Abstract
Is knowing a mental state in its own right, as believing is, or is it at best a mental state in an attenuated sense due to being a species of belief? Jennifer Nagel has recently contended that there’s a strong empirical case for the former view of knowledge, arguing indirectly for this conclusion by drawing on work in developmental and comparative psychology that she takes to suggest that the concept of knowledge is acquired before the concept of belief. This paper critically reassesses the bearing of the relevant empirical results, arguing that they present a messy, complicated, and inherently inconclusive picture of when children and other creatures acquire the concepts in question. I conclude that the available empirical evidence does not support Nagel’s conceptual priority claim, let alone her further metaphysical conclusions about the nature of knowlege
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Knowledge First |
Subtitle of host publication | Approaches in Epistemology and Mind |
Editors | J Adam Carter, Emma C Gordon, Benjamin Jarvis |
Place of Publication | Oxford |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Chapter | 4 |
Pages | 72-94 |
Number of pages | 23 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780198716310 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- knowledge first
- developmental psychology
- concept acquisition
- mindreading
- false belief tasks
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Aidan McGlynn
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences - Senior Lecturer
Person: Academic: Research Active