Abstract

Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on the causal theory of action, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 199–228, 2010) hold that children who do not yet have an understanding of subjective perspectives, i.e., mental states, explain actions by appealing to objective facts. In this paper, we criticize this view. We argue that in order to understand objective facts, subjects need to understand perspectives. By analysing basic fact-expressing assertions, we show that subjects cannot refer to facts if they do not understand two types of perspectivity, namely, spatial and doxastic perspectivity. To avoid conceptual confusion regarding different ways of referring to facts, we distinguish between reference to facts de re and de dicto.

Highlights

  • Perner, Roessler, and collaborators have presented a developmental account of how young children understand intentional action that has gained considerable traction over the last few years

  • We aim to show that children who do not yet have an understanding of subjective perspectives, i.e., of mental states, cannot use the objective fact that an object is in a particular box to explain why a subject goes to that box to find the object

  • As reference to objective facts is attributed without attributing understanding of subjective perspectives, it is clear that not all distinctions and implications carried by the involved notions can be used to describe and explain children’s behaviour

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Summary

Introduction

Roessler, and collaborators have presented a developmental account of how young children understand intentional action that has gained considerable traction over the last few years. Perner and colleagues hold that children who do not yet have an understanding of mental states explain actions in terms of objective facts (e.g., Perner and Roessler 2010; Perner and Esken 2015; Perner et al 2018). Such explanations of actions are called teleological, and subjects employing such explanations are called teleologists. According to Perner and colleagues, children who do not yet have an understanding of mental states assume that the objective fact that the object is where it is is part of explaining that action.

Children’s ontologies
Notions of reference
Reference to objective facts de dicto
The contrast between objectivity and subjectivity
Reference to objective facts de re
Understanding spatial and doxastic perspectives
Doxastic perspective and spatial perspective in interaction
10 Knowing whether someone has a perspective
11 Perceiving facts
12 Conclusion
Compliance with ethical standards
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