Abstract:

Once the notion of a precursive relationship between developmental stages is fully articulated in terms of the distinction between `role' and `realiser' states, it turns out that the `Theory of Mind' literature operates with a notion of precursive relationships described at too high a level of abstraction to explain actual mechanisms of development. Furthermore, the tendency within that literature to explain precursive relationships in terms of role states with isomorphic linguistic/computational structures is misleading. Developmental relationships are more likely to exist between states which play a similar normative role in the agents's psychology than between states which can be described as sharing a similar computational architecture.

Document Type: Original article

DOI: 10.1111/1468-0017.00065

Affiliations: 1: Department of General Philosophy, Sydney University, Camperdown NSW 2006, Australia