Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-hzqq2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-29T04:56:12.181Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Knowledge is belief – and shaped by culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

Andrea Bender Open the ORCID record for Andrea Bender [Opens in a new window]  and
John B. Gatewood
Andrea Bender
Affiliation:
Department of Psychosocial Science & SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE), University of Bergen, N-5020 Bergen, Norway andrea.bender@uib.no; https://www.uib.no/en/persons/Andrea.Bender
John B. Gatewood
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015-3169, USA. jbg1@lehigh.edu; https://socanthro.cas.lehigh.edu/content/john-b-gatewood
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Phillips and colleagues claim that the representation of knowledge is more basic than the representation of belief, presupposing them to be categorically distinct mental states with distinct evolutionary purposes. We argue that the relationship between the two is much more complex, is further shaped by culture and language, and leaves its mark on manifestations of theory of mind and teaching.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e143
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2004). Evidentiality. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, A. Y., & Dixon, R. M. W. (Eds.) (2014). The grammar of knowledge: A cross-linguistic typology. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bender, A. (2019). The distinct roles of theory of mind and shared intentionality for the emergence of culture. Current Anthropology, 60, 182–183.Google Scholar
Bender, A. (2020a). The role of culture and evolution for human cognition. Topics in Cognitive Science, 12, 1403–1420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bender, A. (2020b). What early sapience cognition can teach us: Untangling cultural influences on human cognition across time. Frontiers in Psychology, 11(99), 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bender, A., & Beller, S. (2019). The cultural fabric of human causal cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14, 922–940.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chafe, W. L., & Nichols, J. (Eds.) (1986). Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. Ablex Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Gatewood, J. B. (2011). Personal knowledge and collective representations. In Kronenfeld, D., Bennardo, G., de Munck, V. & Fischer, M. (Eds.), A companion to cognitive anthropology (pp. 102–114). Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gatewood, J. B. (2012). Cultural models, consensus analysis, and the social organization of knowledge. Topics in Cognitive Science, 4(3), 362–371.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Legare, C. H., & Nielsen, M. (2015). Imitation and innovation: The dual engines of cultural learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19, 688–699.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lillard, A. (1998). Ethnopsychologies: Cultural variations in theories of mind. Psychological Bulletin, 123, 3–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luhrmann, T. (2011). Toward an anthropological theory of mind (overview). Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 36, 5–69.Google Scholar
Mayer, A., & Träuble, B. E. (2013). Synchrony in the onset of mental state understanding across cultures? A study among children in Samoa. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 37, 21–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, A., & Träuble, B. E. (2015). The weird world of cross-cultural false-belief research: A true-and false-belief study among Samoan children based on commands. Journal of Cognition and Development, 16, 650–665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Robbins, J., & Rumsey, A. (2008). Introduction: Cultural and linguistic anthropology and the opacity of other minds. Anthropological Quarterly, 81, 407–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tennie, C., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Ratcheting up the ratchet: On the evolution of cumulative culture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364, 2405–2415.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Träuble, B., Bender, A., & Konieczny, C. (2013). Human social cognition – the theory of mind research. In Wassmann, J., Träuble, B. & Funke, J. (Eds.), Theory of mind in the pacific: Reasoning across cultures (pp. 13–37). Universitätsverlag Winter.Google Scholar
Vinden, P. G. (1996). Junín Quechua children's understanding of mind. Child Development, 67, 1707–1716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar