Belief and Counterfactuality: A teleological theory of belief attribution

The development and relation of counterfactual reasoning and false belief understanding were examined in 3- to 7-year-old children (N=75) and adult controls (N=14). The key question was whether false belief understanding engages counterfactual reasoning to infer what somebody else falsely believes. Findings revealed a strong correlation between false belief and counterfactual questions even in conditions in which children could commit errors other than the reality bias (rp=.51). The data suggest that mastery of belief attribution and counterfactual reasoning is not limited to one point in development but rather develops over a longer period. Moreover, the rare occurrence of reality errors calls into question whether young children's errors in the classic false belief task are indeed the result of a failure to inhibit what they know to be actually the case. The data speak in favour of a teleological theory of belief attribution and challenges established theories of belief attribution

Basic Conditional Reasoning: How Children Mimic Counterfactual Reasoning

Children approach counterfactual questions about stories with a reasoning strategy that falls short of adults’ Counterfactual Reasoning (CFR). It was dubbed “Basic Conditional Reasoning” (BCR) in Rafetseder et al. (Child Dev 81(1):376–389, 2010). In this paper we provide a characterisation of the differences between BCR and CFR using a distinction between permanent and nonpermanent features of stories and Lewis/Stalnaker counterfactual logic. The critical difference pertains to how consistency between a story and a conditional antecedent incompatible with a nonpermanent feature of the story is achieved. Basic conditional reasoners simply drop all nonpermanent features of the story. Counterfactual reasoners preserve as much of the story as possible while accommodating the antecedent

Das Stadtgesetzfragment von Vindobona

Ein im Jahre 1913 bei Bauarbeiten im Bereich des ehemaligen Legionslagers Vindobona gefundenes Fragment einer römischen Bronzetafel mit rechtlichem Inhalt konnte nun durch Abgleich mit dem Text der in Spanien gefundenen flavischen Munizipalgesetze als römisches Stadtgesetz identifiziert werden. Der Artikel beschäftigt sich einerseits mit möglichen Lesungen und Rekonstruktionsvorschlägen als auch mit dem municipium Vindobonense, dessen Existenz nun als einigermaßen gesichert gelten darf.In 1913 a small fragment of a Roman bronze tablet only containing a few words was discovered in the course of construction works, which took place in the area of the former legionary fortress Vindobona. Through comparing those words with texts of the Flavian municipal laws found in Spain at the end of last century, it was possible to identify the fragment as a municipal charter of an autonomous Roman community. On the one hand this article attempts to reconstruct possible meanings of the fragmentary text, on the other hand it provides evidence of the existence of the municipium Vindobonense

Young children’s protest: what it can (not) tell us about early normative understanding

In this paper we address the question how children come to understand normativity through simple forms of social interaction. A recent line of research suggests that even very young children can understand social norms quite independently of any moral context. We focus on a methodological procedure developed by Rakoczy et al., Developmental Psychology, 44, 875-881, that measures children's protest behaviour when a pre-established constitutive rule has been violated. Children seem to protest when they realize that rule violations are not allowed or should not have happened. We point out that there is more than one possible explanation for children's reactions in these studies. They could be due to disobeying an authority, an inability to follow a rule, or the violation of an empirical expectation due to the mismatch between statement and action. We thus question whether it would still count as an indicator for normative understanding if children responded to aspects of the game other than the violation of a constitutive rule and conclude that the protesting behavior, when taken in isolation, does not suffice as evidence for normative understanding

Counterfactual Reasoning: Sharpening Conceptual Distinctions in Developmental Studies

ABSTRACT-Counterfactual reasoning (CFR)-mentally representing what the world would be like now if things had been different in the past-is an important aspect of human cognition and the focus of research in areas such as philosophy, social psychology, and clinical psychology. More recently, it has also gained broad interest in cognitive developmental psychology, mainly focusing on the question of how this kind of reasoning can be characterized. Studies have been inconsistent in identifying when children can use CFR. In this article, we present theoretical positions that may account for this inconsistency and evaluate them in the light of research on counterfactual emotions

Laying foundations for a “Right to Improve”

In this work, we introduce the vision of a “Right to Improve”: a hypothetical future law which should entitle consumers to modify and extend Internet of Things devices during the productive lifetime. Current European Union legislation as well as voluntary manufacturer interoperability initiatives fail to address user desires for adaptability, augmentability, and open-ended repurpoposing of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. We therefore argue in this paper for a Right to Improve that aims to fill the gaps left by today’s laws, conforms to consumer demands, and is powerful enough (by its statutory nature) to cause actual change. Our contribution is twofold. First, we summarize the relevant legislation (Ecodesign Directive, Sale of Goods Directive, and Right to Repair). We review the academic literature, and highlight technical and motivational factors that support a Right to Improve. Second, we suggest and discuss a number of open problems in need of consideration by academics, practitioners, companies, governing bodies, and the general public. A future formulation of the Right to Improve should take into account and balance the various contrasting views for efficacy on different levels, e.g., environmental benefit vs. economic risk. Change enabled by a Right to Improve may greatly enhance the usefulness of devices during their use phase, empowers consumers to create and compose devices and services to their own taste and requirements, makes devices more economically and ecologically sustainable by extending their useful lifetime, and creates new business opportunities

Extended difficulties with counterfactuals persist in reasoning with false beliefs: Evidence for Teleology-in-Perspective

Increasing evidence suggests that counterfactual reasoning is involved in false belief reasoning. Because existing work is correlational we developed a manipulation that revealed a signature of counterfactual reasoning in participants’ answers to false belief questions. In two experiments we tested 3- to 14-year-olds and found high positive correlations (r = .56 and r = .73) between counterfactual and false belief questions. Children were very likely to respond to both questions with the same answer, also committing the same type of error. We discuss different theories and their ability to account for each aspect of our findings and conclude that reasoning about others’ beliefs and actions requires similar cognitive processes as using counterfactual suppositions. Our findings question the explanatory power of the traditional frameworks, theory theory and simulation theory, in favour of views that explicitly provide for a relationship between false belief reasoning and counterfactual reasoning