A Serpent's Guide to Children's `Theories of Mind'

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Abstract
This paper examines the grounding assumptions of the idea that young children have `theories of mind'. Focusing on Leslie's (1987) account, I point out that the `theory of mind' (TOM) approach to the child's mental life is empirically untestable because it must assume without evidence that children `tell the difference' between appearance and reality when dealing with others. This assumption is not only implausible on logical grounds. It also denies the prevalence of fantasy in mental life. From this critique I argue that TOM epitomizes the failure of the dominant form of writing on development in psychology-a Romantic form of writing, based on what I call the `psychological sublime' pioneered by Charles Darwin, which suppresses its own imaginative dimension in circumventing the difficulty of understanding others. I conclude that TOM's limitations are less logical than moral and aesthetic, defining the need for both a poetic and a practical transformation of developmental psychology.

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