The Connection between Compositional Language and the Theory of other Minds

Abstract In this paper I wish to disambiguate the components of TOM, analyze them, and focus on the single pre-requisite that is commonly said to "systematically aid" TOM, namely, compositional language (Fitch, 2004). I will argue that compositional language is neither necessary nor sufficient for having a theory of other minds, and support this thesis with examples from animals that do not have compositional language, but do exhibit characteristics of TOM, and examples from organisms with compositional language, but do not provide evidence for having a TOM. The paper culminates with a call for further conceptual analysis of TOM, and suggests a promising direction of building layers of attribution of the concept as "sorites" type, admitting of degrees of ascription