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From Evidence To Belief: Developmental Precursors For False Belief Ascriptions, Jill De Villiers, Angelika Kratzer, Tom Roeper
From Evidence To Belief: Developmental Precursors For False Belief Ascriptions, Jill De Villiers, Angelika Kratzer, Tom Roeper
Philosophy: Faculty Publications
Recently, a fruitful line of inquiry has linked children’s acquisition of the language of the mind to their developing understanding of other minds. In particular, a cascade of linguistic effects regarding sentences embedded under mental verbs has been shown to occur around the age of four years for the average child, roughly the age when children start passing standard false belief tests. This set of linguistic effects is summarized briefly below. In the proposed study, we will turn our attention to possible precursors for the ability to ascribe a false belief to another person. These precursors include knowledge about how …
Language And Theory Of Mind: What Are The Developmental Relationships?, Jill De Villiers
Language And Theory Of Mind: What Are The Developmental Relationships?, Jill De Villiers
Philosophy: Faculty Publications
In this chapter I will try to ground the claim, both theoretically and empirically, that false-belief reasoning requires a sophisticated command of syntax. One of the oldest philosophical questions asks whether one can have thinking without language, and if so, what are its limits? In the domain of theory of mind this question achieves new significance. Is this what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom? Is this what language is good for? And not just words, but syntax? The first section of this chapter grapples with the fundamental issue of the contribution language makes, if any, to …