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Why the Child's Theory of Mind Really Is a Theory
Author(s) -
GOPNIK ALISON,
WELLMAN HENRY M.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.1992.tb00202.x
Subject(s) - theory of mind , psychology , cognitive science , computational theory of mind , epistemology , philosophy of mind , cognitive psychology , philosophy , cognition , metaphysics , neuroscience
How do children (and indeed adults) understand the mind? In this paper we contrast two accounts. One is the view that the child's early understanding of mind is an implicit theory analogous to scientific theories, and changes in that understanding may be understood as theory changes. The second is the view that the child need not really understand the mind, in the sense of having some set of beliefs about it. She bypasses conceptual understanding by operating a working model of the mind and reading its