Waubonsee Community College

The philosophical baby, what children's minds tell us about truth, love, and the meaning of life, Alison Gopnik

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. [357]-272) and index

index present

non fiction

The philosophical baby

bibliography

263984935

Alison Gopnik

what children's minds tell us about truth, love, and the meaning of life

A revelatory examination of how babies and young children think draws on new scientific understandings to identify links between key behaviors and subsequent abilities, explaining how the latest findings offer profound insight into the nature of being human

Introduction -- How children change the world -- How childhood changes the world -- A Road map -- 1. Possible worlds : why do children pretend? -- The power of counterfactuals -- Counterfactuals in children : planning the future -- Reconstructing the past -- Imagining the possible -- Imagination and causation -- Children and causation -- Causes and possibilities -- Maps and blueprints -- Causal maps -- Detecting blickets -- 2. Imaginary companions : how does fiction tell the truth? -- Dunzer and Charlie Ravioli -- Normal weirdness -- Making a map of the mind -- Imaginary companions and psychological knowledge -- Autism, causation, and imagination -- Maps and fictions -- Why minds and things are different -- Soul engineers -- The work of play -- 3. Escaping Plato's cave : how children, scientists, and computers discover the truth -- Observation : baby statistics -- Experimentation : making things happen -- Demonstration : watching mom's experiments -- Understanding minds -- 4. What is it like to be a baby? Consciousness and attention -- External attention -- Internal attention -- Baby attention -- Young children and attention -- What is it like to be a baby? -- Travel and meditation -- 5. Who am I? Memory, self, and the babbling stream -- Consciousness and memory -- Children and memory -- Knowing how you know -- Constructing myself -- Children and the future -- The stream of consciousness -- Living in the moment -- Internal consciousness, free association, hypnagogic thought, and insight meditation -- Why does consciousness change? -- A map of myself : constructing consciousness -- 6. Heraclitus' River and the Romanian orphans : how does our early life shape our later life? -- Life cycles -- The paradox of inheritance -- How babies raise their parents -- 7. Learning to love : attachment and identity -- Theories of love -- Beyond mothers : social monogamy and allomothering -- Life's weather -- The child inside -- 8. Love and law : the origins of morality -- Imitation and empathy -- Anger and vengeance -- Beyond empathy -- Psychopaths -- Trolleyology -- Not like me -- Widening the circle -- Following the rules -- Baby rules -- Doing it on purpose -- Rules as causes -- The perils of rules -- The wisdom of Huck Finn -- 9. Babies and the meaning of life -- Awe -- Magic -- Love -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index