Understanding the Developing Mind: Normativity and Psychology

• Applicant: Antonio Scarafone, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 536841140

Around the time they take their first steps, most children communicate effectively by means of pointing and utter their first words. But what is it that infants learn when they acquire a language, and what must they know in advance to communicate so effectively? According to an influential proposal, inspired by philosopher Paul Grice, communication is a matter of intending to get one’s own thoughts recognized by the other. On this view, infants communicate effectively because they can reason about thoughts and intentions, what is called ‘mindreading’. It is often claimed that experiments on infant mindreading have amply vindicated the Gricean view. The opposite camp, inspired by psychologist Lev Vygotsky, holds that children first acquire a language, internalize dialogic interactions, and then become able to reason about thoughts and intentions. The Vygotskyan theorist can explain what the Gricean theorist cannot, namely, how children become able of mindreading. The problem is then to account for infant communication without assuming mindreading. In my previous work, I argued that the Gricean view is incoherent, and that no experiment on infant communication can possibly vindicate it. In this project, I will develop a theory of infant communication to defend the Vygotskyan approach. The central notion is that of commitment, understood as a normative and social relationship. Speech acts and other communicative acts, such as pointing, create commitments. Being normative, commitments are like the rules of a game: they regulate what is allowed, mandatory, or impermissible. As social relationships, they can be in place even if individuals are not aware of them. How can something be regulative without being known? Establishing commitments requires the existence of a practice. Individuals who have some competence in that practice also have dispositions to correct each other. These normative dispositions give commitments their contents and regulative power. On this basis, I will explain how infants regulate their interactions by means of pointing, and how they learn the meaning of words. I will demonstrate the role of infant normative behaviors and suggest ways of studying these behaviors experimentally. Finally, I will show that experiments on infant mindreading do not support the Gricean view, but rather undermine it. The normative import of commitments scaffolds children’s communication and language acquisition, and mindreading is not the lynchpin of this process. These results vindicate Vygotsky’s insight, and disclose new ways of thinking about meaning, communication, and the mind.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants