Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-6kn8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T16:11:40.034Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

BELIEF IS PRIOR TO KNOWLEDGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2015

David Rose
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is a composite of belief and non-mental factors. However, Timothy Williamson suggests that orthodoxy implies that the concept of belief is acquired before the concept of knowledge, whereas developmental data suggest the reverse. More recently, Jennifer Nagel reviews the psychological evidence, building a psychological case that the concept of knowledge emerges prior to belief. I assess the psychological state of the art and find support for the opposite conclusion. Overall the empirical evidence supports the orthodox view that the concept of belief is prior to the concept of knowledge.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 385 - 399
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Armstrong, D. 1969. ‘Does Knowledge Entail Belief?’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 70: 21–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A., and Frith, U. 1985. ‘Does the Autistic Child have a “Theory of Mind”?’ Cognition, 21: 37–46.Google Scholar
Bartsch, K. and Wellman, H. 1995. Children Talk About the Mind. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, J., Donelan-McCall, N., and Dunn, J. 1996. ‘Why Talk About Mental States? The Significance of Children's Conversations with Friends, Siblings, and Mothers.’ Child Development, 67: 836–49.Google Scholar
Brueckner, A. 2002. ‘Williamson on the Primeness of Knowing.’ Analysis, 62: 197–202.Google Scholar
Buckwalter, W., Rose, D., and Turri, J. Forthcoming. ‘Belief Through Thick and Thin.’ Nous.Google Scholar
Buttelmann, D., Carpenter, M., and Tomasello, M. 2009. ‘Eighteen-month-old Infants show False Belief Understanding in an Active Helping Paradigm.’ Cognition, 112: 337–42.Google Scholar
Button, K. S., Ioannidis, J. P., Mokrysz, C., Nosek, B. A., Flint, J., Robinson, E., and Munafo, M. R. 2013. ‘Power Failure: Why Small Sample Size Undermines the Reliability of Neuroscience.’ Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15: 365–76.Google Scholar
Chandler, M., Fritz, A., and Hala, S. 1989. ‘Small-scale Deceit: Deception as a Marker of Two-, Three-, and Four-year-olds' Early Theories of Mind.’ Child Development, 60: 1263–77.Google Scholar
Chisholm, R. 1989. Theory of Knowledge, 3rd edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Clements, W. and Perner, J. 1994. ‘Implicit Understanding of Belief.’ Cognitive Development, 9(4): 377–97.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. J. 1966. ‘More about Knowing and Feeling Sure.’ Analysis, 27: 11–16.Google Scholar
Cohen, L. J. 1989. ‘Belief and Acceptance.’ Mind, 98: 367–89.Google Scholar
Conee, E. and Feldman, R. 1985. Evidentialism. Philosophical Studies, 48, 15–34.Google Scholar
Fabricius, W. V. and Khalil, S. L. 2003. ‘False Beliefs or False Positives? Limits on Children's Understanding of Mental Representation.’ Journal of Cognition and Development, 4: 239–62.Google Scholar
Fricker, E. 2009. ‘Is Knowing a State of Mind? The Case Against.’ In Greenough, P. and Pritchard, D. (eds), Williamson on Knowledge, pp. 31–60. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Garnham, W. and Ruffman, T. 2001. ‘Doesn't See, Doesn't Know: Is Anticipatory Looking Really Related to Understanding or Belief?’ Developmental Science, 4: 94–100.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. 1976. ‘Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge.’ Journal of Philosophy, 73: 771–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenough, P. and Pritchard, D. 2009.Williamson on Knowledge. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hogrefe, G. J., Wimmer, H., and Perner, J. 1986. ‘Ignorance Versus False Belief: A Developmental Lag in Attribution of Epistemic States.’ Child Development, 57: 567–82.Google Scholar
Jones, O. R. 1971. ‘Knowing and Guessing: By Examples.’ Analysis, 32: 19–23.Google Scholar
Kovács, Á. M., Téglás, E., and Endress, A. D. 2010. ‘The Social Sense: Susceptibility to Others’ Beliefs in Human Infants and Adults.’ Science, 330: 1830–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
LaBounty, J., Wellman, H., Olson, S., Lagattuta, K., and Liu, D. 2008. ‘Mothers' and Fathers' Use of Internal State Talk with their Young Children.’ Social Development, 17: 757–75.Google Scholar
Lehrer, K. 1968. ‘Belief and Knowledge.’ Philosophical Review, 77: 491–9.Google Scholar
Magnus, P. and Cohen, J. 2003. ‘Williamson on Knowledge and Psychological Explanation.’ Philosophical Studies, 116: 37–52.Google Scholar
Martin, A. and Santos, L. 2015. Origins of mental state representations in infants and non-human primates. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Molyneux, B. 2007. ‘Primeness, Internalism and Explanatory Generality.’ Philosophical Studies, 135: 255–77.Google Scholar
Murray, D., Sytsma, J., and Livengood, J. 2013. ‘God knows (But does God believe)?’ Philosophical Studies, 166: 83–107.Google Scholar
Myers-Schulz, B. and Schwitzgebel, E. 2013. ‘Knowing that P without believing that P.’ Nous, 47: 371–84.Google Scholar
Nagel, J. 2013. ‘Knowledge as a Mental State.’ Oxford Studies in Epistemology, 4: 275–310.Google Scholar
Nichols, S. and Stich, S. 2003. Mindreading: An Integrated Account of Pretense, Self-Awareness and Understanding Other Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onishi, K. H. and Baillargeon, R. 2005. ‘Do 15-month-old Infants Understand False Beliefs?’ Science, 308: 255–8.Google Scholar
Pascual, B., Gerardo, A., Sotillo, M., and Masdeu, J. 2008. ‘Acquisition of Mental State Language in Spanish Children: A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship Between the Production of Mental Verbs and Linguistic Development.’ Developmental Science, 11: 454–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peterson, C. and Siegal, M. 2000. ‘Insights into Theory of Mind from Deafness and Autism.’ Mind and Language, 15: 123–45.Google Scholar
Peterson, C. and Wellman, H., and Liu, D. 2005. ‘Steps in Theory of Mind Development for Children with Autism and Deafness.’ Child Development, 76: 502–17.Google Scholar
Peterson, C. and Wellman, H. 2009. ‘From Fancy to Reason: Scaling Deaf and Hearing Children's Understanding of Theory of Mind and Pretence.’ British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27: 297–310.Google Scholar
Peterson, C. and Wellman, H., and Slaughter, V. 2012. ‘The Mind Behind the Message: Advancing Theory-of-Mind Scales for Typically Developing Children, and Those with Deafness, Autism or Asperger Syndrome.’ Child Development, 83: 469–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rose, D. and Schaffer, J. 2013. ‘Knowledge Entails Dispositional Belief.’ Philosophical Studies, 166: S19–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, D.,, Buckwalter, W., and Turri, J. Forthcoming. ‘When Words Speak Louder than Actions: Delusion, Belief and the Power of Assertion.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy.Google Scholar
Roth, D. and Leslie, A. 1991. ‘The Recognition of Attitude Conveyed by Utterance: A Study of Preschool and Autistic Children.’ British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9: 315–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rysiew, P. 2013. ‘Is Knowledge a Non-Composite Mental State?’ Oxford Studies in Epistemology, 4: 333–45.Google Scholar
Shatz, M., Wellman, H. M., and Silber, S. 1983. ‘The Acquisition of Mental Verbs: A Systematic Investigation of the First Reference to Mental State.’ Cognition, 14: 301–21.Google Scholar
Siegal, M. and Beattie, K. 1991. ‘Where to Look First for Children's Knowledge of False Beliefs.’ Cognition, 38: 1–12.Google Scholar
Sorensen, R. 1982. ‘Knowing, Believing, and Guessing.’ Analysis, 42: 212–13.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. 2007. A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume One. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. 2011. Knowing Full Well. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Southgate, V., Senju, A., and Csibra, G. 2007. ‘Action Anticipation Through Attribution of False Belief by Two-year-olds.’ Psychological Science, 18: 587–92.Google Scholar
Steup, M. 2006. The Analysis of Knowledge. In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2006 Edition).Google Scholar
Sullivan, K. and Winner, E. 1993. ‘Three-year-olds′ Understanding of Mental States: The Influence of Trickery.’ Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 56: 135–48.Google Scholar
Surian, L., Caldi, S., and Sperber, D. 2007. ‘Attribution of Beliefs by 13-month-old Infants.’ Psychological Science, 18: 580–6.Google Scholar
Tardif, T. and Wellman, H. 2000. ‘Acquisition of Mental State Language in Mandarin-and Cantonese-speaking Children.’ Developmental Psychology, 36: 25–43.Google Scholar
Turnbull, W., Carpendale, W., and Racine, T. 2008. ‘Relations Between Mother-Child Talk and 3- to 5-year-old Children's Understanding of Belief: Beyond Mental State Terms to Talk about the Mind.’ Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 54: 367–85.Google Scholar
Turri, J. 2010. ‘Does Perceiving Entail Knowing?’ Theoria, 76: 197–206.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2000. Knowledge and its Limits. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2011. ‘Philosophical Expertise and the Burden of Proof.’ Metaphilosophy, 42: 215–29.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2013. ‘Review of J. Alexander, Experimental Philosophy: An Introduction.’ Philosophy, 88: 467–74.Google Scholar
Wellman, H., and Liu, D. 2004. ‘Scaling of Theory of Mind Tasks.’ Child Development, 75: 523–41.Google Scholar
Wellman, H.,, Cross, D., and Watson, J. 2001. ‘Meta-Analysis of Theory of Mind Development: The Truth about False Belief.’ Child Development, 72: 655–84.Google Scholar
Wellman, H.,, Fang, F., Liu, D., Zhu, L., and Liu, G. 2006. ‘Scaling Theory of Mind Understanding in Chinese Children.’ Psychological Science, 17: 1075–81.Google Scholar
Wellman, H.,, Lopez-Duran, S., LaBounty, J., and Hamilton, B. 2008. ‘Infant Attention to Intentional Action Predicts Preschool Theory of Mind.’ Developmental Psychology, 44: 618–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wellman, H.,, Fang, F., and Peterson, C. C. 2011. ‘Sequential Progressions in a Theory of Mind Scale: Longitudinal Perspectives.’ Child Development, 82: 780–92.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. 2009. On Epistemology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar