Theory-Theory: Belief is a collection of physical experiences

The argument

Theory-theory is offered here as a materialist answer to the mind-body problem: it explains belief, one of the mental states that seems least physical, entirely in terms of physical events. On this account belief is the result of a collection of physical experiences which, when processed in the brain alongside other cognitive states, produces behaviour in line with those beliefs. Nothing non-physical is required at any stage. Experience arrives through the senses, the brain processes it together with whatever else it is doing, and behaviour follows. What is usually described as holding a belief is that process, not something occurring elsewhere and directing it. Beliefs are therefore causal. They are caused by observed instances and phenomena, and they in turn allow a person to interpret new experiences in the context of their existing framework of belief — a framework which was itself formed through prior experience. There is no point at which the chain leaves the physical world and no starting point outside it: the interpretive apparatus a person brings to anything new is simply the accumulated residue of what they have already encountered. Developmental evidence is offered in support. Andrew Meltzoff uses examples in toddlers to support theory-theory, pointing to toddlers imitating the lip and mouth movements of adults, and to babies using adult behaviour to generate their own motor movement. Both are cases of a physical observation producing a physical response. Meltzoff notes that by 18 months toddlers have experienced enough interaction to begin reading into the behaviour of others and interpreting their actions — an interpretive capacity that appears only after enough physical experience has accumulated to build it. If belief is constructed this way, from experience upward, then it needs no non-physical mind to occur in. On this view belief is a collection of physical experiences, and the mind-body problem is answered by materialism.

Context

Theory-theory attempts to account for the physical causality of beliefs, something widely seen as a purely mental phenomenon.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Altruism Materialism has come under fire for its inability to fully explain altruism. There seems to be no physical explanation for why an individual performs selfless deeds for someone else with no personal benefit. It does not explain why some people are more altruistic than others, or why the same person might in some cases behave in an altruistic way, and in others not. The only explanation for altruism, critics argue, is the presence of unconscious, and unobservable thought. A soul, as Descartes would argue, or at the very least a “thinking thing”. Simulation Theory Theory-theory is often contrasted with simulation theory. Simulation theory argues that we anticipate behaviour in others and interpret other people's actions by employing mental processes to project our own mental states onto others. If I see someone lost and crying, I employ my mental processes to simulate how I would feel in their situation (empathy) and use this simulation to predict their behaviour. In this way, despite never having been in a similar situation myself, I can still predict and interpret the behaviour of someone in that situation. However, simulation theory depends on the existence of purely mental processes to simulate and project my mental states onto those around me. It is therefore incompatible with the materialist argument.

Rejecting the premises

I can feel empathy for someone who has been in a situation I have never been in. Therefore, beliefs and feels are not reducible to my own experiences.