Words about young minds: The concepts of theory, representation, and belief in philosophy and developmental psychology

I examine three philosophically important concepts that play a foundational role in developmental psychology: theory, representation, and belief. I describe different ways in which these concepts have been understood and present reasons why a developmental psychologist, or a philosopher attuned to cognitive development, should prefer one understanding of these concepts over another.;I take up the concept of theories with an eye to recent debate in psychology over whether the cognitive development of young children can fruitfully be characterized as involving theory change. I propose a novel account of theories intended to capture what scientific theories and everyday theories have in common. I connect theories with the emergence and resolution of explanation-seeking curiosity, and I argue that if developmental psychologists want convincingly to defend the view that young children have theories, they must look for the patterns of affect and arousal associated with such curiosity.;I begin my discussion of the concept of representation by distinguishing between two very different conceptions of representation at work in the philosophical literature. I argue that both philosophers and psychologists have tended to conflate these two conceptions, and I examine the serious consequences of this conflation for the developmental literature on the child's understanding of mind. I suggest some empirical research that looks promising once this conceptual tangle is straightened out.;Finally, I examine the concept of belief. I provide detailed objections to Donald Davidson's claim that creatures without language, including human infants, cannot have beliefs, and I argue that the interests of both philosophers of mind and developmental psychologists are best served by a dispositional account of belief, appealing not merely to dispositions to behave, but also to dispositions to have certain kinds of subjective experiences. This account offers a satisfying resolution to several problems in philosophy and developmental psychology, including those raised by Putnam's Twin Earth case, Kripke's puzzle about belief, the phenomenon of self-deception, and conflicting data from child psychology on the development of the object concept and the child's understanding of false beliefs.