4 Mind-reading
We humans are highly social animals, unique in theXexibility with which
we can adapt to novel patterns of interaction, both co-operative and
competitive. So it is easy to see why our folk psychology, or capacity for
mind-reading, is such an important psychological ability, both to individ-
ual lives and for our success as a species. But it is not onlyotherminds
which one needs to read. What should also be appreciated is that this very
same capacity is used to think about what is going on in our own minds, as
we shall see further in chapter 9. (One of the themes of this book is that this
capacity for reXexive thinking greatly enhances our cognitive resources.)
Other theses we argue for in the present chapter are that our mind-reading
ability functions viaa central module, that it operates by means of applying
a core of theoretical knowledge, and that this core knowledge isa product of
maturation rather than learning. In other words, we think that the ‘theory
of mind’ module (often called ‘ToM’ in the literature on this topic)Wts the
general view on modularity and nativism which we outlined in chapter 3.
1 The alternatives: theory-theory versus simulation
Research into our mind-reading capacities has been assisted both by the
investigations of developmental psychologists and by the debate between
two rival views, theory-theory and simulation-theory.
1.1 Theory-theoryTheory-theory is a product of functionalism in the philosophy of mind. It
proposes that core theoretical principles supply the descriptions of causal
role (or function) which give us our conceptions of what diVerent kinds of
mental stateare. Such principles might include elaborations on such
truisms as, ‘What people see, they generally believe’, ‘If people want
something, and believe that there is something which they can do to get it,
then they will generally do that thing,ceteris paribus’ (see Botterill, 1996,
for further discussion). According to theory-theory, this same general,
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