When James Macpherson turned to the popular poetry of ancient Scotland, he found in it what philosophers now call folk psychology: a commonsense theory about how minds work. Yet because his poems were largely forgeries, Macpherson winds up importing more recent physiology into his portrayal of ancient, pagan materialism. As a result, the poems’ vernacular packaging ultimately delivers a philosophy closer to more counterintuitive models of mindedness: primitive animism, radical materialism, and innate faculties of mind recognition. In ways that remain relevant today, the Ossianic project seeks a materialism that might situate literary artifacts within a broader, interdisciplinary terrain.