•  300
    A new rationalist account of the development of false-belief understanding
    Philosophical Studies 180 (9): 2847-2870. 2023.
    Rationalist accounts of the development of folk-psychology maintain that the acquisition of this capacity is aided by special-purpose mechanisms rich in innate structure. Rationalists have typically maintained that false-belief understanding (FBU) emerges very early on, before the age of two. To explain why young children nonetheless fail the false-belief task, rationalists have suggested that they may have troubles expressing their FBU. Here I do two things. First, I argue that extant proposals…Read more
  •  153
    Knowledge first: the argument from development
    Synthese 204 (6): 1-21. 2024.
    The traditional approach to the analysis of knowledge sees it as a true belief meeting further conditions. I discuss an empirical challenge to this traditional approach, which I call the argument from development. Briefly, the argument is that belief cannot be conceptually prior to knowledge because children acquire the concept of knowledge first. Several prominent scientists and philosophers have argued that this latter claim is supported by many findings with infants and young children. Here, …Read more