Controlling Core Knowledge: Conditions for the Ascription of Intentional States to Self and Others by Children

Synthese 159 (2):167 - 196 (2007)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The ascription of intentional states to the self involves knowledge, or at least claims to knowledge. Armed with the working definition of knowledge as 'the ability to do things, or refrain from doing things, or believe, or want, or doubt things, for reasons that are facts' [Hyman, J. Philos. Quart. 49:432—451], I sketch a simple competence model of acting and believing from knowledge and when knowledge is defeated by un-experienced changes of state. The model takes the form of three concentric circles. The 'periphery' is analogous to Fodor's [(1983), The modularity of mind. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA] input systems. The 'core' contains copies of peripheral representations, and between these representations there is executive competition. At the 'nucleus', operations are performed on the core representations of, at least, negation and recursion. I argue that this provides a fruitful way in which to conceptualise why theory-of-mind tasks challenge pre-school children, how some degree of first-person authority is mental state attribution is possible, and how executive inhibition is achieved

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Self-knowledge and rationality.Baron Reed - 2009 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (1):164-181.
The myth of the hidden.William E. S. McNeill - 2009 - Dissertation, University College London
Shoemaker on self-knowledge and inner sense.Cynthia Macdonald - 1999 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (3):711-38.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
60 (#239,890)

6 months
3 (#439,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?