Knowledge before belief

Behavioral and Brain Sciences 44:e140 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Research on the capacity to understand others' minds has tended to focus on representations ofbeliefs,which are widely taken to be among the most central and basic theory of mind representations. Representations ofknowledge, by contrast, have received comparatively little attention and have often been understood as depending on prior representations of belief. After all, how could one represent someone as knowing something if one does not even represent them as believing it? Drawing on a wide range of methods across cognitive science, we ask whether belief or knowledge is the more basic kind of representation. The evidence indicates that nonhuman primates attribute knowledge but not belief, that knowledge representations arise earlier in human development than belief representations, that the capacity to represent knowledge may remain intact in patient populations even when belief representation is disrupted, that knowledge (but not belief) attributions are likely automatic, and that explicit knowledge attributions are made more quickly than equivalent belief attributions. Critically, the theory of mind representations uncovered by these various methods exhibits a set of signature features clearly indicative of knowledge: they are not modality-specific, they are factive, they are not just true belief, and they allow for representations of egocentric ignorance. We argue that these signature features elucidate the primary function of knowledge representation: facilitating learning from others about the external world. This suggests a new way of understanding theory of mind – one that is focused on understanding others' minds in relation to the actual world, rather than independent from it.

Other Versions

No versions found

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-09-09

Downloads
1,506 (#10,627)

6 months
243 (#10,824)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Citations of this work

Mindreading in conversation.Evan Westra & Jennifer Nagel - 2021 - Cognition 210 (C):104618.
Practical knowledge first.Carlotta Pavese - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-18.
Knowledge is a mental state (at least sometimes).Adam Michael Bricker - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 179 (5):1461-1481.
Why Variation Matters to Philosophy.Edouard Machery - 2023 - Res Philosophica 100 (1):1-22.

View all 31 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The origin of concepts.Susan Carey - 2009 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?David Premack & Guy Woodruff - 1978 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1 (4):515-526.

View all 97 references / Add more references