Abstract
Simulation theory has been put forward as an account of our folk understanding of the mind. In this chapter, I examine a neglected argument to the effect that there is an essential limitation of simulation itself, which cannot explain a crucial ingredient of our ordinary, folk-psychological conception of beliefs. Even if it is conceded that simulation gives the subject some sense of what happens in the world when someone believes something, the understanding of facts of believing that can be extracted from simulation is incomplete; simulation must be augmented with a theory of beliefs as genuine constituents of such facts. Folk psychology reifies beliefs in order to deal with an essential requirement for mastery of the folk-psychological concept of belief. Hopefully, a reflection on the limits of simulation will lead to a better understanding of the role of theory in ordinary belief-ascriptions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
It has been objected (by Josh Mozersky) that this formulation does not allow for an essentially omniscient being. My answer is that an essentially omniscient would not have beliefs, and so would not use folk psychology as we know it.
- 3.
I presuppose that a single place is in question, and that the feature sunny excludes the feature rainy.
- 4.
See Bartsch and Wellman (1995), who draw on both conceptual and developmental grounds a distinction between understanding mental states as mere connections and understanding them as genuine representations.
- 5.
Friederike Moltmann raised this objection to me about an earlier version of this chapter.
References
Baillargeon R, Scott RM, He Z (2010) False-belief understanding in infants. Trends Cogn Sci 14(3):110–118
Bartsch K, Wellman HM (1995) Children talk about the mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Bermúdez JL (2003) Thinking without words. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Bloom P, German TP (2000) Two reasons to abandon the false belief task as a test of theory of mind. Cognition 77:B25–B31
Carruthers P, Smith PK (eds) (1996) Theories of theories of mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Currie G (1998) Pretence, pretending and metarepresenting. Mind Lang 13(1):35–55
Currie G, Ravenscroft I (2002) Recreative minds. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Davies M, Stone T (eds) (1995a) Folk psychology. Blackwell, Oxford
Davies M, Stone T (eds) (1995b) Mental simulation. Blackwell, Oxford
Dennett D (1978) Beliefs about beliefs. Behav Brain Sci 1:568–570
Dokic J, Proust J (eds) (2002) Simulation and knowledge of action. Benjamins, Amsterdam
Gallagher S (2005) How the body shapes the mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Gordon R (1995a) Folk psychology and simulation. In: Davies M, Stone T (eds) Folk psychology. Blackwell, Oxford
Gordon R (1995b) Simulation without introspection or inference from me to you. In: Davies M, Stone T (eds) Mental simulation. Blackwell, Oxford
Gordon R (1996) Radical simulationism. In: Carruthers P, Smith PK (eds) Theories of theories of mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Heal J (1994) Simulation vs. theory theory: what is the issue? In: Peacocke C (ed) Objectivity, simulation, and the unity of consciousness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 129–144
Heal J (1996) Simulation, theory and content. In: Carruthers P, Smith PK (eds) Theories of theories of mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Heal J (1998) Co-Cognition of off-line simulation: two ways of understanding the simulation approach. Mind Lang 13(4):477–498
Jacob P (2002) The scope and limits of mental simulation. In: Dokic J, Proust J (eds) Simulation and knowledge of action. Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 87–109
Kaplan D (1989) Demonstratives. In: Almog J, Perry J, Wettstein H (eds) Themes from Kaplan. Oxford University Press, New York
Nichols S, Stich S (2000) A cognitive theory of pretense. Cognition 74:115–147
Onishi KH, Baillargeon R (2005) Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs? Science 308(5719):255–258
Perner J (1991) Understanding the representational mind. The MIT Press, Cambridge
Prior AN (1963) Oratio Obliqua. Reprinted. In: Prior AN (1976) Papers in logic and ethics. Duckworth, London, pp 147–158
Prior AN (2003) Papers on time and tense. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Recanati F (2000) Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta. An essay on metarepresentation. MIT Press, Cambridge
Steward H (1997) The ontology of mind. Events, processes, and states. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Surian L, Caldi S, Sperber D (2007) Attribution of beliefs by 13-month-old infants. Psychol Sci 18:580–586
Wimmer H, Perner J (1983) Beliefs about beliefs: representation and the containing function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. Cognition 13:103–128
Acknowledgments
Ancestors of this chapter have been presented at the Institute Jean-Nicod in Paris and at Queen’s University in Kingston. I thank Dick Carter, Eros Corazza, Elisabeth Pacherie, Adèle Mercier, Friederike Moltmann and Josh Mozersky for helpful comments. This chapter like almost anything else I have written owes much to Kevin Mulligan, of course, who opened my eyes to what genuine philosophy is (which unfortunately does not mean that I am able to reproduce it myself).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dokic, J. (2014). Mental Simulation and the Reification of Beliefs. In: Reboul, A. (eds) Mind, Values, and Metaphysics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05146-8_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05146-8_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05145-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05146-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)