The Narrative Practice Hypothesis and Externalist Theory Theory: For Compatibility, Against Collapse

What defence does the Narrative Practice Hypothesis (NPH) have against the charge that it is a covert form of externalist theory theory (TT)? I discuss and reject Dan Hutto's own strategies and argue that the NPH remains vulnerable to a threat of collapse into externalist TT as long as narrative folk-psychological explanation is differentiated from simple belief-desire explanation merely by a degree of complexity, subtlety and/or context-sensitivity. It is entirely plausible, however, that there is a more principled distinction between these two types of explanation of human behaviour. I defend such a distinction and show how it eliminates the threat of collapse into TT entirely.