The Psychologizing of the Psychological and the Return of Common Sense

According to Tim Crane, his version of psychologism is not based on the familiar opposition between conceptual analysis and empirical science. His point is not simply to consider phenomenological and empirical data in the science of the mind. Challenging the idea that investigation of the mind has to be understood “as an autonomous investigation solely into the concepts embodied in our psychological discourse”, Crane tries to argue for a more realistic picture of the mental. His rejection of “autonomous investigation”, however, is based in the end on its impermeability to empirical evidence and on the conse-quent reduction of philosophy of mind to conceptual analysis of ordinary intentional vocabulary. This seems clear as far as conceptual analysis goes, but perhaps has some undesired consequences in terms of common sense vocabulary. In fact, with respect to folk psychological discourse about the mind, all that Crane is saying is that — besides conceptual analysis — we have to take into consideration empirical evidence in order to reconsider common sense discourse on the mind. This is not so different from the familiar con-trast between conceptual analysis and empirical science.