepend on a sophisticated capacity for FP, certainly not one based ontheir having an understanding of belief and inter-relations betweenthat concept and other canonical mental states.

Call and Tomasello (2008) highlight this fact when revisiting Premackand Woodruff’s big question 30 years later. Concluding theirreview of the field, these authors tell us that while the evidencesuggests that, in many respects, chimpanzees do have some grip onother minds in many other respects, it also tells us that they do not.Comparing the test results for apes with those of human children hasall but secured the conviction that if apes do have any FP abilitiesthen they are not of the same form or in the same degree as that ofhumans.

The live issue today is not whether chimpanzees or other non-humananimals make use of a fully developed FP, but whether they have anydegree of mindreading ability at all. Ethologists and primatologistshave shifted their focus in this new direction. The main questions nowoccupying the field are: How do apes and other non-human animalsmanage their sophisticated social interactions without the capacityfor full-blown human-style FP understanding? And, if so, what formdoes their everyday grip on other minds take?

The gap between evidence and theory generates a logical problem in theinterpretation of empirical data which poses, some argue, aninsurmountable challenge for anyone hoping to establish the truth ofTT based on empirical findings (Whiten 1996; Povinelli & Vonk2003; Lurz 2009, 2011; Buckner 2014). This problem arises becausethere is always logical room for characterizing and explainingevidence concerning FP capacities in deflationary non-TT terms. Thelogical problem reminds us that positing ToMs—of whatever numberand type—is not the only live theoretical option forcharacterizing or explaining the relevant empirical data.

Not everyone is pessimistic about overcoming the logical problem bypurely empirical means. Heyes (1998) suggested this might be done byfinding evidence of subjects projecting first-person experiences ontoothers. Some researchers find this protocol promising and seek todevelop it (see Southgate 2013, Kano et al. 2019; Lurz & Krachun2019).

There is now a range of proposals about how best to characterize theapparently FP abilities of non-human apes and other animals. Withinthe TT camp—the axiomatic assumption is that an everydayunderstanding of minds essentially involves attributing mental statesby employing some kind of ToM. It is accepted, however, that the ToMsin question need not be identical to the fully-fledged version of FPused by adult humans. Under the TT umbrella, it has been proposed thatnon-human animals may be using a naïve, weak, or minimal theoryof mind (Bogdan 2009; Apperly & Butterfill 2009); perceptualmindreading (Bermúdez 2011); or an early mindreading system(Nichols & Stich 2003). Others favor the idea that animals onlysimulate the effects of mindreading. It has been proposed that certainfeats of social cognition might be variously carried off by asophisticated theory of, or special sensitivities to, behavior(Povinelli & Vonk 2004, Gallagher & Povinelli 2012);sub-mentalizing that utilizes domain-general non-ToM processes (Heyes2018, though see Kano et al. 2017 for a challenge); mind-mindingabilities that target but do not attribute mental states or contents(Fenici 2013, 2015, 2017; Hutto 2017; see Hutto, Herschbach, &Southgate 2011 for a discussion of non-mindreading proposals). Anotherinteresting possibility is that non-human animals, like human childrenand adults, could be using a much more diverse mix of strategies andtactics to enable their everyday understanding of minds than imaginedby FP traditionalists (seesection 4.4).

3.2 Developmental Psychology

There exists a substantial body of research on the development of folkpsychological abilities in young children. A range of findings indevelopmental psychology reveals how younger children perform inexperimental settings when it comes to their dealing with a widevariety of everyday mental states. For example, at around two years ofage, children are sensitive to the fact that different people havedifferent goals and desires (Wellman & Phillips 2001; Bartsch& Wellman 1995; Repacholi & Gopnik 1997). Atwo-year-old’s understanding of desires can be rathersophisticated: children understand, for example, how desires relate toemotions and perceptions, and what would relevantly and consistentlysatisfy specific desires, exhibiting some fluency with counterfactualthinking of a limited sort.

As impressive as these abilities are, they neither equate to norentail an understanding of belief—and it is testing for beliefunderstanding in younger children that takes center stage in childdevelopmental research on ToM. Testing for an understanding of beliefis deemed by many to be the empirically robust, gold standard way ofascertaining the presence or absence of ToM abilities. Thefalse-belief test or FB test (sometimes referred to as “ToMtest”) was first constructed by Perner and Wimmer in 1983, andthe experimental protocol has been further modified by others. It nowcomes in many subtly different variants, including location changetasks, unexpected contents tasks, and appearance/reality distinctiontasks (see Wimmer & Perner 1983; J. Flavell, E. Flavell, &Green 1983; Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith 1985; Perner, Leekam,& Wimmer 1987).

In the original test of young children’s grasp of false belief,participants were introduced to a puppet, Maxi. The participantwatched as Maxi’s mother put Maxi’s chocolate in cupboardX. In Maxi’s absence, the mother moved the chocolate to cupboardY. When Maxi returns, participants are asked where Maxi would look forthe chocolate. Significantly, no participants in the 3-to-4-year rangeanswered correctly. A familiar explanation of these findings is thatthose who fail these kinds of FB tests lack the concept of belief, orsufficient facility with it, to be able to represent how thingsappear, cognitively speaking, from a vantage point that diverges fromtheir own.

FB tests have been greatly popular because they provide psychologistswith a well-defined yet modifiable experimental protocol that can beapplied to different populations, across species, and in diversesettings. In their 2001 meta-analysis focusing on experimentsconducted before 1998, Wellman, Cross, and Watson (2001) reviewed 178such studies, conducted in 591 conditions.

A standard assumption in developmental psychology has been thatsomething important happens in the normal pattern of child developmentsomewhere between the ages of 3 to 5. These are the ages around whichFB understanding is usually thought to be acquired by most normallydeveloping children (Astington 2001; Wellman & Liu 2004). Indeed,for many, the passing of FB tests is thought to tell us somethingimportant about a subject’s ToM abilities. Some hold thatsuccess at FB test is the mark of a subject having acquired the finalcomponent of their mature ToM. The tacit assumption made here is thatchildren put the finishing touches on their FP competence by masteringthe concept of belief.

There are two things to note concerning these assumptions. Firstly,empirical studies of characteristic developmental patterns havefocused almost exclusively on subjects from WEIRD (Western, Educated,Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies, and, as such,conclusions drawn from them should be treated with caution (Henrich,Heine, & Norenzayan 2010). Secondly, even in industrializedWestern populations, the full suite of standard FP abilities is notsecurely in place in children’s performance until after the agesof 5 or 6. Summarising a range of empirical findings, Apperly andButterfill (2009) report that even older children who are capable ofpassing false belief tests still have problems understanding howbeliefs are acquired, how beliefs interact with desires, and inanticipating the emotional consequences of false beliefs.

In recent years, new kinds of FB tests experiments have shown thatchildren as young as 25 months (Southgate, Senju, & Csibra 2007);15-months (Onishi & Baillargeon 2005); and 13-months (Surian,Caldi, & Sperber 2007) can pass language-free versions offalse-belief tasks. Taken at face value the new infant data suggeststhat very young children must have some command of the concept ofbelief, even though much older children lack, as we have seen, thecapacity to pass standard, verbally based, FB tasks. These findingshave led to the articulation of the so-called developmental“paradox” (Southgate 2013; De Bruin & Newen 2014). Whyis it the case that cognitively typical 3–5-year-old childrenstruggle with explicit FB tests if they are already competent with FPat much younger ages?

Some TTists seek to explain the evident developmental changes inchildren’s conceptual abilities without the need to posit anyradical change to or development of ToM concepts. These TTists proposethat children do not change the conceptual components of their ToM.These TTists hold that children operate with one and only one TOM withthe same basic concepts throughout their entire lives—from earlyinfancy to adulthood (Baillargeon, Scott, & He 2010; Scott &Baillargeon 2017).

TTists of this stripe claim that the developmental paradox is anillusion. By their lights, the core concepts of FP never change eventhough the capacity to apply concepts comes in degrees. The variationin children’s performance, they propose, is the result of othercomplicating factors, such as the development of executive functioncapacities, working memory, and language abilities. On this view, thefailure of explicit, verbal false belief tasks does not reveal aconceptual deficit, rather it reveals a deficit of performance rathercompetence (Carruthers 2013, 2016; Baillargeon, Scott, & Bian2016; Schönherr & Westra 2019).

An alternative TT proposal is that we can best explain theaforementioned developmental changes in humans by positing theexistence of two functionally distinct ToMs. On this theory, one typeof ToM underwrites adult FP capacities to ascribe propositionalattitudes. Yet we also make use of a more minimal ToM, one whichemploys and attributes weaker concepts than that of belief proper.This second, earlier developing ToM is,ex hypothesi, usedfor fast and efficient, but limited ToM tasks (Apperly &Butterfill 2009; Butterfill & Apperly 2013). On this dual-ToMtheory, our first ToM never grows up. Instead, radically new conceptsand principles come into play with the advent of our adult ToM, whicharrives at around ages 3 to 4 in normally developing Westernpopulations. After that point, both ToMs begin to work alongside oneanother.

Neutrally presented, the findings of FB tests do not automaticallysupport ToM interpretations. What the FB data shows is that before acertain age, which varies considerably with individual differences,children are unable to make correct belief attributions or tocorrectly answer questions about belief-related actions when thisrequires them to specify the content of the divergent cognitive pointsof view of others. All such tests confront children with a task thatinherently demands that they adopt a spectatorial stance.Consequently, the experimental data provide no direct insight into thetrue range of children’s FB understanding. Nor do they revealwhat role such FB understanding might play in children’s abilityto make sense of others in more natural and less restrictedinteractional settings (Reddy & Morris 2004; Buttelmann,Carpenter, & Tomasello 2009).

The robustness and interpretation of infant ToM findings remaincontested. Heyes (2018) argues that many such behaviours may reflect“submentalizing”, that is, domain-general processes suchas attentional cueing or statistical learning, rather than genuinemindreading. In parallel, Hutto (2017) has proposed that youngchildren may engage in “mind-minding” rather than“mind-reading,” that is, being responsive to and keepingtrack of others’ mental states (including, potentially,propositional attitudes) without recognising them as such — i.e.without the capacity to ascribe beliefs, desires, intentions or thelike. On this view, young children (and perhaps some adults inpractice) can anticipate actions and coordinate socially bysensitivity to another’s attitude, even though they lack theability to attribute mental state concepts and contents.

Schuwerk et al. 2025 [Other Internet Resources] examined anticipatorylooking in 18- to 27-month-olds and adults when distinguishingknowledge from ignorance. Adults (n = 703) showed robust anticipationbased on epistemic state, whereas toddlers (n = 521) did not, despiteshowing goal-based action anticipation. Though not yet published atthe time of this update, this research is notable for being conductedacross many major labs, involving 123 authors, including seniorfigures in infant ToM research, such as Baillargeon and Rakoczy.

Taken together, developmental evidence indicates a connection betweenearly social-cognitive sensitivity and later explicit ToM, but it alsoputs pressure on the assumption that the former is best understood interms of mental or epistemic state attribution rather than as a morebasic, non-conceptual sensitivity to such states.

It has been argued that FB tests do not probe deeply into thechild’s FP understanding because they only test for suchunderstanding in third-personal, experimental conditions. Such testsleave us none the wiser as to how frequently or centrally such FBunderstanding is used; how the children come by it; what enables itsacquisition; which other tasks it might be used for; and so on.

Several psychologists and philosophers have emphasized theartificiality of FB experiments and the contrived nature of thesituations, those requiring subjects to take up a third-personalstance on others, in which they are conducted. These critics of FBtesting conclude that while FB tests allow for the focused collectionof data, that collected data tells us precious little about the use ofFP in everyday human social engagements, namely those we find“in the wild” and “in the streets” (Gallagher2001, 2015; Leudar, Costall, & Francis 2004; Leudar & Costall2009). Given the limits of the FB experimental protocol, it has beenargued that such tests do not tell us much about children’s FPcapacities in other, more ecologically valid contexts andsettings.

3.3 Neuroscience

A great deal of experimental work has been devoted to identifying thededicated brain regions or network of brain regions that are reliablyinvolved in ToM tasks (see Koster-Hale & Saxe, 2013 for anoverview). This empirical work usually takes the form of correlativefMRI neuroimaging and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, TMS, studies.Schuwerk, Langguth, and Sommer (2014) report on findings that havebeen employed using both of these methods to test a diverse range ofsubjects of different genders, ages, and cultural backgrounds.

Based on accumulated evidence, it is now claimed that five regions ofthe brain are specifically and reliably active in ToM tasks. Theseregions have been identified as (1) the left and right temporoparietaljunction (LTPJ and RTPJ); (2) the left and right dorsolateralprefrontal cortex (DLPFC); (3) the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG);(4) the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC); and (5) theposterior medial prefrontal cortex (pMPFC) (Schuwerk et al. 2014).

The idea that mindreading involves a large-scale network respectsApperly’s (2010) warning against over-emphasizing the importanceof any single brain region and assigning it the function of“mindreading” per se. Focusing too narrowly on singlebrain regions, it is argued, overlooks the importance of a broader setof neural regions that must work together in concert, on theassumption that many such regions serve their own important or evenindispensable mindreading functions.

Data-driven meta-analyses of networks seek to reveal the morespecialized functional contributions of specific brain regions withina broader neural network. For example, it has been claimed that TMSstudies can identify the specific contribution of particular regionsto overall ToM tasks (Kalbe et al. 2010). Reportedly, TMS studiessuggest that the medial prefrontal cortex (pMPFC), for example, playsa part in enabling subjects to distinguish their perspective from thatof others. By contrast, other findings suggest that the R-TPJ brainregion is selectively enlisted for tasks requiring theinterpretatively complex attribution of mental states to others (Mahy,Moses, & Pfeifer 2014). For example, Saxe and Wexler (2005) foundthat R-TPJ activity is increased compared to other regions. Thishappens when the professed beliefs or desires of story protagonistsconflict with a subjects’ background expectations about whatthese characters ought to believe or desire. Moreover, this region isnot similarly recruited for other tasks that involve assessing other,more general, socially relevant facts about persons.

Importantly, it appears that the relevant selectivity of this brainregion comes late in the day, emerging “in the R-TPJ betweenages 6 and 11 years” (Saxe 2009: 1206). Citing work byKobayashi, Glover, and Temple (2007), in their systematic examinationof the neural evidence of major theories of ToM acquisition, Mahy,Moses, and Pfeifer (2014) also emphasize that

although 8-to-12-year-old children significantly engage TPJbilaterally in ToM stories … younger children do not alwaysshow this selective TPJ recruitment. (2014: 70)

There is some consensus that the TPJ is recruited and involved in FPmodes of understanding minds in later stages of development. There isalso evidence that there is no single, dedicated neural network atplay in ToM-related tasks across all stages of development (Gweon etal. 2012). In a bid to make sense of these findings, Saxe andcolleagues take seriously the

recent hint that middle childhood is a critical time for interactionsbetween language and theory of mind. (Saxe 2009: 1207)

These findings present aprima facie challenge for approachesthat assume ToMs are innate and early-maturing (see Saxe 2009; Mahy,Moses, & Pfeifer 2014).

Importantly, it is worth noting that even the TPJ is not deployed onlyor solely in ToM tasks. Commenting on this lack-of-specificity problemconcerning the TPJ, Apperly (2010) reports the following conclusionsreached in a meta-review of neuroimaging studies: the so-called“mindreading network” was implicated not only inmindreading tasks but also in tasks involving information recall,general reasoning, and inductive reasoning in uncertain conditions. Itturns out that many tasks that do not appear to inherently involve ToMnevertheless evoke activity in the TPJ, violating the specificitycriterion (see Mahy, Moses, & Pfeifer 2014). Some, such asRosenberg (2018), are sanguine that, taken together, theneuroscientific findings provide “evidence that the theory ofmind is localized to a small number of specific brain regions actingtogether as a mental module.” (2018: 60). The findings alsoallow for the possibility that mindreading is, at best, enabled by aloose confederation of brain areas that pull together in widescalenetworks to complete ToM task as opposed to consisting of a stablededicated brain network (Anderson 2014). ToM-focused neuroscience isstill developing. A recent verdict on the state-of-the-art summarizesthe current situation: “Although functional neuroimagingtechniques have been widely used to establish the neural correlatesimplicated in ToM, the specific mechanisms are still not clear.”(Zeng et al. 2020: 1).

Neuroimaging studies continue to investigate the neural basis ofFP-related capacities from infancy onwards. Bowman and Brandone (2024)report temporo-parietal activation in preschoolers duringpassive-viewing false-belief tasks, suggesting early neuralsensitivity to others’ perspectives. Li, Meinhardt, and Sodian(2025) conducted the first study of neural correlates of false-beliefunderstanding in 33- to 36-month old children. Their findings“revealed neural sensitivity for [False Belief Understanding] inyoung children” (p. 18). That could be interpreted to supportthe hypothesis of a single maturing ToM mechanism. Yet Li et al.(2025) also acknowledge that “An alternative interpretation ofthe findings is that two mentalistic response processes may beelicited almost simultaneously by the spontaneous response ERP task, anon-representational one over the frontocentral electrode sites and arepresentational one over the occipital electrode sites.” (p.19). A complementary, exploratory longitudinal EEG study by Li,Müller, Meinhardt, and Sodian (2025) may provide evidence, asthese authors note, if ‘interpreted cautiously’ (p. 1),that resting-state alpha asymmetry in infancy might be a neural markerfor later false-belief performance at age four.

Together, these findings establish empirical links between measures ofearly appearing neural activity and later performances on ToM tasks.Whether they support the existence of developmental continuity of asingle ToM mechanism, however, or instead point to a non-ToM neuralbasis that is connected with and later supports explicitbelief–desire reasoning, remains an open question. As Bowman andBrandone (2024) note of their hypotheses, “all these possiblefunctions of RTP activity during ToM processing are speculative…. That said, findings from our preschool study provide novelevidence against a simplistic view that RTP activity always indicatesthe presence of a mature ToM neural network that facilitates accurateToM reasoning.” (p. 15).

3.4 Cross-Cultural Psychology

Many studies in cross-cultural psychology reveal apparentsocio-cultural variation in FP and FP-related abilities (e.g., Avis& Harris 1991; Vinden 1996, 1999, 2002; Naito & Koyama 2006;Liu et al. 2008). These empirical results suggest there may beimportant differences between the forms of FP used in differentcultures (Mills 2001). Assessing a body of cross-cultural datarelating to FB tests, Mayer and Träuble (2013) reach the cautiousconclusion that

it is not clear whether it is justified to assume a universal onset offalse-belief understanding across cultures. (2013: 22)

Plenty of cross-cultural variation has been found when comparingnon-Western and Western societies concerning other aspects ofFP-related understanding. The standard explanation for suchdifferences is put down to the fact that the

early social experiences of children [in such societies] clearlydiffer from the experiences of children in Western cultures. (Mayer& Träuble 2013: 22; Barrett et al. 2013a, 2013b)

Consider, for example, Mayer and Träuble’s (2013) study ofthe onset of FP understanding in Samoan children. Like othercross-cultural researchers, they choose to look at this particularpopulation precisely because “ethnographical work reportsdifferent practices of intersubjective understanding” (Mayer& Träuble 2013: 22). A plausible explanation of differencesin the timing of the emergence and application of FP-related abilitiesin the Samoan case focuses on how, and how frequently, mental statesterms are used in that culture. As cultural anthropologists andethnographers observe, it is widely asserted in societies of thePacific that

it is impossible or at least extremely difficult to know what otherpeople think or feel. (Robbins & Rumsey 2008: 407–408)

A possible explanation of Samoan FP-related tendencies is that mentalstates are talked about less frequently and in different ways inSamoan populations than they are in populations with othersocio-cultural practices.

Another line of research reveals that belief understanding varies incertain Eastern populations (Hong Kong, Japan) when compared withtheir Western (US, Eastern Europe) counterparts (Doan & Wang 2010;Liu et al. 2008). Again, this difference may be connected to the factthat different explanatory practices prevail in these societies (Chao1994; Bradford et al. 2018). Fiebich (2016) proposes that thesecultural differences are evident in early mother-child conversations.Caretakers from Western cultures seem to favor mentalistic narratives,whereas caretakers from Asian cultures exhibit a preference forbehavioral-contextual narratives. For example, when reading a picturebook together with their child, European and American mothers tend torefer more often to the mental states of the protagonist (e.g.,“the bear is sad”) rather than to the embodied aspects ofthose states (e.g., “the bear has tears on his face”), incontrast to Chinese mothers. This correlates with earlier evidencethat suggests children from several non-Western cultures do not employthe familiar Western FP schema, or at least that they do not do asreadily or with the same proficiency as Westerners do (Vinden 1996,1999; Lillard 1997, 1998; see also Lavelle 2021).

Other cross-cultural evidence reported by Wellman and Peterson (2013)found variations in the developmental sequence in which the componentelements of FP competence are acquired. They observe people canunderstand other minds in terms of a range of attitudes, including,diverse desires concerning the same object (Diverse Desires, DD),different beliefs about the same situation (Diverse Beliefs, DB), thatsomething can be true while the person may not know that (KnowledgeAccess, KA), that something might be true while the person believesotherwise (False Belief, FB), and that someone can feel one way butdisplay a different emotion (Hidden Emotion, HE).

The order and sequence in which children get a grip on differentattitudes vary socio-culturally. Based on a series of studiesinvolving over 500 preschool children in the USA, Canada, Australia,and Germany, it was found that 80% of children exhibit a commonpattern of acquisition, developing their FP-related understanding inthe following sequence: DD > DB > KA > FB > HE. However,it has been discovered that Chinese and Iranian pre-schoolers come bytheir FP understanding in a different order, acquiring KA competencebefore DB (Shahaeian et al. 2011; Wellman et al. 2006; Wellman 2011).Once again, a possible explanation of these differences ties them tolocal conversational-cultural preferences.

Taken together these findings suggest that not all cultures engage inall the same FP practices, nor do they do some in the same sequence orthe same way. Evidence gleaned from the handful of cross-culturalstudies that have been conducted suggests that neither full FPunderstanding nor mastery of the concept of belief comes automaticallyor in equal measure to all members of the human species.

Looking at the practices of other cultures, there is apparentheterogeneity in the explanatory tendencies and methods used in makingsense of people’s actions. In some parts of the globe greatemphasis is placed, for example, on situational, trait-based, and evensupernatural explanations factors (Morris & Peng 1994; Lillard1997, 1998). The accumulated cross-cultural evidence should make uscautious in assuming that all human populations exhibit the same kindof FP understanding or use FP to the same extent or for the samepurposes.

More recent studies continue to highlight how cultural and socialenvironments shape the development of folk psychological abilities.Cross-cultural comparisons of preschool children using the so-calledToM Scale confirm that while a broad sequence is often observed, theorder of appearance is less rigid than previously assumed, and localdifferences in language use, parental discourse, and familysocialization are robust predictors of variation (Selçuk,Gonultas, and Ekerim-Akbulut 2023). Early caregiving andmind-mindedness also differ across societies: for example, mothers inthe UK comment more frequently on their infants’ mental statesthan mothers in India (Bozicevic et al. 2023). Such findingsunderscore that (i) folk psychological understanding admits ofsignificant variation, and that (ii) culture, language, andsocio-familial context are robust predictors of such variation. Takentogether, the current evidence indicates genuine diversity indevelopmental pathways, while leaving open whether this reflectssurface differences in performance or deeper variation in underlyingcompetence.

4. Philosophical Challenges to Theory Theory

4.1 Eliminativism

TTists assume that mature scientific psychology and FP both offer uptheories that are in precisely the same line of work—namely,that of causally explaining behavior. Yet, to the extent the maturescientific psychology and FP compete in this domain, the latter lookslike a poor contender.

Good theories run deep. They are based on hard-won knowledge ofunderlying causes rather than on generalizations based on surfacedata. Good theories provide a powerful means of anticipating,explaining, and controlling what happens. They do so by tapping intothe world of the unseen and the abstract. A good theory allows us tomake solid bets that pay off quickly and selectively, using minimalevidence. Good theories reliably guide expectations, even in novelcircumstances.

The key question then is: If FP is a theory of everyday humanpsychology, is it a good theory? Some argue, given what we alreadyknow and are likely to discover, that is almost certainly a falsetheory. Some think it is so poor that we have reason to think thestates over which it quantifies do not exist. Going byChurchland’s (1981) assessment, we have every reason to thinkFP’s principles are false and its ontology is an illusion.Churchland (1979, 1989, 1993) highlights FP’s lack of unity andfit with a growing body of theory elsewhere in the sciences. Othersagree. Rosenberg (2018), for example, maintains that modernneuroscience directly refutes FP proposals about the true causes ofhuman behavior.

Without the benefit of a sustained and thriving scientific researchprogram, FP seems to be, at most, a low-grade theory that is intension with the best theories of mind that the mature cognitivesciences are developing. Many suppose that the advancing theories ofcognitive science and neuroscience offer a deeper and more accuratemeans of understanding mind and cognition (see Carruthers 2011; Heyes2018; Rosenberg 2018; see Horgan & Woodward 1985 for a defense ofFP on this score).

It has been argued that as long as we assume FP is any kind of ToMthen it won’t remain in the theoretical running unless it allowsfor revision and is prepared to incorporate the latest findings ofmature scientific theorizing about minds (Murphy 2006; Gerrans 2014).Assuming FP is not open to such significant, open-ended revision,Churchland (1989) famously characterizes it as a stagnant ordegenerating research program.

Eliminativists regard FP’s theoretical commitments as backwardand outdated. FP is often compared to rejected theories that sought toexplain diseases by appeal to witches as opposed to germs.Importantly, a ToM can be an imperfect, false theory that fosters onlyillusions even if it is hardwired in our brains. If so, FP is a badtheory that we, as a species, may find it hard to shake because we areuniversally pre-set to acquire it due to its quick and dirty utilityin everyday contexts.

Other reasons have been offered for thinking that FP is an inferiortheory when compared to the theories of scientific psychology. It hasbeen argued that the contents of propositional attitudes arenecessarily world-relating in a way that requires us to look beyondthe bounds of an organism’s skin when assigning contents to suchattitudes (Stich 1983). On this analysis, the ways we attribute mentalstate concepts and contents involves recourse to “similarityconditions” and normative principles of charity that could notpossibly feature in a mature science of the mind (Davidson 1984,1987). On this view, FP involves the ascription of contentfulattitudes by employing interpretative methods that are inescapablybound up with norms of rationality. For those persuaded by sucharguments, to the extent that FP is properly characterized as a theoryat all, it must be regarded as a domestic theory of very limitedscope: one that is unfit to predict or explain the behavior of exoticsubjects, such as very young children and animals (Stich 1983). Ifthis analysis is correct, it reveals FP to be inherently wedded to anexplanatory schema that is incompatible with the demands of seriousscientific psychology.

To the extent that FP embeds such features, it breaks faith with thealleged central tenet of anybona fide scientificpsychology—namely, that proper causal explanations should onlycite proximate causes of action, those located physically, inside theskin of agents (Fodor 1981; McGinn 1989). For those persuaded by thisline of argument FP will be incapable of providing causal explanationsof action if it turns out that the content of propositional attitudesneeds to be individuated by factors that necessarily require lookingbeyond an agent’s skin.

4.2 Simulation Theory

Since the mid-1980s the main rival to TT has been the simulationtheory, or ST, of which there are many varieties. The major proponentsof ST diverge in their views about what exactly simulation involves.They heterogeneously characterize the process of simulation as a formof imaginative transformation (Gordon 1986, 1995, 1996), thoughtreplication or co-cognition (Heal 1986, 1995, 1996, 1998a, 1998b),introspective modeling (Gopnik & Wellman 1992) and off-linepractical reasoning (Goldman 1989, 2006).

Simulation theorists take it for granted that we regularly engage inFP, but they hold that doing so does not imply the existence of a setof conceptually articulated ToM principles. They propose that as ourminds are already populated with the relevant mental states and thatwe can systematically manipulate those mental states in precisely thesorts of ways TT principles aim to describe. Proponents of ST alsopropose that when we make mentalistic attributions to other minds weuse our minds as models for those targets. Thus, even though thesimulation process is a structured activity involving the attributionof mental state concepts, no theoretical principles need to beconsulted or used when we understand minds in FP fashion.

Goldman (2006), for example, depicts high-level mindreading of thesort associated with FP understanding as a three-stage process. In theprimary or preparatory phase, appropriate targets must be identified(viz. intentional actions or what at least looks to be such). Duringthe second, or what might be called the simulative phase, appropriateinputs—“pretend” thoughts, beliefs, or desires (orthe same entertained hypothetically)—are “fed into”specific subpersonal mechanisms (e.g., the practical reasoningmechanism operating in an off-line mode). These mental states are theninternally manipulated to yield predictions or explanations.

Mentalistic concepts are not needed for the first two stages of theprocess. But they come into play when attributing mental states totargets in the final phase. Making such attributions requiresidentifyingwhich mental states it is that one isascribing—these must be classified both by appeal to theirgeneral attitudinal type (belief, desire, hope) and their specificcontent (e.g., that “The bus leaves from stand 25”.).

To the extent that simulation processes might exhaustively explain ourFP abilities, ST directly challenges TT explanations. ST offers toexplain how FP ascriptions can be carried off without positing anykind of “theory” as being involved in the centralmindreading process. Motivated by the acknowledgment of somelimitations of pure TT accounts (see Heal 1998a, 1998b), some TTistshave come to favor hybrid explanations of the cognitive basis of FP inwhich both theory and simulation have clear-cut parts to play inachieving FP understanding (Goldman 2006). Yet however this allianceis precisely conceived, there remains a crucial question about which,if either, of the two theories—TT or ST—does the work ofexplaining the core structural aspects of our FP competence (seeApperly 2008 for a critique of the explanatory value of bothapproaches).

4.3 Phenomenological Critiques of TT

Several authors, drawing on phenomenological considerations, offer afundamental critique of all variants of TT, arguing that TT approachessystematically mischaracterize their target explanandum in crucialrespects (Gallagher 2001, 2020; Ratcliffe 2007; Gallagher & Zahavi2008; Gallagher & Hutto 2008; see Hutto & Ratcliffe 2007 foran overview). Such critics maintain that the way we engage with andunderstand others in everyday life is misdescribed when they aredepicted as being essentially theoretical. These philosopherschallenge the idea that interpersonal engagements of the sort that aremeant to be captured under the FP umbrella are a matter of seeking toinfer the underlying causes of another’s behavior by means ofmental state attribution.

Phenomenological reflection, they argue, speaks against the TTassumption that our situation with respect to others is fundamentallythat of a scientific spectator to target phenomena. That TT assumptionis fostered by thinking that if we are to understand other minds wemust bridge an assumed epistemic gap that exists between us andothers, and that we must bridge that gap by accurately depicting themental states that move others to act.

It has been argued that modeling FP on a scientific enterprise paintsa distorting picture of its character. Positively characterized, oureveryday ways of engaging with and understanding others are said to bea matter of responding directly to the attitudes and emotions ofothers, making sense of their projects and commitments, and trustingor not trusting the accounts they give us about why they do what theydo. Phenomenologically motivated critics of TT argue that when we dealwith others in these kinds of ways we do not take up a scientificstance towards them.

These phenomenologically motivated critics deny that TT provides anaccurate description of what we do when we make sense of actions ineveryday life (Herschbach 2008; Strijbos & de Bruin 2012). Forexample, often when we are interested in another’s reasons foracting, we get at their reason by being told directly why they actedthus and so though second-personal exchanges, obviating the need toinfer or attribute mental states to the other (Hutto 2004, 2008). Tounderstand FP exchanges of this kind aright is, in McGeer’swords, to recognize that we do not “interact with one another asscientist to object, as observer to observed” (2007: 146).

The most radical phenomenologically motivated challenge to TT holdsthat when we look closely at how we understand one another in everydaylife we do not find people making mental state attributions ofstandard FP sort at all (Ratcliffe 2006, 2007). Defending thisanalysis, Ratcliffe offers a deflationary appraisal of FP, regardingit as a kind of philosophical fiction. By his lights, FP is amisleading picture of our everyday ways of understanding oneanother—a picture that lacks depth and which does not come closeto the richness of our actual practice.

4.4 Mental Fictionalism

Mental fictionalism poses a different sort of direct challenge to TT.It is the thesis that minds—at least when characterised in thefamiliar way of being comprised of contentful, causally efficaciousinner states—do not really exist as such. Nevertheless,according to mental fictionalism, pretending that minds exist and havesuch properties proves incredibly useful to us, perhaps indispensablyso. Mental fictionalism assumes that FP is a kind of metaphor-ladenpractice in which we engage rather than any kind of attempt at serioustheorising.

The position, which comes in several varieties, has attracted growinginterest in recent years. A special issue ofThe Monist,edited by Demeter, appeared in 2013; a collection edited by Demeter,Parent, and Toon in 2022; Toon’s book-length defence in 2023;and a 2025 special issue that critically assesses its core tenets andprospects.

Critics maintain that mental fictionalism is internally unstable. Ifour attributions of inner mental states are part of a game of pretenceand no such states exist, it is unclear how the game can even beplayed. To pretend that someone believes or imagines seems to requirethe real existence of the very sort of contentfulattitudes—e.g.,imagining how things are not—thatmental fictionalists deny exist. If, as Wallace (2016), argues mentalfictionalism collapses.

Toon (2023; 2025) has offered a sophisticated defence of his brand ofmental fictionalism in response to the collapse worry, allowing thatthe capacities to use metaphors of mind do not depend directly on theexistence of the kind of mental states that mental fictionalists deemfictional. Facchin (2025) highlights the need to restrict the scope ofmental fictionalism, arguing that if Toon’s defence works atall, it works only for non-extended propositional attitudes; onceextended attitudes are in view, at least some mental ascriptions areliterally true, and, thus, extended propositional attitudes exist.Mental fictionalism, if it is to be viable by these lights, cannot bea global thesis about the mental.

Others, take aim at the idea the mental fictions are as useful as themental fictionalists claim them to be. Hutto (2025) insists when suchfictions embed misleading philosophical pictures, if they are to beused safely, they require the explicit use of an additional‘Santa Clause’, as a reminder that the use of suchfictions carries no ontological or explanatory commitments. Relatedly,Gough (2025) warns that “mind-as-useful-fiction” risksre-instating an inner-theatre picture of mind albeit under adeflationary label. Kirchhoff (2025a, 2025b) challenges attempts bymental fictionalists to draw analogies with scientific idealisation;unlike ideal gases or point masses, mental representational“fictions”, he argues, don’t earn their explanatoryor predictive keep.

4.5 Pluralism

Up until the 2000s, it was the received view that FP abilities werebased, wholly or primarily, in mindreading abilities and that suchabilities were assumed to be best explained by TT, ST, or some hybridcombination. That orthodoxy has been challenged by pluralists about FPwho maintain that we engage in FP for many purposes other thanprediction and explanation. For example, it has been proposed that FPenables us to coordinate, justify and regulate our actions andbehavior. FP pluralists maintain that we achieve these diverse ends bydiverse means and methods (Bermúdez 2003; Slors & MacDonald2008; Andrews 2008, 2012; Fiebich, Gallagher, & Hutto 2016;Andrews, Spaulding, & Westra 2021).

A signature pluralist assumption is that the extension of FP is widerthan traditionally supposed, encompassing anything we do whenunderstanding minds and navigating everyday interpersonal relations(see Hornsby 1996; Spaulding 2018b). According to FP pluralists, thereare many ways that we keep track of and think about minds—ourmethods for doing so are not exclusively restricted to attributingmental states but include being sensitive to a range of factorsincluding socio-cultural situational norms, conventions, stereotypes,implicit biases, and person-specific character traits. How we thinkabout minds on any given occasion, pluralists claim, varies as afunction of context and our shifting FP goals.

Some variants of FP pluralism are perfectly compatible with TT. Theyassume that the use of ToM lies at the core of FP understanding andthat a ToM interacts with and is informed by other kinds ofinformation concerning the aforementioned range of socio-cognitivefactors (Spaulding 2018a, 2018b; Westra 2018, 2019, 2020).

Other versions of FP pluralism do not give TT pride of place asFP’s primary or default function. Some variants place TTpredictions and explanations on equal footing with other FP methodsand goals. FP pluralism of this kind assumes that FP has no singleprimary function or method. Rather FP uses various means to achievemultiple ends—such as, making and justifying moral judgments,fostering social bonding, molding, and regulating behavior. Forexample, Lavelle (2022) directly targets the assumption thatmindreading is ubiquitous and primarily predictive or explanatory. Sheprovides an overview of approaches to social cognition and FP thatregard it as heterogeneous set of practices, whose functions varyacross contexts, such that mindreading—as traditionallyconstrued—plays a more limited role in FP than oftensupposed.

4.6 Mindshaping

Mindshaping accounts of FP maintain its primary function and basis isnon-theoretical in character in ways that pose a direct threat totraditional TT accounts. Specifically, mindshaping accounts rejectTT’s core assumption that FP’s primary function is that ofmaking third-personal predictions and explanations about minds.Instead, they propose that FP’s primary work is to regulate andshape minds by means of imitation, pedagogy, and other socialconformity mechanisms. So understood, the main work of FP is that ofnormatively molding, not descriptively reading, minds (McGeer 2007,2015; 2021, Zawidzki 2008, 2013; Castro 2020). Advocates of thisapproach assume that as a result of mindshaping minds become morepredictable, enabling, amongst other things, successful cooperation.Importantly, mindshaping accounts thereby hold that anything we mightcall theorizing about minds is a parasitic and peripheral capacitythat only comes into play in special contexts.

The 2025Routledge Handbook of Mindshaping, edited byZawidzki and Tison, collects together new work on mindshaping,offering analyses of its developmental role, its extension intocultural and institutional practices, its potential for integrationwithin predictive processing and niche construction frameworks. Amongthe contributions, Slors and Kiverstein (2025) stands out in makingconnections between mindshaping and what those authors dub Ryleanenactivism. This allows them to vividly illustrate how differentmindshaping approaches can be from standard mindreading accounts andto demonstrate their explanatory independence from TT.

4.7 The Narrative Practice Hypothesis

The Narrative Practice Hypothesis, or NPH, offers a thoroughgoingchallenge to TT. In its original formulation, it incorporates versionsof the challenges to TT issued by phenomenological critics and FPpluralists. Inspired by Bruner (1990), the NPH holds that folkpsychology is a kind of narrative practice and hypothesizes that ourFP competence is fostered by engaging in socially supportedstory-telling activities (Hutto 2004, 2007, 2008).

The NPH maintains that engaging in specific kinds of narrativepractices is the normal route by which human beings come tounderstand, explain and make sense of actions done for reasons in FPterms. It is through such narrative practices that we normally becomeacquainted with mental attitudes or predicates (e.g., belief, desire,hope, fear) and learn of the complex ways such attitudes caninter-relate. The NPH is consistent with the fact that FP practice isquite variable. We call on many kinds of mental states, other thanbeliefs and desires—such as hopes, fears, and other more basickinds of perceptions, emotions—as well as character traits andnon-psychological attributes when making sense of why someone may haveacted. The NPH assumes that fuller and more complete explanations ofaction will give details of the person’s character, situation,and history—in short, more of the person’s“story”.

The primary function of FP, according to the NPH, is the hermeneuticunderstanding and justification of action through normalizingexplanations. It assumes that such explanations cannot be understoodas backward-looking retrodictions that mirror forward-lookingpredictions. Following Andrews (2003), the NPH thus challenges theassumption that prediction and explanation are symmetrical. Inagreement with the mindshaping hypothesis, the NPH assumes that anytheorizing we do about minds, by calling on generalizations, isperipheral and parasitic on the more primary narratively based ways ofunderstanding reasons for action. The NPH assumes theorizing onlyoccurs in third-personal contexts and that core FP understanding uponwhich FP predictions and explanations are based need not be groundedin any kind of ToM.

The NPH acknowledges that our FP competence is structured. Yet itmaintains that FP structure derives from the patterns embedded in theambient narratives found in our socio-cultural environments and not,say, from the pattern of a set of internalized rules stored in thebrains of individuals. The NPH advances the view that we acquire ourstructured FP competence through dealing with special kinds ofnarratives—FP narratives—when appropriately supported bycaregivers. A range of empirical findings lend apparent support to theNPH (see Astington 1990, 1996; Astington & Jenkins 1999; Richner& Nicolopoulou 2001; Nelson 2003, 2007).

FP narratives are a special sub-set of narratives—those thatmake mention of and show how mental states figure in the lives,history, and larger projects of their owners. Like all narratives, FPnarratives depict a particular series of events in the lives ofcertain protagonists. Yet FP narratives differ from other kinds ofnarratives in that they explicitly showcase the various psychologicalstates and attitudes. The NPH predicts that if cultures divergesignificantly in their narrative practices, then we should expect tofind different patterns, tendencies, and proficiencies in the use ofFP across those cultures (Hutto 2008).

Ultimately, the NPH holds that FP competence—our facility withFP forms and norms—is grounded in non-representationalcapacities that have been structured by social interactions andnarratives. This proposal rejects the intellectualist individualismthat is standardly assumed in mainstream cognitive science andproposes instead that FP competence is a kind of enculturated know-how(McGeer 2021). Some, however, for example, Overgaard and Michael(2015), object that to be workable as an account of FP competence theNPH has no choice but to assume that a ToM, and not just enculturatedpractical know-how, is acquired via engaging in the relevant narrativepractices.

5. Practical Implications

5.1 Neurodiversity and Clinical Contexts

The long-standing claim that autistic people lack a ToM hastraditionally been taken as strong evidence that FP competence must beunderpinned by a theory of mind module. If some people lack FPcompetence when interacting with others, the reasoning goes, then thelikely best explanation of such a profile is that they lack ToM whichsome assume to be the cognitive basis for FP capacity (Baron-Cohen1995; Westra and Carruthers 2017).

This mindblindness hypothesis about autism is now seriouslychallenged. A recent state-of-the-art review by Long, Catmur, and Bird(2025) concludes that no existing ToM-deficit account adequatelyexplains the patterns of autistic cognition. They highlight conceptualvagueness in defining ToM ability, theoretical inconsistency acrossaccounts, and deep methodological problems with standard tasks.Similarly, Gernsbacher and Yergeau (2019) survey decades of empiricalwork and conclude that the claim autistic people lack or have a faultyToM fails across multiple dimensions. Classic findings often fail toreplicate, many non-autistic groups also fail standard ToM tasks, andToM measures correlate poorly with each other and with autistic traitsor social functioning. Moreover, many autistic individuals pass suchtasks, showing that “mindblindness” is neither specificnor universal.

Offering an alternative to the faulty ToM, mindblindness hypothesisfor understanding neurodiversity, Milton (2012) introduced the doubleempathy problem, which characterises breakdowns in understandingbetween autistic and non-autistic people as reciprocal misattunementsacross neurotypes, not as unilateral deficits. Murray, Lesser, andLawson’s monotropism theory (2005) supports the double empathyapproach. It highlights that atypical strategies for allocatingattention, having a ‘deep focus’ on a few interests,rather than diffuse attention across many, might explain bothstrengths and difficulties in autism.

Hillary (2020) suggests that cross-neurotype interaction is bestunderstood through the lens of cross-cultural communication,emphasising that autistic and non-autistic groups may rely ondifferent explanatory styles and conversational norms. She reframesneurodivergence as cultural variation rather than deficit (see alsoHipólito et al. (2020), Jürgens (2020)).

On this emerging picture, autistic social differences may be betterexplained by divergent but intelligible interactional and attentionalstyles, rather than by the absence of ToM. If these conclusions hold,they are likely to generalise: what is at stake here applies not justto the case of autism but how we understand the diversity of FPpractice with respect to neurodiversity more broadly.

5.2 The Law and Legal Practice

Law is another domain where the status of FP has more than academicimplications. If FP is a theory with inherent flaws, as thinkers asdiverse as Ratcliffe (2007) and Carruthers (2025) maintain, then,without adjustment, it would appear to be misguided to build legalpractice on it. If it is simply false, as eliminativists contend, thenthe situation is even worse. If it is merely a useful fiction, manywill be uneasy about FP’s status in relation to the law. But ifFP is best understood as a normative practice, it can be refined andextended, and law provides one of the most important testing groundsfor that refinement.

In their edited collection,Law and Mind, Brożek et al.(2021) acknowledge these concerns about FP’s status.Próchnicki (2024) advances the view that legal practices refineand institutionalize everyday FP notions (belief, intention,responsibility) into formal categories such asmens rea,voluntariness, and culpability. Accordingly, FP, as employed in andextended by the legal practice, is not something that will bedisplaced by scientific findings. Rather it must be tested, revised,and justified by its usefulness in response to the needs of ourchanging practices—balancing intelligibility and accountabilitywith new scientific findings and thinking about what human minds arereally like and what motivates them. This would fit withPróchnicki’s account that law does not merely inherit FPas a finalised framework but actively extends its regulative andmindshaping functions—disciplining, guiding, and stabilisingbehaviour—so that the law both shapes minds and enables us tocome to understand them.

What follows if Brożek et al. (2021) and Kurek (2021) are correctin thinking that existing law is deeply rooted in the use of FPconcepts and that it creates legal counterparts that are detailedvariants of these common notions for its special needs and purposes?If the law builds upon and actively extends FP practice, theneliminativism about FP may pose a serious challenge to the legitimacyof existing legal practice. In particular, if, in the extreme, we cometo think that FP should be relegated, wholesale, to the dustbin, thenit may seem that doctrines heavily predicated on FPconcepts—especially those keyed to classically construed notionsof belief, desire, and intention (e.g.,mens rea,recklessness, negligence)—should also be considered for radicalrevision.

If eliminativists are right, the future of the law may requireroot-and-branch reassessment, starting from first principles. Thiscould take the form of legal alignment with FP-free cognitivescience/neuroscience; or alternatively the broader adoption andextension of concepts such as legal fictionalism, as often consideredin the context of the “reasonable person” test. Yet evenif such radical eliminativism is not embraced, important questionsremain. For we might wonder what, if anything, could justify anydeviations in legal practice that constitute refinements to theoriginal use of FP concepts? Does the law simply have a free hand toadjust FP as it sees fit; and if not, what practical or theoreticalconstraints exist? If the law is perceived as fundamentally regulativeand mind-shaping in character, ought its use of FP categories remainpublicly intelligible and justifiable? It is an open question how andby what methods we might determine whether this is so.

Assuming that question can be answered adequately, we might alsowonder if legal refinements to FP practice are not already, to someextent, reshaping everyday FP—and, if so, to what extent thisputs pressure on philosophical construals that treat FP as a fixed,inherited theory. Beyond this, there is also the question of whetherthe law needs to be sensitive to the fact that FP practice might notbe monoform and universal. And if, as pluralists argue, it is not,would this require significant adjustment of the law and legalpractice to respect such cultural differences, especially inmulticultural societies?

5.3 Artificial Intelligence and LLMs

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) has raised questionsabout whether such systems can be said to be, in any degree, FPcompetent. Benchmarks of various kinds are used to test models, forexample, by introducing them to vignettes and asking them to ascribebeliefs, desires, or intentions. They might be asked what they expecta character to believe or what action they are likely to take nextbased on their states of mind. On such tasks, LLMs sometimes approachor even match human performance, though performance variesconsiderably by task (Kosinski 2024).

Yet these successes are fragile. Performance often drops whenvignettes are more complex, when pragmatic reasoning is required, orwhen task formats are perturbed. Strachan et al. (2024) report thatGPT-4 performs comparably to humans on some tasks (e.g., irony,strange stories) but underperforms on others (e.g., faux pas),suggesting that its competence is uneven. Such patterns indicate thatpresent systems display limited, surface-level FP abilities ratherthan robust, generalizable competence.

This point is reinforced by Marchetti et al. (2025), who review theliterature and warn that apparent ToM successes risk creating an“illusion of understanding.” They argue that while LLMsmay handle simplified false-belief tasks, they lack the developmentaland cognitive mechanisms required for genuine ToM, and manyevaluations are biased toward text-based formats that align with LLMstrengths.

As to the question of how these results are achieved, LLMs clearly donot have anything like an innate, domain-specific ToM module. Whateverfacility they display with FP derives from picking up on thelinguistic regularities associated with FP practice rather than fromreliance on a pre-existing theory of mind. Findings of this kind showthat some degree of FP-like performance can emerge from large-scalelanguage learning without positing an innate ToM system, thoughwhether this amounts to genuine competence remains an openquestion.

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