IntroductionTo take the "intentional stance" toward persons (or other complex systems) is to attribute rationality, beliefs, and desires to them (Dennett, 1987). When do human infants attribute rationality to other people? When do they take the intentional stance with respect to the shared objects of their own and other's experience? Is the intentional stance the sine qua non of human communication? Carpenter, Nagell, and Tomasello claim that the intentional stance emerges toward the end of the first year of life, as the infant progresses from sharing attention, to following attention, and finally to directing the attention of others. Their argument, which is well made, is that social cognitive skills, rather than nonsocial actions on objects, lie at the heart of the transition from preverbal communication to language. Their evidence comes from the pattern of intercorrelation of emerging abilities in the period from 9 to 15 months, in particular, the emerging ability of the infant intentionally to redirect other's attention, which they take as evidence for attributing mind to others.However, another possibility exists, namely, that unambiguously intentional communication arises in development when cognitive developmental changes begin to supplement the infant's direct experience of the communicative intentions of others. If this is true, then a rather different time-
Much of the research reported here was funded by the Economic and Social Research
Council of Great Britain in grants to the author and his colleagues. This Commentary waswritten with the support of a Leverhulme Foundation research fellowship, which is gratefully acknowledged.