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Words About Young Minds Words About Young Minds The Concepts of Theory, Representation, and Belief in Philosophy and Developmental Psychology Eric Schwitzgebel B.A. (Stanford University) 1990 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy in the graduate division of the University of California at Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Elisabeth A. Lloyd (chair) Professor John R. Searle Professor Alison Gopnik (psychology) May, 1997 The dissertation of Eric Schwitzgebel is approved. _____________________________________________________ Professor Elisabeth A. Lloyd (chair) Date _____________________________________________________ Professor John R. Searle Date _____________________________________________________ Professor Alison Gopnik Date University of California at Berkeley May 1997 Words About Young Minds: The Concepts of Theory, Representation, and Belief in Philosophy and Developmental Psychology Copyright © Eric Schwitzgebel May 1997 Abstract Words About Young Minds: The Concepts of Theory, Representation, and Belief in Philosophy and Developmental Psychology Eric Schwitzgebel Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy University of California at Berkeley Professor Elisabeth A. Lloyd, Chair I examine three philosophically important concepts that play a foundational role in developmental psychology: theory, representation, and belief. I describe different ways in which the concepts have been understood and present reasons why a developmental psychologist, or a philosopher attuned to cognitive development, should prefer one understanding of these concepts over another. I take up the concept of theories with an eye to recent debate in psychology over whether the cognitive development of young children can fruitfully be characterized as involving theory change. I propose, instead, a novel account of theories intended to capture what scientific theories and everyday theories have in common. I connect theories with the emergence and resolution of explanation-seeking curiosity, and I argue that if developmental psychologists want convincingly to defend the view that young children have theories, they must look for the patterns of affect and arousal associated with such curiosity. I begin my discussion of the concept of representation by distinguishing between two very different conceptions of 1 representation at work in the philosophical literature. I argue that both philosophers and psychologists have tended to conflate these two conceptions, and I examine the serious consequences of this conflation for the developmental literature on the child’s understanding of mind. I suggest some empirical research that looks promising once this conceptual tangle is straightened out. Finally, I examine the concept of belief. I provide detailed objections to Donald Davidson’s claim that creatures without language, including human infants, cannot have beliefs, and I argue that the interests of both philosophers of mind and developmental psychologists are best served by a dispositional account of belief, appealing not merely to dispositions to behave, but also to dispositions to have certain kinds of subjective experiences. This account offers a satisfying resolution to several problems in philosophy and developmental psychology, including those raised by Putnam’s Twin Earth case, Kripke’s puzzle about belief, the phenomenon of self-deception, and conflicting data from child psychology on the development of the object concept and the child’s understanding of false beliefs. 2 Contents Chapter One Introduction to the Dissertation: Philosophy, Developmental Psychology, and Intuition 1 Outline of the Dissertation 5 The Role of Analysis and Intuition in This Dissertation 9 Chapter Two A Defense of the View that Infants and Animals Have Beliefs 17 1. Faults in Davidson’s First Argument Against Belief Without Language 22 2. Faults in Davidson’s Second Argument Against Belief Without Language 36 3. The Word ‘Belief’ 69 Chapter Three An Account of Theories Such That Children Might Have Them 97 1. The Axiomatic and Semantic Views of Theory 100 2. Developmental Accounts of Theories 113 3. An Account of Theories 121 The Account 122 The Centrality of Explanation 127 Explanation-Seeking Curiosity 129 A Revision of (3.) 135 4. Cognitive Development and Theories 138 Some Views of Theories in Development 138 A New Domain of Evidence for the Theory Theory 146 5. Conclusion 151 Chapter Four Representation and Desire: Case Study in How a Philosophical Error Can Have Consequences for Empirical Research 155 1. Desire in Indicative and Contentive Accounts of Representation 157 2. An Example from Philosophy 163 3. The Error in Theory of Mind 172 4. Representational Art as a Test of a Hypothesis About the Child’s Understanding of Mind 187 5. Conclusion 199 Chapter Five Toward a Developmental Account of Belief 200 1. Aims of the Account 203 2. All-or-Nothing Belief and the Simple Question 209 The Simple Question 209 The All-or-Nothing View of Belief 213 iii 3. The Container Metaphor 222 4. Conclusion 232 Chapter Six A Phenomenal, Dispositional Account of Belief 233 1. The Account 235 Ceteris Paribus Clauses and Excusing Conditions 242 The Importance of Phenomenology for a Dispositional Account 250 A Thought on Ryle 253 2. Mixed Sets of Dispositions 255 Two Examples 255 Normativity and Patterns of Deviation 259 Deviation and Developmental Psychology 261 A Short List of Patterns of Deviation 265 3. A Concern about Phenomenal Dispositionalism About Belief 269 Externalism and Phenomenal Dispositionalism 269 Functionalism and Phenomenal Dispositionalism 273 4. Beliefs, Causation, and Explanation 277 5. Conclusion 288 Chapter Seven Applications of the Account 292 1. Two Philosophical Puzzles 293 Kripke’s Puzzle About Belief 293 Self-Deception 299 The Puzzles Resolved 303 2. What’s in a Look? 307 The Child’s Understanding of Object Permanence 307 Implicit Understanding of False Belief? 316 3. Conclusion 322 Chapter Eight Conclusion 327 Works Cited 333 iv Acknowledgements I take great pleasure in discussing philosophy in coffee houses with friends, and in trading philosophical thoughts by email. My ideas are often forged in dialogue to be refined on the page, and consequently I owe large philosophical debts to a number of people. For their help in treating the topic of chapter two, I would like to thank fellow graduate students Carl Anderson, Herman Capellen, Andy Carpenter, and Mark Wrathall; professors Fred Dretske, P. J. Ivanhoe, Ernie Lepore, Tori McGeer, and Karsten Stueber; my psychologist buddy Penny Vinden; and my former landlady Nancy Coolidge and a shuttle driver in Long Island for their patient discussions of the ordinary usage of the word ‘belief,’ which I found to deviate to a surprising degree from common philosophical usage. John Heil’s careful reading of and detailed comments on the chapter were immensely helpful in keeping my treatment of Davidson accurate and honest. My thought on the topic of chapter three has been greatly improved by conversations with, among others, graduate students Eddie Cushman, Josh Dever, Mathias Frisch, and Bojana Mladenovic, and professor Martin Jones. I also received helpful comments on a shortened version of the chapter presented at the 1996 meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. v Chapter four has been immensely improved by discussion with nearly every figure who plays an important role in it -- not only my advisors, but also Judy DeLoache, Fred Dretske, Josef Perner, and Dennis Stampe. Lauren Silver helped me get up to speed with the literature on artistic development, and Brian Foley did the same with the educational literature on the theory theory. Others who have commented usefully on the ideas in chapter three include Maggie Friend, Angel Lillard, Bojana Mladenovic, Pauline Price, Andrea Rosati, Penny Vinden, and June Wai. The chapters on belief have received much of my most recent attention and owe quite a bit to others. I would like especially to thank John Heil and Tori McGeer in this regard, for it was in discussions with them that I first became convinced that a dispositional account of belief could work, and my thoughts on this matter owe much to their own. The ideas in this chapter have been presented at meetings of the philosophy of mind and language group at U.C. Berkeley, the Berkeley philosophy department colloquium, and as a job-talk at U.C. Riverside, and all these audiences have offered helpful criticisms and insights. My fellow graduate students Max Deutsch, Josh Dever, and John Madsen have been particularly helpful in pressing their criticisms. Others with whom I have had especially rewarding discussions include John Campbell, Martin Jones, and Ariela Lazar. A number of people have contributed so much to the dissertation as a whole that I would like to acknowledge them separately. First, I must thank Kim Kempton, Maria Merritt, and vi Leo van Munching, who, with me as the fourth, formed a dissertation discussion group that has met every week or two for the last two academic years. Not only their comments on drafts of sections, but especially their sympathetic support and comraderie has been invaluable in keeping my dissertation on course. I will greatly miss our amiable and thoughtful discussions. A less formal, more social circle of friends from the Institute of Human Development has likewise provided much moral support, especially Maggie Friend, Tori McGeer, Betty Repacholi, and Penny Vinden. I would also like to thank John Searle, who, as the
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