Kinds of Agents: The Origins of Understanding Instrumental and Communicative Agency

    Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesChapterpeer-review

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development, Second edition
    PublisherWiley-Blackwell
    Pages76-105
    Number of pages30
    ISBN (Print)9781405191166
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 15 Jul 2010

    Keywords

    • Criteria for adequate developmental theory of understanding intentional agency
    • Goal attribution versus preference attribution - role of perception of rational choice
    • Identifying intentional agency - self-propulsion versus rational choice of action
    • Kinds of agents - origins of understanding, instrumental and communicative agency
    • Modularist "theory-of-mind" account
    • Preverbal understanding of other minds - beginnings of a paradigm change
    • Principle-based inferential process - attributing goals to actions
    • Representational and inferential properties of human-specific cognitive adaptations - in understanding teleological versus communicative agency
    • Teleological and mentalistic representations of actions

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