The Origin of Concepts

Carey, Susan

doi:10.1037/e513702014-002

Cited by 540 publications

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“…One form of such one-way dependency relation would be developmental, as some recent combinations of core knowledge and conceptual change accounts assume (Carey 2009;Spelke 2003): System 1 would be a developmental prerequisite, precursor or foundation of System 2. This picture would fit with the analogy to numerical cognition that Apperly and Butterfill (2009) frequently make use of when introducing their 2-systems-conception: In numerical cognition, we know of two core systems 6 for discrimination set sizes (the object file system for the exact representation of small sets, and an analogue magnitude system for the approximate estimation or arbitrarily large set sizes) that are evolutionarily old, widespread in many species in the primate lineage and beyond, present early in ontogeny and that remain intact over the lifespan (Feigenson et al 2004).…”

Section: What Are the Relations Between The "Systems"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But they, 7 together with the acquisition of the corresponding linguistic representations (number words, count routines) lay the ontogenetic foundation for the acquisition of a fully-fledged conceptual scheme of number (Carey 2009). By analogy, in the case of theory of mind, the more foundational System 1 capacities present in infants have clear scope-they allow tracking relational attitudes-with clear corresponding signature limits: they fall short of representing propositional attitudes in the proper conceptual sense, since they do not allow for representing aspectuality (and potentially other essential properties of propositional attitudes such as belief's normative relation to truth etc.…”

Section: What Are the Relations Between The "Systems"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Or at least one of them-there is a controversy about this question related to the controversy mentioned above seeCarey (2009).…”

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confidence: 98%

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In defense of a developmental dogma: children acquire propositional attitude folk psychology around age 4

Rakoczy

2015

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When do children acquire a propositional attitude folk psychology or theory of mind? The orthodox answer to this central question of developmental ToM research had long been that around age 4 children begin to apply "belief" and other propositional attitude concepts. This orthodoxy has recently come under serious attack, though, from two sides: Scoffers complain that it over-estimates children's early competence and claim that a proper understanding of propositional attitudes emerges only much later. Boosters criticize the orthodoxy for underestimating early competence and claim that even infants ascribe beliefs. In this paper, the orthodoxy is defended on empirical grounds against these two kinds of attacks. On the basis of new evidence, not only can the two attacks safely be countered, but the orthodox claim can actually be strengthened, corroborated and refined: what emerges around age 4 is an explicit, unified, flexibly conceptual capacity to ascribe propositional attitudes. This unified conceptual capacity contrasts with the less sophisticated, less unified implicit forms of tracking simpler mental states present in ontogeny long before. This refined version of the orthodoxy can thus most plausibly be spelled out in some form of 2-systemsaccount of theory of mind.Keywords Theory of mind · Social cognition · Intensionality · Cognitive development When in ontogeny do children acquire a folk psychology or "theory of mind" (ToM)-the conceptual framework of propositional attitudes with which we describe and explain each other? This central question of developmental ToM research has been dis-B Hannes Rakoczy

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Section: What Are the Relations Between The "Systems"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Are the Relations Between The "Systems"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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In defense of a developmental dogma: children acquire propositional attitude folk psychology around age 4

Rakoczy

2015

Synthese

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“…According to the core knowledge view, human beings begin life with a set of core knowledge systems, among which a core system that contains an innate concept of number (Carey, 2009;Spelke, 2011). Since the representation of number mirrors in some aspects primary sensory perception, this ability, that allows us to discriminate between different sets of discrete objects, has been referred to as the "number sense" (Burr and Ross, 2008;Dehaene, 1997), which is supported by the "approximate number system" (ANS) .…”

Section: Two Cognitive Systems For Nonverbal Numerical Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Core mathematical abilities in infants

Hevia

2016

Progress in Brain Research

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“…Drawing on two-systems accounts of number cognition (Carey 2009) they argue that there are two distinct systems for mindreading: an early-developing system which generates representations of non-propositional states, and a later-developing system capable of representing propositionally structured mental representations as such. On their view, these two systems are likely to constitute solutions to orthogonal task constraints; the early-emerging system 1 is quick and efficient, whereas the later-emerging system 2 buys generality and flexibility at the cost of a decrease in speed and efficiency.…”

Section: The Infant-mindreading Puzzlementioning

confidence: 99%

Putting unicepts to work: a teleosemantic perspective on the infant mindreading puzzle

Michael¹

2015

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In this paper, I show how theoretical discussion of recent research on the abilities of infants and young children to represent other agents' beliefs has been shaped by a descriptivist conception of mental content, i.e., to the notion that the distal content of a mental representation is fixed by the core body of knowledge that is associated with that mental representation. I also show how alternative conceptions of mental content-and in particular Ruth Millikan's teleosemantic approach-make it possible to endorse the view that infants have the ability to track beliefs by as early as 6 months while failing to understand some of the ways in which beliefs combine with each other and with other mental states in contributing to inferences and actions. In articulating this view, I will draw upon Millikan's recently developed notion of 'unicepts'. Unicepts, according to Millikan, are the basic representational vehicles that underpin our abilities to (re-) identify objects, properties, relations and kinds. When applied to research on mindreading in infancy and early childhood, Millikan's approach generates fruitful new questions about the development of belief reasoning, and about the functions of belief reasoning in infancy and at different stages of childhood.

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The Origin of Concepts

Cited by 540 publications

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In defense of a developmental dogma: children acquire propositional attitude folk psychology around age 4

In defense of a developmental dogma: children acquire propositional attitude folk psychology around age 4

Core mathematical abilities in infants

Putting unicepts to work: a teleosemantic perspective on the infant mindreading puzzle

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