theory-like, knowledge also enables us to attribute mental states in order
to explain behaviour, and to predict behaviour from what we know about
others’ mental states.
While developmental evidence is undoubtedly relevant to resolving the
debate between theory-theory and its opponents (as we shall see in section
4), the main point in dispute is how mind-reading ability fundamentally
operatesrather than how this ability isacquired. In particular, theory-
theory as such is compatible with a range of possible methods of ac-
quisition – such as by maturation of innate knowledge; through theorising
upon data supplied by experience; or by grace of social instruction. It may
sound paradoxical to claim that there could be such a thing as a theory
which was not arrived at by theorising. If it strikes you that way, then
forget about the word ‘theory’ and think of this position instead as the
core-knowledge-baseview. But we would actually suggest that, while it is
true that most theories have to be earned by intellectual hard labour, this is
hardly a conceptual truth. Elsewhere we have argued that, however ac-
quired, this knowledge-base, as well as enabling us to explain and predict
behaviour, provides just the sort of cognitive economy which is distinctive
of theories – unifying, integrating, and helping to explain a diverse body of
data (Botterill, 1996).
So theory-theorists may diVer over how the theory is acquired. Gopnik
and Wellman have argued that our theory of mind really does develop via
a process of theorising analogous to the development of scientiWc theory:
seeking explanations, making predictions, and then revising the theory or
modifying auxiliary hypotheses when the predictions fail (Gopnik, 1990,
1996; Wellman, 1990; Gopnik and Wellman, 1992). The idea that folk
psychology is the product of social instruction – probably the original
default view amongst philosophers of mind in the days when they were
deeply ignorant of empirical psychology – has found little favour with
developmental psychologists (though see Astington, 1996, for a Vygot-
skian view of theory-of-mind development). Our opinion is that social
instruction or enculturation surely does help shape the more sophisticated
aspects of adult folk psychology, but contributes little to the formation of
the core theory which is already employed by four-year-old children.
As we shall see in section 4, there are actually several reasons why we
hold that thecorrectversion of theory-theory – the only acquisitionally
plausible one – is the nativist version, according to which we are innately
predisposed to develop a theory-of-mind module. The fact that our mind-
reading capacity exhibits developmental rigidity should, on its own, be
strongly persuasive on this point. If mind-reading were the product of
theorising or social instruction, then it would be quite extraordinary that
all children should achieve the same ability at much the same age (about
78 Mind-reading