The teleological origins of mentalistic action explanations: A developmental hypothesis (original) (raw)

Teleology and Causal Understanding in Children’s Theory of Mind

Causing Human Actions, 2010

The causal theory of action (CTA) is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency--the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from historical sources while others focus on recent developments; some rely on the tools of analytic philosophy while others cite the latest empirical research on human action. All agree, however, on the centrality of the CTA in the philosophy of action. The contributors first consider metaphysical issues, then reasons-explanations of action, and, finally, new directions for thinking about the CTA. They discuss such topics as the tenability of some alternatives to the CTA; basic causal deviance; the etiology of action; teleologism and anticausalism; and the compatibility of the CTA with theories of embodied cognition. Two contributors engage in an exchange of views on intentional omissions that stretches over four essays, directly responding to each other in their follow-up essays. As the action-oriented perspective becomes more influential in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, this volume offers a long-needed debate over foundational issues. Contributors: Fred Adams, Jesus H. Aguilar, John Bishop, Andrei A. Buckareff, Randolph Clarke, Jennifer Hornsby, Alicia Juarrero, Alfred R. Mele, Michael S. Moore, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Josef Perner, Johannes Roessler, David-Hillel Ruben, Carolina Sartorio, Michael Smith, Rowland Stout

Is the Causal, the Teleological?1

2021

One of the first steps toward understanding others is understanding what their goals are and how their overt behavior relates to those goals. György Gergely and Gergely Csibra argue that we acquire the capacity to make sense of others’ actions much earlier than expected, at around 12 months of age. According to Gergely and Csibra, infants utilize a so-called teleological stance, a tripartite analysis of the environment, in order to infer the corresponding goal of others’ actions. Moreover, they argue that the adult capacity to explain others’ actions in terms of mental vocabulary and causal links is simply a conceptual extension of the earlier capacity to teleologically interpret others’ actions. In this paper I expound Gergely and Csibra’s teleological stance, how they compare it to the adult capacity to explain others’ actions causal-mentalistically and what they exactly mean by the relationship of a conceptual extension. I argue that we do have good reasons to reject the idea tha...

Teleology: Belief as perspective

A fundamental question in recent " theory of mind " research is how to interpret a seemingly robust dissociation between young children's performance on different kinds of tests for false belief understanding. 3-year-olds' poor performance on classical, " direct " false belief tasks is well-documented. Yet a range of " indirect " tests reveal sensitivity to agents' false beliefs in much younger children. It is natural to think that the two kinds of tests bring to light two kinds of understanding: " explicit " vs. " implicit " understanding. But how should we understand this distinction? And why should " implicit " understanding of false beliefs only be available in connection with " indirect " tests? Our project in this chapter is to address these questions by further developing a hypothesis advanced elsewhere (Perner and Roessler, 2010). This is the hypothesis that young children are teleologists : they make sense of intentional actions in terms of justifying reasons provided by " worldly " facts (not by mental states). We begin by spelling out this account in more detail. We then argue that mastery of the concept of belief (or possession of an " explicit understanding " of belief) involves giving a twist to the teleological scheme of explanation. What is critical is the ability to engage in hypothetical or suppositional reasoning about justifying reasons. This account, we contend, is in competition with both a " theory theory " and a " simulation theory " of belief understanding (though it has some affi nities with certain versions of the latter). In the fi nal, fourth part of the chapter we bring the account to bear on the dissociation problem. The difference between " direct " and " indirect " tests, we argue, turns on whether successful performance requires understanding the normative underpinnings of the causal role of belief (as in direct tests) or merely requires a set of generalizations regarding the causes of behavior (as in indirect tests). Teleological explanation Why does the baker get up at 3 a.m.? Well, the bread needs to be ready by 6 to go to the supermarkets , and it takes that long to bake. This is a humble example of a teleological explanation: it makes the baker's unusual behavior intelligible not by appeal to his mental states, such as his desire to make bread etc, but in terms of the objective reason-giving facts of his situation. Our suggestion is that young children are teleologists. They predict, and perhaps explain, what someone will do on the basis of what it makes objective sense for her to do. This, we suggest, explains the following striking fi nding concerning young children's performance on false belief tests: far from answering the test question randomly, they systematically and adamantly give the wrong answer. The explanation is that they predict that the protagonist will do what he ought to do in order to attain his objective. For example, they will predict that in order to retrieve his chocolate Mistaken Max (Wimmer & Perner, 1983) will go to the cupboard (where he ought to go, as this is where the chocolate is to be found) rather than to the kitchen drawer (where he believes it is).