Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I What is acquired – theory-theory versus simulation-theory
- Part II Modes of acquisition – theorising, learning, and modularity
- Part III Failures of acquisition – explaining autism
- Part IV Wider perspectives – evolution and theory of mind
- 17 When does smart behaviour-reading become mind-reading?
- 18 Chimpanzee theory of mind?: the long road to strong inference
- 19 Non-human primate theories of (non-human primate) minds: some issues concerning the origins of mind-reading
- 20 Language and the evolution of mind-reading
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
20 - Language and the evolution of mind-reading
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I What is acquired – theory-theory versus simulation-theory
- Part II Modes of acquisition – theorising, learning, and modularity
- Part III Failures of acquisition – explaining autism
- Part IV Wider perspectives – evolution and theory of mind
- 17 When does smart behaviour-reading become mind-reading?
- 18 Chimpanzee theory of mind?: the long road to strong inference
- 19 Non-human primate theories of (non-human primate) minds: some issues concerning the origins of mind-reading
- 20 Language and the evolution of mind-reading
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
Introduction: a recent shift in views
Is ‘theory of mind’ unique to humans? Do great apes possess some form of mind-reading abilities? There has been a distinct shift in viewpoints on this recently. The evidence in favour of some mind-reading abilities at least in some great ape species had been accumulating through the 1980s. Thus, Premack (1988, p. 179) argued that:
We may need to distinguish three degrees of theory of mind: (a) species that make no attributions of any kind, presumably the case for the vast majority of species; (b) species whose attributions are unlimited in any respect except perhaps for number of embeddings … presumably the case for humans (by the time they are four years old); (c) species that make attributions but attributions that are limited in a number of respects, possibly the case for the chimpanzee.
Byrne and Whiten (1992, pp.624–5) went further, suggesting that:
Great apes demonstrate an understanding of deception for which we have no good evidence in monkeys … our deception data are just part of a broad sweep of evidence that great apes have that ability, so central to human communication, to attribute certain intentional states – an ability also variously described as the ability to imagine other possible worlds, to empathize, to attribute mental states, to have a theory of mind, mind-reading, and second-order intentionality … modern great apes may completely lack the formalizing systems of language, but they do not appear to lack understanding of what this kind of communication is about.
(my italics)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Theories of Theories of Mind , pp. 344 - 354Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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