Making Sense: What It Means to Understand

by David R. Olson

Overview

Understanding, as Descartes, Locke and Kant all insisted, is the primary 'faculty' of the mind; yet our modern sciences have been slow to advance a clear and testable account of what it means to understand, of children's acquisition of this concept and, in particular, how children come to ascribe understanding to themselves and others. By drawing together developmental and philosophical theories, this book provides a systematic account of children's concept of understanding and places understanding at the heart of children's 'theory of mind'. Children's subjective awareness of their own minds, of what they think, depends on learning a language for ascribing mental states to themselves and others. This book will appeal to researchers in developmental psychology, cognitive science, education and philosophy who are interested in the cognitive and emotional development of children and in the more basic question of what it means to have a mind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009073523
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/07/2023
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

David R. Olson is University Professor Emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. He has authored more than 300 articles and 20 books, including The World on Paper (Cambridge, 1994), Psychological Theory and Educational Reform: How School Remakes Mind and Society (Cambridge, 2004) and The Mind on Paper (Cambridge, 2016). His research focuses on children's developing consciousness of their own and others' mental states and on the role that language and literacy play in this development.

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Understanding as feeling and understanding as concept; 3. The linguistic basis of mind- linguistic concepts; 4. Subjective mental states: the feeling of understanding; 5. Objective mental states: the truth of understanding; 6. Intersubjectivity of mental states; 7. Identity conditions for feelings and concepts; 8. What 'understanding' means: ascribing understanding; 9. The referential scope of understanding; 10. Understanding in the theory of mind; 11. Understanding and making sense; 12. Understanding as a learnable skill; 13. Understanding in everyday life; 14. Ascriptivism and cognitive development; References.

Editorial Reviews

'When David R. Olson asked his apparently pre-verbal 1-year-old to get her shoes, she promptly complied - much to his surprise. That incident planted the seed for a deep enquiry. Had she truly understood him? What does it mean to ascribe understanding to such a young child? We also need to consider who is doing the ascribing. Are young children able to ascribe understanding to themselves? And what about animals and computers? Drawing on the contributions of philosophers, linguists, and psychologists, David R. Olson proposes that understanding is a uniquely human capacity, slowly acquired as part of a web of language practices. His book is a provocative and original contribution to the study of children's theory of mind.' Paul Lansley Harris, Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA

From the Publisher