Filosofía de la mente y prueba de los estados mentales: una defensa de los criterios de "sentido común"
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The proof of psychological or mental facts poses challenges of an ontological nature (do mental facts really exist as distinct —and not reducible to— physical facts?) epistemological (how can we know others’ mental states?) and ideological (are those facts legally relevant?). Part of legal doctrine and case law holds that states of mind are actually not –or ought not to be approached as- proper “facts”, therefore they are not to be proved (their occurrence or existence cannot be demonstrated). From a legal perspective, they are fictional entities to be ascribed or imputed using certain normative criteria. This scepticism is openly in contrast with the fact that we quite suc-cessfully and frequently attribute states of mind to others, as well as we all manage to adapt and coordinate our behavior following those attributions. We know how to attribute states of mind, however we ignore how we do it. In this paper, I try to explore how Philosophy of Mind (theories on the so-called “problem of other minds”) can contribute to shed some light on the proof of psychological facts in the realm of Law