Causal Learning: Psychology, Philosophy, and Computation

280 Pages·2007·3.024 MB·English

by  Alison Gopnik, Laura Schulz

1 Questions about Questions
FramingtheKeyIssues
Lucas Payne Butler, Samuel Ronfard, Kathleen H.
Corriveau
Howdochildrenmakesenseoftheworldaroundthem?Onetheoretical
approach emphasizes how children actively construct an evolving
understanding of the world as they interact with it in the course of
everyday life. Like “little scientists,” children independently track pat-
ternsandregularitiesintheirenvironment,makeinferencesonthebasis
ofthosepatterns,andtestoutandrevisehypothesesastheyaccumulate
relevant evidence. Another theoretical approach emphasizes how chil-
drenlearnbypayingattentiontoothers,aswellasfromdirectinstruc-
tion.Thisapproachemphasizeschildren’sdependenceoninformation
they receive from other people. Despite the complementary nature of
thesetwoapproaches,researchsteepedineachtraditionoftenoperates
independentlyfromtheother.Someresearchhasfocusedonhowchil-
dren acquire information through first-hand observation and experi-
mentation (e.g., Carey & Gelman, 1991; Gopnik & Schulz, 2007;
Weisbergetal.,2015).Otherresearchhasfocusedonchildren’ssensi-
tivity to the types of individuals who are good sources of information
(see Harris, 2012; Harris et al., 2018). In both learning approaches,
children’suseofquestionsiscritical:Questionscomplementchildren’s
independentfirst-handinvestigationsoftheworld,andquestionsredir-
ect instruction and modify the input they receive from individuals.
Further, questioning may provide a conduit for the socialization of
information-seeking. That is, the ways in which peers, parents, and
educators ask and answer questions may play a critical role in shaping
children’s approach to searching for and making use of information as
they go about constructing a conceptual understanding of the world.
Thesetwocomplementaryuses ofquestioning,aswellasthepotential
waysinwhichtheyaresocializedandshapedbytheenvironment,high-
lighttheimportanceofunderstandingtheroleofquestioninginlearning
and development, both for researchers aiming to generate a broad
understanding of howchildren develop as well as for parents and edu-
cators who accompany children in that development. And yet, relative
1
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:10:37, subject to the Cambridge Core
terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.001
2 LucasPayneButler,SamuelRonfard,KathleenH.Corriveau
to other aspects of children’s inquiry, research on children’s questions
hasbeenrelativelysparse.
Research on question-asking behaviors has been conducted across
a number of disciplines, most notably in psychology and education.
Research in psychology has focused on the role of domain-general cog-
nitive abilities and on the role of prior knowledge as constraints on
children’s question-asking behaviors, and has gathered information
about the development of question-asking from infancy to elementary
school.Researchineducationhasexaminedhowtheabilitytoformulate
questionsandusethemtoguideinquirycanbetaughttostudents,aswell
ashowthedevelopmentofthisskillimpactsvariousaspectsofstudents’
learning,fromreadingcomprehensiontotheirabilitytoengageinscien-
tificinquiry.However,despiteobvioussynergiesbetweenthesedifferent
approaches to investigating questioning in learning and development,
rarely has research across these disciplines been brought together. This
diversity of perspectives makes this volume unique insofar as many of
theseresearchersmightnototherwiseappearalongsideoneanother.Our
goalineditingthisvolumewastobringtogetheraninterdisciplinaryand
internationalgroupofexpertsinpsychologyandeducation,representing
a variety of distinct methodological and theoretical backgrounds. The
inclusionofdiverseperspectivesallowsforabroadersynthesisthanwould
otherwise be possible, and results in a volume wherein researchers and
educators from diverse backgrounds can gain new knowledge and
develop a fuller, interdisciplinary understanding of how questions play
a pivotal role in child development and education. Ultimately, this
volume synthesizes the current knowledge on the role of question-
asking in cognitive development and learning, with the hope that it will
stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue, galvanize interest, and stimulate
collaboration and further research on the topic of questioning in
development.
Taken together, the chapters in this volume answer three broad
questions. First, where do questions come from, and how do
children engage in questioning across development? There are
several key issues here. One encompasses when and how questions
begin in development, including whether they are initially rooted in
affective or noncognitive attitudes or whether they are metacognitive
from the outset, and what the relation is between nonverbal gestures
and later verbal questions. Further issues include how questioning
changes as children develop both in their social cognitive capacities
and their conceptual representations, as well as how questioning
relates to, facilitates, and is shaped by a developing understanding
of evidence and inquiry.
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:10:37, subject to the Cambridge Core
terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.001
QuestionsaboutQuestions:FramingtheKeyIssues 3
Second,towhatextentisaquestioningstanceuniversal,andin
what ways is this stance socialized? Essentially, our key overarching
concernhereishowenvironmentandcultureinfluencethedevelopment
ofquestioning.Thisincludesissuessuchashowthenatureandmodeof
questioningmayvaryacrosscontextsandcultures,howdifferentexperi-
enceswiththewaysinwhichadultsbothposeandrespondtoquestions
may shape thechild’s own process of inquiry, and how different educa-
tional environments may foster the growth of questions. This also
includes important issues surrounding how we view practices in non-
Western cultures, and on how this should inform our understanding of
whatconstitutesquestioningandinquiryindifferentcultures.
Third,whatroledoesquestioningplayinlearningmorebroadly,
inbothformalandinformallearningenvironments?Here,ourkey
goal is to map out the ways in which questioning can impact learning.
This includes exploring how questions both from and to the child can
facilitate an ongoing, interactive exchange of information, how this can
foster learning in a variety of ways, and how educational environments
andpracticescanbestfacilitatequestioningandinquiry.
Inaddressingthesequestions,thevolumeisdividedintothreeprimary
sections. The first section provides an overview of several theoretical
approaches to thinking about and researching questioning, its develop-
ment, and its effects on learning. Carruthers (Chapter 2) presents
a theoretical account of how questioning might “get off the ground”
earlyindevelopment,throughwhathedescribesasnonverbalquestion-
ingattitudes,orageneralquestioningstance.Harris(Chapter3),mean-
while,focusesontheimportanceofmetacognitioninquestioning.Howis
itthatchildrencometobeawareoftheirownuncertainty,howdothey
express that uncertainty, and how does that affect their inquiry and
learning? Wellman (Chapter 4) proposes that questioning is driven by
twocomplementarydrives:tounderstandandtolearn.Hethenreviews
theevidencethat,fromveryearlyindevelopment,questioningisdriven
by and towards both goals. Finally, Callanan,Solis, Castañeda, and
Jipson (Chapter 5) discuss cross-cultural differences in questioning in
development, focusing on how best to frame, investigate, and interpret
evidenceforthesedifferences.
The second section chronicles the development of question-asking in
childhood as well as how this development is influenced by children’s
cognitivedevelopment.Children’squestioningbehaviorhasbeenseenas
an important source through which they interact with social others to
gather information. The authors of this section highlight the various
nonverbal and verbal strategies associated with children’s information-
seekingbehavior,aswellasindividualdifferencesinchildren’sbehavior
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:10:37, subject to the Cambridge Core
terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.001
4 LucasPayneButler,SamuelRonfard,KathleenH.Corriveau
basedoncognitive,social,andenvironmentalfactors.Specifically,thefirst
fewchaptersinthissectionexplorethedevelopmentofchildren’sinforma-
tion-seekingbehavior.Lucca(Chapter6)outlineshowaquestioningstance
developsandispresentinchildren’snonverbalpointingpriortothechild’s
firstexpressivelanguage.Jones,Swaboda,andRuggeri(Chapter7),and
MillsandSands(Chapter 8),highlighthowverbalquestioningdevelops
throughearlychildhoodandelementaryschoolasastrategytoconstrainthe
possible conclusions drawn from evidence. Neale, Morano, Verdine,
Golinkoff,and Hirsh-Pasek (Chapter 9) demonstrate that not onlyare
children’s questions useful for constraining inferences, but they also high-
lightthelimitsofchildren’sunderstandingofaparticularcategoricalbound-
ary–intheircase,understandingofshape.Finally,GauvainandMunroe
(Chapter 10) describe children’s question-asking behavior (and lack of
questioning)acrossfourdiversesocieties,highlightingtheneedforconsid-
ering questions as one of multiple possible strategies children use to gain
informationabouttheworld.
The third section explores how questions posed to children influence
their inquiry, learning, and reasoning. This section also draws explicit
connections to classroom and educational practice. Zambrana,
Hermansen,andRowe(Chapter11)explorehowmothers’useofques-
tions impacts both children’s learning and their language development,
presentingbothanin-depthreviewoftheliteratureaddressingthisissue,as
well as showcasing a new study building on this prior work. Kuhn,
Modrek,andSandoval(Chapter12)focusontheimportanceofques-
tioning later in childhood, emphasizing the continued relevance of ques-
tioning throughout children’s formal education, and discussing ways in
whicheducationalenvironmentscanfosterquestioning,inquiry,andargu-
ment. Walker and Nyhout (Chapter 13) discuss how “wh-questions”
directedtochildrenshapetheirreasoningandidentifybenefitsandpitfalls
of three question prompts: requestsfor explanations(why?), requests for
additional explanations (why else?), and counterfactuals (what if?).
OsborneandReigh(Chapter14)explorewhatmakesagoodquestion,
presentinganovelepistemicframeworkforclassifyingquestions,anddis-
cussinghowthisframeworkcouldbeputtouseintheclassroominorderto
facilitatehigh-qualityquestioning.
Finally,in aclosing chapter(Chapter 15), we returnto the keyques-
tionsposedabove.Foreachquestion,wesynthesizethewaysinwhichthe
contributedchaptersaddressit,aswellasconsideringnewandimportant
concernsthathavearisenoverthecourseofthevolume.Weconcludeby
chartingapathforwardforthefieldasawhole,layingoutanagendafor
thecomingyearsofresearchalongseveraldimensions.Thecurrentstate
ofthefieldas laidoutinthisvolumepresentsexciting opportunitiesfor
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:10:37, subject to the Cambridge Core
terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.001
QuestionsaboutQuestions:FramingtheKeyIssues 5
deepeningourunderstandingoftheroleofquestioningindevelopment.
Butitalsopresentsanumberoftheoretical,methodological,andpractical
challenges that researchers will need to grapple with. We hope that the
pathweposeforthefutureofinvestigationsintothequestioningchildwill
guide scientists working in this important area of research, and help
generate potential tools for addressing important societal issues in the
comingyears.
References
Carey,S.,andGelman,R.(eds.)(1991).Theepigenesisofmind:Essaysinbiology
andcognition.Hillsdale,NJ:Erlbaum.
Gopnik,A.,andSchulz,L.(eds.)(2007).Causallearning:Psychology,philosophy,
andcomputation.NewYork,NY:OxfordUniversityPress.
Harris,P.L.(2012).Trustingwhatyou’retold:Howchildrenlearnfromothers.
Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress.
Harris,P.L.,Koenig,M.A.,Corriveau,K.H.,andJaswal,V.K.(2018).
Cognitivefoundationsoflearningfromtestimony.AnnualReviewofPsychology,
69,251–73.https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011710
Weisberg,D.S.,Hirsh-Pasek,K.,Golinkoff,R.M.,Kittredge,A.K.,andKlahr,D.
(2015).Guidedplay:Principlesandpractices.CurrentDirectionsinPsychological
Science,25,177–82.https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0963721416645512
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:10:37, subject to the Cambridge Core
terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.001
2 Questions in Development
Peter Carruthers
Introduction:QuestioningAttitudes
Everyone will likely acknowledge that attitudes such as curiosity and
interestarevitallyimportantforlearning,andthatyoungchildrenaskso
manyquestions becausetheyareintensely curiousandinterestedinthe
worldaroundthem.Butthenatureofthesequestioningattitudesthem-
selvesispoorlyunderstood.Indeed,manyhaveamistakenviewofthem–
orsoIwillclaim.Inconsequence,manyareledtogivemistakenaccounts
ofthecognitiveprocessesthatunderliechildren’saskingandansweringof
questions, too. This matters, both for our understanding of childhood
developmentgenerallyandfordesigninginterventionsthatareintended
tohelpchildrenlearn.
This chapter has two main goals. One is to offer a fresh set of con-
ceptual resources for those wanting to understand childhood develop-
ment–specifically,thelikelyexistencefrominfancyofasetoffirst-order,
non-metacognitive, questioning attitudes. The second is to suggest that
theearlyquestion-askingandquestion-answeringbehaviorofinfantsand
toddlers is best understood as expressive of such attitudes, rather than
providingevidenceofearlymetacognition.
(Metacognition is defined as cognition that is about cognition, or
“thinking about thinking,” and the term is generally restricted to cases
whereonethinksaboutone’sownthoughts,ratherthanthethoughtsof
other people; see Flavell, 1979; Nelson & Narens, 1990; Dunlosky &
Metcalfe,2009.)
Peoplecanaskquestionsforinstrumentalreasons(“Wherearethecar
keys?”), but often they are just curious (“Why do birds sing?”). And
almostallphilosophersandcognitivescientistswhohavewrittenonthe
topicofcuriosityhaveaddresseditinmetacognitiveterms–asinvolving
adesireforknowledgeortruebelief,orasanintrinsicmotivationtolearn,
or something of the sort. (See Foley, 1987; Goldman, 1999; and
6
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Columbia University - Law Library, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:07:12, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.002
QuestionsinDevelopment 7
Williamson, 2000, among philosophers; and see Litman, 2005; Gruber
et al., 2014; Blanchard et al., 2015; and Kidd & Hayden, 2015, among
psychologists.) Even Loewenstein’s (1994) well-known “information
gap”theoryofcuriosity,whichsoundsasifitmightnotrequiremetacog-
nition,isactuallyframedinmetacognitiveterms.Curiosityissaidtoarise
from “a discrepancy between what one knows and what one wishes to
know”(p.93).
Themainproblemwithmetacognitiveaccountsofcuriosity,however,
isthattheymakeithardtounderstandhowanimalsotherthanourselves
canbecurious.Forifanysuchaccountiscorrect,onlyanimalswiththe
conceptofknowledge–orsomethingsufficientlyclose–canbecurious.
This is because curiosity is said to be wanting to know (or wanting true
belief, or wanting to learn, or something similar), and you can only want
whatyouhavesomeconceptionof(Delton&Sell,2014).Thisconsidera-
tionhasmotivatedasmallsetofphilosophers–justthree,tomyknowl-
edge–toproposethatcuriosityshouldinsteadbeunderstoodasafirst-
order attitude to a question (Whitcomb, 2010; Friedman, 2013;
Carruthers,2018).
Inapreviouspiece(Carruthers,2018),Ihavedevelopedanddefended
such a view at length. Indeed, I argued that questioning attitudes con-
stitute basic and sui generis forms of affective state, while arguing that
suchstatesarewidespreadthroughouttheanimalkingdom.Curiosityis
one instance of a questioning attitude. Others are manifested in instru-
mentalandexploratorysearch,aswellasinmereattentionalsearch(that
istosay,wheretheemotionofinterestisdirectedtowardsomething)and
memory search. Note, however, that I actually remain neutral on the
question whether the set of questioning attitudes is a plurality or
a singleton. The answer depends on difficult and hard-to-resolve issues
concerning the individuation of emotions as psychological kinds.
Referringtotheminthepluralisforconvenienceonly.
Inmyview,questioningattitudesaredesire-likeoremotion-likestates,
butstatesthattakequestionsratherthanpropositionsascontents.Acat
thatiscuriousabouttheidentityofanovelobjectismotivatedtoexplore
theobjectbyastatewhosecontentiswhatthatis.Curiosityissatisfied–
and the question is answered – when the animal acquires a belief of the
form that is an F. Likewise, a monkey that is interested in a conflict
between two males in the troupe is motivated to attend to the fight by
a state with the content who will win. And interest is satisfied when the
animalobservestheoutcome,comingtobelieveapropositionofthetype
monkeyXwon.Moreover,justasotheremotionsmotivateadaptiveforms
ofactiondirectly,withoutrequiringplanningorexecutiveselection(fear
motivates running, anger motivates attacking, and so on), so too do
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Columbia University - Law Library, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:07:12, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.002
8 PeterCarruthers
questioningattitudes. Theydirectlyactivate exploratoryorinvestigative
behaviorofvarioussorts.
Note that on the proposed account, questioning attitudes are first-
order states with first-order (potentially quite simple) contents. The
only concepts that an animal needs to have are ones like what, where,
when,andwho,togetherwithconceptsforkindsandforindividuals.(Of
course,these might only qualifyas “proto-concepts” ifone placesespe-
cially stringent demands on concept-possession, as many philosophers
do;seeBermúdez,2003,andCarruthers,2009,forcontrastingviewson
thistopic.)Suchattitudesarecausedby(salientinstancesof)ignorance
withoutrepresentingignorance(i.e.,withouttheorganismbeingawareof
itsownignoranceassuch).Andtheirfunctionalroleistodirectlymoti-
vateformsofactionthathavebeensculptedbyevolutionandindividual
learning to issue in the acquisition of the relevant kinds of information.
(Comparethewayinwhichtheroleoffearistodirectlymotivateformsof
escape or avoidance behavior.) A curious animal might approach the
thing,lookatit,sniffit,lickit,andsoon.
Iproposethatquestioningattitudesareamongthefoundationalcom-
ponents of human and animal minds. They are possessed by all mam-
mals,andlikelybymostvertebrates.Indeed,theymayevenbepossessed
by navigating-while-foraging insects like bees. In fact, any animal that
needstoacquiretargetedinformation–asopposedtojusthooveringup
informationthroughsomesortofrandomwalkthroughtheenvironment–
is likely to have motivational states that embed questions as contents,
whichcanservetodirectitssearch.
Note that if this is correct, then one can expect that the questioning
attitudesmightplayanespeciallyimportantroleinhumandevelopment,
given the importance of cultural learning (and information acquisition
generally) in human life. Note, too, that no fundamental evolutionary
change would need to be postulated in order to account for the extra-
ordinarylevelsofcuriosityfoundamonghumans.Onecansupposethat
what happened in the hominin lineage was just a ramping up of the
sensitivity of the questioning-attitude systems held in common with
otheranimals.Nonewstructureswouldneedtohavebeenadded.
I will be assuming in what follows that human infants are successful
mind readers, and are capable of attributing at least a limited range of
mentalstatestootherpeople.ThisispartlybecauseIbelievethisviewto
be adequately supported by the evidence, as I have argued elsewhere
(Carruthers,2013,2016).ButitisalsobecauseIaimtoshowthateven
iftheconceptualresourcesnecessaryforattributingstatesofknowledge
andignorancetooneselfarefullyavailable(employedinattributingsuch
states to others), it is nevertheless more plausible to interpret the
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Columbia University - Law Library, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:07:12, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.002
QuestionsinDevelopment 9
interrogative behavior of infants and toddlers as manifesting first-order
questioning attitudes, rather than metacognitive awareness of their own
states(whichiswhatmanyinthefieldassume).
Thepresentprojectisthuspartofalargeragenda,andismotivated,in
part, by a broader set of considerations. The agenda is to oppose neo-
Cartesianaccountsofourknowledgeofmentalstates.Manystillassume
that knowledge of one’s own mental states is somehow primary, with
knowledge of the mental states of other people emerging later (in both
phylogeny and ontogeny), dependent on one’s awareness of one’s own
mental life (Goldman, 2006). I have argued, in contrast (Carruthers,
2011), that the reverse is true: awareness of the mental states of other
people emerges first in ontogeny, and is likely to be an adaptation that
evolvedtoundergirdhuman,ape,orprimatesociallife(dependingonthe
distributionofthesecapacitiesacrossprimates,whichisstillamatterof
controversy). Self-knowledge, on the other hand, results from turning
one’s mind-reading abilities on oneself, and relies mostly on a range of
indirect (and only partly reliable) attribution-heuristics and sensorily-
accessiblecues(suchasone’sownfeelings,one’sownvisualandauditory
imagery,andobservationofone’sownbehavior).
Neo-Cartesianassumptionscontinuetounderpinanumberofresearch
programs in psychology. One such program, as we will see, concerns the
natureandexplanationofyoungchildren’sinterrogativebehavior,whichis
thoughttomanifestmetacognitiveawarenessofthechild’sownignorance.
Iwillargue,incontrast,thatitisbetterexplainedintermsofasetoffirst-
order questioning attitudes. But our focus will be on infants and toddlers
specifically(uptotheageofabouttwo).Oncechildrenbecomecapableof
metacognitiveawareness,nodoubttheirinterrogativebehaviorwillnotonly
become more flexible and sophisticated, but may well sometimes reflect
metacognitiveknowledgeoftheirownignorance.Iwillreturntothispointin
thesectionbelowentitledBeyondTwo.
QuestionsinInfancy
The present section will focus on infants in the first year of life. It will
argue that the existence of the assumed questioning attitudes is at least
consistentwithwhatweknowabouthumanchildrenofthisage.Drawing
onthesameperspective,itwillalsoproposeanovelhypothesisforfuture
exploration,concerningquestion-basedmindreadingininfants.
For more than thirty years, researchers have employed expectancy-
violation paradigms to explore human infants’ “core knowledge” of the
world around them (Baillargeon et al., 1985; Spelke & Kinzler, 2007).
Whenaninfanthashadherexpectationsviolatedshewilllooklongerat
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Columbia University - Law Library, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:07:12, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.002
10 PeterCarruthers
theobjectoreventthanwhenthelatterwasexpected.Seeninthelightofthe
proposedquestioningattitudes,suchbehaviormanifestsquestionsdirected
at the environment, such as the question how that happened. And indeed,
infantsdon’tjustpassivelyattendtoexpectancy-violatingobjectsorevents,
buttheypreferentiallylearn from them, and if given theopportunitythey
will explore them in ways related to the nature of the initial expectation
(Stahl&Feigenson,2015).Aten-month-oldinfantshownanobjectappar-
ently passing through a solid wall, for example, will try banging it on
asurfacewhenlatergivenanopportunitytohandletheobject(seemingly
asking whether it is solid); whereas the same infant shown an object that
seemstoremainintheairwithoutsupportwillthereafterrepeatedlydropit
(asifinquiringwhetheritcanfloat).
Note that it was initially the same expectancy-violation method that
wasusedtoexplorethemind-readingabilitiesofinfantsandtoddlersin
the first eighteen months of life, too (Woodward, 1998; Onishi &
Baillargeon, 2005; Baillargeon et al., 2010). But similar findings have
now been confirmed using a wide variety of different methods. These
include anticipatory looking (Southgate et al., 2007), active helping
(Buttelmann et al., 2009), mirror-neuron activation (Southgate &
Vernetti,2014),andmore.
Evenifitistrue(asIbelieve,andasIproposetoassume)thatcoremind-
readingabilitiesareinnatelychanneled,andemergewithlittleornolearning
early in development, it doesn’t follow, of course, that attributions of
curiosity or interest are among the components of that core system. The
factthatinfantsarecapableofhavingquestioningattitudesthemselvesfrom
earlystagesofdevelopmentdoesn’timplythattheyarecapableofattribut-
ing such attitudes to others. It may well be that the behavioral cues that
indicatethepresenceofsuchstatesneedtobelearned,and/orthatconcepts
fortherelevantattitudesneedtobeconstructedoutofothers.Forexample,
curiosity might come to be understood as a desire to know something –
incorrectly, in my view, since I claim that curiosity is a first-order desire-
likequestioningattitude,notametacognitiveonethatembedstheconcept
know within its content. Young children might thus need to build
aconceptionofcuriosityovertimeoutoftheconceptsofdesireandknowl-
edge(orwantandthink).
(Notethatthemetacognitiveconceptionofcuriositydoesappeartobe
part of our commonsense folk-psychology, at any rate. For it – or some-
thinglikeit–hasbeenendorsedbynearlyeveryonewhohaswrittenonthe
topic,aswesawearlier.Soitisn’timplausiblethatchildrenmightconstruct
justsuchaconceptionoverthecourseofthefirstfewyearsoflife.)
On current evidence it seems likely that concepts such as want and
think would be among the core components of an innately channeled
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Columbia University - Law Library, on 15 Jan 2020 at 22:07:12, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553803.002