Words, thoughts, and theories

• Series Foreword

• Preface And Acknowledgments

• The Other Socratic Method

• Socrates' Problem

• Augustine's Problem

• A Road Map

• I
• The Theory Theory

• The Scientist as Child

• But Surely It Can't Really Be a Theory?

• A Cognitive View of Science

• Naturalistic Epistemology and Development: An Evolutionary Speculation

• Science as Horticulture

• Objections: Phenomenology

• Objections: Sociology

• Objections: Timing and Convergence

• Objections: Magic

• Empirical Advances

• What Is a Theory?

• Structural Features of Theories

• Abstractness

• Coherence

• Causality

• Ontological commitment

• Functional Features of Theories

• Prediction

• Interpretation

• Explanation

• Dynamic Features of Theories

• Theories in Childhood

• Theories as Representations

• Theories, Modules, and Empirical Generalizations

• Modules

• Theories and Development

• Modules and Development

• Modularity in Peripheral and Central Processing

• Empirical Generalizations: Scripts, Narratives, and Nets

• Interactions among Theories, Modules, and Empirical Generalizations

• Nonconceptual Development: Information Processing and Social Construction

• Information processing

• Social construction

• II
• Evidence For the Theory Theory

• The Child's Theory of Appearances

• The Adult Theory

• The Initial Theory

• The Paradox of Invisible Objects

• Information-processing limitations?

• Habituation limitations?

• Modularity

• Representational redescription

• Empirical generalization

• An Alternative: A Theory-Change Account

• The Nine-Month-Old's Theory

• The A-Not-B Error as an Auxilliary Hypothesis

• The Eighteen-Month-Old's Theory

• Other Evidence for the Theory Theory

• Experimentation

• The affect of explanation

• Interpretation

• Semantic Development: "Gone" as a Theoretical Term

• Later Developments: From Object Permanence to Perspective Taking

• Later Semantic Developments: "Gone" and "See"

• Conclusion

• The Child's Theory of Action

• The Adult Theory

• The Initial Theory

• Interactions with persons

• Actions on objects

• The Nine-Month-Old's Theory

• Actions on objects

• Interactions with persons

• The self and the other

• The Eighteen-Month-Old's Theory

• Actions on objects

• Interactions with persons

• The self and the other

• Other Evidence for the Theory Theory

• Semantic Development: "No," "Uh-oh," and "There"

• Later Developments: From Actions to Desires

• Later Semantic Developments: "Want"

• Conclusion

• The Child's Theory of Kinds

• The Adult Theory

• Categories and Kinds

• The Initial Theory

• The Nine-Month-Old's Theory

• The Eighteen-Month-Old's Theory

• Other Evidence for the Theory Theory

• Semantic Development: The Naming Spurt

• Later Developments

• Conclusion

• III
• Theories and Language

• Language and Thought

• Prerequisites

• Interactions

• A Theory-Theory View

• Methodological Issues: Specificity and Correlation

• Developmental Relations between Language and Cognition

• Theories and Constraints

• Crosslinguistic Studies

• Individual-Difference Studies

• Conclusion

• The Darwinian Conclusion

• Who's Afraid of Semantic Holism?

• A Developmental Cognitive Science

• Computational and Neurological Mechanisms

• After Piaget

• Sailing in Neurath's Boat

• Notes

• References

• Index