Daniel D. Hutto Folk Psychology as Narrative Practice Abstract: There has been a long-standing interest in the putative roles that various so-called ‘theory of mind’abilities might play in enabling us to understand and enjoy narratives. Of late, as our understanding of the complexity and diversity of everyday psychological capacities has become more nuanced and variegated, new possibilities have been articulated: (i) that our capacity for a sophisticated, everyday understanding of actions in terms of reason (our folk psychology) may itself be best characterized as a kind of narrative practice and (ii) that acquiring the capacity for supplying and digesting reasons explana- tions might (at least normally) depend upon having a special training with narratives. This introductory paper to the volume situates the claims of those who support the narrative approach to folk psychol- ogy against the backdrop of some traditional and new thinking about intersubjectivity, social cognition and ‘theory of mind’ abilities. Spe- cial emphasis is laid on the different reasons for being interested in these claims about narrative practice and folk psychology in light of various empirical and philosophical agendas. I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations. The Iliad, the tragic poetry of Greece, Shakespeare in The Tempest and Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, and most especially Milton in Paradise Lost, conform to this rule; — Percy Shelley, preface to Frankenstein 1817 Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16, No. 6–8, 2009, pp. 9–39 Correspondence: Professor Daniel Hutto, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK. Email: d.d.hutto@herts.ac.uk