Belief and cognitive science: the case for modest integrationism

This study comprises a defence of modest integrationism towards the concept of belief. Modest integrationism holds that the concept of belief should be integrated into cognitive science. I describe the position as ‘modest’ because I accept that the concepts of cognitive science should be constantly refined in light of new empirical evidence, and that these refinements may ultimately result in the fracturing of the concept of belief, rendering it redundant and open to elimination. However, the current state of empirical evidence does not warrant elimination nor is elimination inevitable in the future.

I develop a framework to assess if elimination is appropriate based on whether a concept has scientific utility. I show that the concept of belief that we need to assess is not the multi-use concept that is simply taken from everyday English discourse. Rather, it is a doubly theoretical concept that 1) forms a key part of the core theory underlying our mental understanding abilities and 2) has been abstracted and reconstructed from the complexity of usage of the term ‘belief’ and other belief-like terms. I argue in favour of representationalism, demonstrating that belief possession is based on internal factors, and I reject the recent re-emergence of dispositionalism.

I focus on the case study of a debate within developmental psychology about the nature of infants’ mental understanding abilities. I argue that the concept of belief plays a direct role in theories explaining empirical results, demonstrating that the concept still currently has scientific utility. Finally, I review empirical evidence that shows that proposed fracture lines within the concept of belief are not as clear cut as has been suggested and that infant metarepresentations are not easily categorised into sub-belief states. This suggests that the elimination of the concept of belief in the future is not a foregone conclusion.