Wikipedia versus Encyclopedia Britannica

The purpose of this page is to take 10 random articles from Wikipedia that have exactly equivalent articles in Encyclopedia Brittanica, and compare their contents (as extracted from June 3 through June 5, 2008), in a way that is more scientifically authentic than the "rigged" Nature news study.

Those interested in engaging in discussion about these extracted articles are welcome to contribute to our Talk page.

Random articles not matched

1. Arkadiusz Onyszko - not found in EB.
2. Rocketeer (comics) - "Rocketeer" not found in EB.
3. Hinduism in Hungary - not found in EB.
4. Bureau of Information and Propaganda - not found in EB, but returned article on "Cominform".
5. The National Museum of Computing - not found in EB.
6. Ripley's Believe It or Not! - not found in EB, but there is "Robert LeRoy Ripley".
7. Hellenic Quest - not found in EB.
8. World Fantasy Convention - not found in EB.
9. Johann Peter Gogarten - not found in EB.
10. WNCN - not found in EB.
11. Ward 21 - not found in EB.
12. Madan Lal Khurana - not found in EB.
13. Noble polyhedron - not found in EB.
14. Keles - not found in EB.
15. 1958 Chicago Bears season - not found in EB.
16. Paul Siefert - not found in EB.
17. Numéro (band) - not found in EB.
18. Ford T platform - not found in EB.
19. Coupe de France 1996-97 - not found in EB.
20. Hyloscirtus sarampiona - not found in EB.
21. Tokachi Subprefecture - not found in EB.
22. Lawrence Daws - not found in EB.
23. Washington State Route 505 - not found in EB.
24. James N. Rosenau - not found in EB.
25. Askvoll - not found in EB.
26. Waking Life OST - not found in EB.
27. Hira - not found in EB.
28. Timeline of the 2005 Pacific hurricane season - not found in EB.
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Caledonia

Encyclopedia Britannica version

Caledonia: historical area of north Britain beyond Roman control, roughly corresponding to modern Scotland. It was inhabited by the tribe of Caledones (Calidones). The Romans first invaded the district under Agricola about AD 80 and later won a decisive battle at Mons Graupius. They established a legionary fortress at Inchtuthil (near Dunkeld, in Perth and Kinross district, Tayside region) as well as several auxiliary forts in strategic highland passes. But they were forced to evacuate Inchtuthil and all the sites north of the Earn River about AD 90 and all of Scotland during the rule of Trajan (AD 98–117).

Although the frontier between Roman territory and Caledonia was fixed south of the Cheviot Hills by the emperor Hadrian, the Romans subsequently pushed the frontier northward again to the Firth of Forth, building the Antonine Wall by about 144 to guard the new border. They retreated a decade later but reoccupied the wall temporarily later in the 2nd century and made temporary military occupations of regions farther to the north in 209 and 296. Excavations of the area have revealed native crannogs (lake dwellings) and weems (underground stone houses) containing Roman objects of trade.

Wikipedia version

This article is about Caledonia as a name for northern Britain. For other uses, see Caledonia (disambiguation)

Template:Wikisource1911Enc
Caledonia is the Latin name given by the Roman Empire to a northern area of the island of Great Britain. The use of the name sometimes refers specifically to the area north of the Antonine Wall. The name represents that of a Pictish tribe, the 'Caledonii', one amongst several in the region, though perhaps the dominant tribe. Their name can be found in 'Dùn Chailleann', the Scottish Gaelic word for the town of Dunkeld, and Sidh Chailleann or Schiehallion, "Fairy [hill] of the Caledonians".

The modern use of 'Caledonia' in English and Scots is as a romantic or poetic name for Scotland. 'Scotland' itself is derived from Scotia, the Latin term for Ireland, from which the Scoti peoples originated before resettling in northern Great Britain.

See also

• Hadrian's Wall
• Mons Graupius

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Claude Chabrol

Encyclopedia Britannica version

Claude Chabrol: born June 24, 1930, Paris, France (photo) Claude Chabrol, 1968. Keystone motion-picture director, scenarist, and producer who was France's master of the mystery thriller.

After attending the School of Political Science at the University of Paris, he was a critic and public relations man for Twentieth Century-Fox's French office. Le Beau Serge (1958; “Handsome Serge”; Bitter Reunion), written and produced by Chabrol, was an important film of the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague), a term applied in the late 1950s to a widely diversified experimental movement in French films. That same year he wrote, directed, and produced Les Cousins (1958; The Cousins) and later directed such pictures as Les Bonnes Femmes (1960; “The Good Women”), Landru (1962; Bluebeard), Les Biches (1968; The Does), and Le Boucher (1969; The Butcher).

As the New Wave receded, Chabrol maintained a prodigious output, creating such works as Violette Nozière (1978; Violette), Le Cheval d'orgueil (1979; The Horse of Pride), Blood Relatives (1981), Poulet au vinaigre (1985; “Chicken in Vinegar”), Une Affaire de femmes (1988; Story of Women), and an adaptation (1991) of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. His critical successes at the turn of the century include La Cérémonie (1995; A Judgement in Stone), Merci pour le chocolat (2000; Nightcap), and La Fleur de mal (2003; The Flower of Evil).

Chabrol's fascination with the grotesque, his use of the irony of situation, and his commingling of tragedy and comedy reflect the strong stylistic influence of the English director Alfred Hitchcock. He was coauthor of a biography of Hitchcock in 1957.

Wikipedia version

Claude Chabrol (Template:Pronounced in French) (born June 24, 1930, Paris) is a French film director and has become well-known since his first film, Le Beau Serge (1958) for his chilling tales of murder, including Le Boucher (1970). He is credited with starting the nouvelle vague French film movement.

He was a member of the French New Wave cinema group. Chabrol and Éric Rohmer wrote Hitchcock (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1957) a study of the films made by director Alfred Hitchcock through the film The Wrong Man (1957).

He divorced Agnès, his first wife, to marry the actress Stéphane Audran, with whom he had a son, actor Thomas Chabrol. His third wife is Aurore Paquiss.

Filmography

• Le Beau Serge (1958) (Prix Jean Vigo)
• Les Cousins (1959)
• À double tour (1959)
• Les Bonnes Femmes (1960)
• Les Godelureaux (1961)
• Les sept Péchés capitaux (sketch) (1962)
• L'Œil du Malin (1962)
• Ophelia (1963)
• Bluebeard (1963)
• Les plus belles escroqueries du monde (sketch) (1964)
• Le Tigre aime la chair fraiche (1964)
• Paris vu par... (sketch) (1965)
• Marie-Chantal contre docteur Kha (1965)
• Le Tigre se parfume à la dynamite (1965)
• La Ligne de démarcation (1966)
• Le Scandale (1967)
• La Route de Corinthe (1967)
• Les Biches (1968)
• La Femme infidèle (1969)
• Que la bête meure (1969)
• Le Boucher (1970)
• La Rupture (1970)
• La Décade prodigieuse (1971) (based on Ten Days Wonder by Ellery Queen)
• Docteur Popaul (1972)
• Les Noces rouges (1973)
• Nada (1974)
• Une Partie de plaisir (1975)
• Les Innocents aux mains sales (1975)
• Les Magiciens (1976)
• Folies bourgeoises (1976)
• Alice ou la Dernière Fugue (1977)
• Les Liens de sang (1978)
• Violette Nozière (1978)
• Le Cheval d'orgueil (1980)
• Les Fantômes du chapelier (1982)
• Le Sang des autres (1984)
• Poulet au vinaigre (1985)
• Inspecteur Lavardin (1986)
• Masques (1987)
• Le Cri du hibou (1988, from a novel by Patricia Highsmith)
• Une Affaire de femmes (1989)
• Jours tranquilles à Clichy (1990)
• Docteur M (1990)
• Madame Bovary (1991)
• Betty (1992)
• L'Œil de Vichy (1993)
• L'Enfer (1994)
• La Cérémonie (1995)
• Rien ne va plus (1997)
• Merci pour le chocolat (2000), prix Louis-Delluc
• La fleur du mal (2002)
• La Demoiselle d'honneur (2004)
• L'ivresse du pouvoir (2006)
• La fille coupée en deux (2007)

Actor

• 1986 : Je hais les acteurs by Gérard Krawczyk
• 1987 : L'Été en pente douce by Gérard Krawczyk

External links

• Template:Imdb name
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Breathless 7: a Berlinale diary Chabrol's Comedy of Power at signandsight.com
• They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
• Claude Chabrol Bibliography (via UC Berkeley
• Interview with Chabrol on La Cérémonie
• Roger Ebert interviews Chabrol in 1971
• Surfer on the New Wave - Interview with Chabrol from 2001

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Jodo Shinshu (Pure Land Buddhism, on Britannica)

Encyclopedia Britannica version

Chinese (Wade–Giles romanization) Ch'ing-t'u, Pinyin Qingtu, Japanese Jodo, devotional cult of the Buddha Amitabha (“the Buddha of Infinite Light”). Known in China as O-mi-t'o-fo and in Japan as Amida, it is one of the most popular forms of Mahayana Buddhism in eastern Asia today. Pure Land schools believe that rebirth in Amitabha's Western Paradise, Sukhavati (known as the Pure Land, or Pure Realm), is ensured all those who invoke Amitabha's name with sincere devotion (nembutsu, referring to the Japanese formula of invocation, namu Amida Butsu).

The Pure Land belief is based on three Sanskrit scriptures, the Amitayus-vipasyana-sutra (“Discourse Concerning Meditation on Amitayus”) and the “larger” and “smaller” Pure Land sutras (Sukhavati-vyuha-sutras [“Description of the Western Paradise Sutras”]). These texts relate the story of the monk Dharmakara, the future Amitayus, or Amitabha, who made a series of vows that were meant to be fulfilled with the certainty of natural law when he became a buddha. The most important of these, the 18th, promised rebirth in the Pure Land to all the faithful who called upon his name, who would then remain in that beautiful land, free from pain and want, until they were ready for final Enlightenment.

In the larger Pure Land sutra, Buddha tells the story of Amitabha: many eons ago, as a monk, he learned from the 81st Buddha about the glories of innumerable Buddha Lands, whereupon he vowed to create his own Buddha Land (which he is now doing), making it 81 times more excellent than all the others and drawing into it all creatures who invoked his name. According to this sutra, in addition to calling upon Amitabha, one needs to accumulate merit and concentrate on Enlightenment. In the later, smaller Pure Land sutra, however, the Blessed Land is not a reward for good works but is accessible to anyone who invokes Amitabha at the hour of death.

In China the beginnings of the Pure Land cult can be traced back as far as the 4th century, when the scholar Hui-yüan formed a society of monks and laymen who meditated on the name of Amitabha. T'an-luan and his successors Tao-ch'o and Shan-tao systematized and spread the doctrine in the 6th and 7th centuries and are recognized as the first patriarchs of the school. In art, new emphasis was given representation of Amitabha, together with his attendant bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and Mahasthamaprapta. It has survived as an independent sect in China and has had its beliefs accepted by many members of other Buddhist sects in that country.

The Pure Land teaching was transmitted to Japan by monks of the Tendai school but by the 12th–13th century had separated as a distinct sect, mainly through the efforts of the priest Honen, founder of the Japanese Pure Land sect. Honen believed that most men were, like himself, incapable of obtaining buddhahood on this earth through their own efforts (such as learning, good deeds, or meditation) but were dependent on Amida's help. Honen stressed the recitation of nembutsu as the one act necessary to gain admittance to the Pure Land.

Honen's disciple Shinran is regarded as the founder of the Shin, or True, sect, the largest of the Pure Land groups. According to the Shin school, faith alone is sufficient. Mere recitation of the name of Amida (as practiced by the Jodo school) is still indicative of a certain reliance on self-effort, just as are other forms of works such as doctrinal studies, austerities, meditations, and rituals. Shin interprets the continued repetition of the name as an expression of gratitude for the salvation that is assured from the very moment faith is first expressed. The school insists on exclusive devotion to Amida; the other Buddhist deities are not worshiped. The Shin sect has abandoned monastic practice, contrary to the usual Buddhist tradition.

The Jodo sect itself split up into five branches of which two are still in existence—the Chinzei, the larger of the two and often referred to simply as Jodo, and the Seizan. The Ji, or Time, sect was another variant; its name derived from the sect's rule of reciting the hymns of Shan-tao (Japanese: Zendo) six times a day.

Wikipedia version

Jōdo Shinshū|浄土真宗|"True Pure Land School", also known as Shin Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism. It was founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran Shonin. Today, Shin Buddhism is considered the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan.

History

Shinran (Founder)

Shinran (1173-1263) lived during the late-Heian early-Kamakura period (1185-1333), a time of turmoil for Japan when the Emperor was stripped of political power by the Shoguns. Shinran's family had a high rank at the Imperial court in Kyoto, but given the times many aristocratic families were sending sons off to be Buddhist monks instead of having them participate in the Imperial government. When Shinran was nine (1181) he was sent by his uncle to Mt. Hiei, where he was ordained as a Tendai monk. Over time Shinran became disillusioned with what Buddhism in Japan had become, foreseeing a decline in the potency and practicality of the teachings espoused.

Shinran left his role as a low-ranking doso ("Practice-Hall Monk") at Mt. Hiei and undertook a 100-day retreat at Rokkakudo temple in Kyoto, where he had a dream on the 95th day. In this dream Prince Shotoku (in Japan he is sometimes regarded as an incarnation of Kannon Bosatsu) appeared to him, espousing a pathway to enlightenment through verse. Following the retreat, in 1201, Shinran left Mt. Hiei to study under Hōnen for the next six years. Hōnen (1133-1212) another ex-Tendai monk, left the tradition in 1175 to found his own sect, Jodo Shu ("Pure Land School"). From that time on, Shinran considered himself, even after exile, a devout disciple of Hōnen rather than a founder establishing his own, distinct Pure Land school.

During this period, Hōnen taught the new nembutsu-only practice to many people in Kyoto society and amassed a substantial following, but also increasingly came under criticism by the Buddhist establishment in Kyoto. Among the strongest critics was the monk, Myoe, and the temples of Enryakuji and Kofukuji. The latter continued to criticize Hōnen and his followers, even after they pledged to behave with good conduct, and to not slander other Buddhist .

In 1207, Hōnen's critics at Kofukuji persuaded Emperor Gotoba to proscribe Hōnen and his teachings after two of his ladies-in-waiting converted to the new faith. Hōnen and his followers, among them Shinran, were forced into exile, and four of Hōnen's disciples were executed. Shinran was given a lay name, Yoshizane Fujii by the authorities but called himself Gutoku ("Stubble-headed One") instead and moved to Echigo province (today Niigata Prefecture).

It was during this exile that Shinran cultivated a deeper understanding of his own beliefs, the Pure Land teachings of Hōnen. In 1210 he married Eshinni, the daughter of an aristocrat of Echigo Province. Shinran and Eshinni had several children. His eldest son, Zenran, was alleged to have started a heretical sect of Pure Land Buddhism through claims that he received special teachings from his father. Zenran demanded control of local monto (lay follower groups), but after writing a stern letter of warning, Shinran disowned him in 1256, effectively ending Zenran's legitimacy.

In 1211 the nembutsu ban was lifted and Shinran was pardoned, but by 1212 Hōnen had died in Kyoto. Shinran never saw Hōnen following their exile. In the year of Hōnen's death, Shinran set out for the Kantō area of Japan, where he established a substantial following and began committing his ideas to writing. In 1224 he wrote his most significant book, the Kyogyoshinsho ("The True Teaching, Practice, Faith and Attainment of the Pure Land"), which contained excerpts from the Three Pure Land sutras and the Nirvana Sutra along with his own commentaries and the writings of the Jodo Shinshu Patriarchs whom Shinran drew inspiration from.

In 1234, at the age of sixty, Shinran left Kantō for Kyoto (Eshinni stayed in Echigo and she may have outlived Shinran by several years), where he dedicated the rest of his years to writing. It was during this time he wrote the Wasan, a collection of verses summarizing his teachings for his followers to recite. Shinran's daughter, Kakushinni, came to Kyoto with Shinran, and cared for him in his final years and his mausoleum later became Hongwanji ('The Temple of the Original Vow'). Kakushinni was instrumental in preserving Shinran's teachings after his death, and the letters she received and saved from her mother, Eshinni, provide critical biographical information regarding Shinran's earlier life. These letters are currently preserved in the Nishi Hongwanji temple in Kyoto. Shinran died at the age of 90 in 1263.

Revival and Formalization

Following Shinran's death, the lay Shin monto slowly spread through the Kantō and the northeastern seaboard. Shinran's descendents maintained themselves as caretakers of Shinran's gravesite and as Shin teachers, although they continued to be ordained in the Tendai School. Some of Shinran's disciples founded their own schools of Shin Buddhism, such as the Bukko-ji and Kosho-ji, in Kyoto. Early Shin Buddhism did not truly flourish until the time of Rennyo (1415-1499), who was 8th in descent from Shinran Shonin. Through his charisma and prostelytizing, Shin Buddhism was able to amass a greater following and grow in strength. In the 16th-century, during Japan's Sengoku Period the political power of Hongwanji led to several conflicts between the Hongwanji and the warlord Oda Nobunaga, culminating in a 10-year conflict over the location of the Osaka Hongwanji, which Oda Nobunaga coveted because of its strategic value. So strong did the sect become that in 1602, through mandate of the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, the main temple Hongwanji in Kyoto was broken off into two sects to curb the Hongwanji's power. These two sects, the Nishi (Western) Hongwanji, and the Higashi (Eastern) Hongwanji, exist separate to this day.

During the time of Shinran Shonin, followers would gather in informal meeting houses called dojo, and had an informal liturgical structure. However, as time went on, as this lack of cohesion and structure caused Jodo Shinshu to gradually lose its identity as a distinct sect, as people began mixing other Buddhist practices with Shin ritual. One common example was the Mantra of Light popularized by Myoe and Shingon Buddhism. Other Pure Land Buddhist practices, such as the nembutsu odori or "dancing nembutsu" as practiced by the followers of Ippen and the Ji School, may have also been adopted by early Shin Buddhists. Rennyo ended these practices by formalizing much of the Jodo Shinshu ritual and liturgy, and revived the thinning community at the Hongwanji temple while asserting newfound political power. Rennyo also prosleytized widely among other Pure Land sects, and consolidated most of the smaller Shin sects. Today, there are still 10 distinct sects of Jodo Shinshu, Nishi and Higashi Hongwanji being the two largest.

Rennyo Shonin is generally credited by Shin Buddhists for reversing the stagnation of the early Jodo Shinshu community, and is considered the "Second Founder" of Jodo Shinshu. His portrait picture, along with Shinran Shonin's, are present on the onaijin (altar area) of most Jodo Shinshu temples. However, Rennyo Shonin has also been criticized by some Shin scholars for his engagement in medieval politics and his alleged divergences from Shinran's original thought.

Following the unification of Japan during the Edo Period, Jodo Shinshu Buddhism adapted, along with the other Japanese Buddhist schools, into providing memorial and funeral services for its registered members (danka seido), which was legally required by the Tokugawa shogunate in order to prevent the spread of Christianity in Japan. The danka seido system continues to exist today, although not as strictly as in the premodern period, causing Japanese Buddhism to also be labeled as "Funeral Buddhism" since it became the primary function of Buddhist temples. The Hongwanji also created an impressive academic tradition, which led to the founding of Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan, and formalized many of the Jodo Shinshu traditions which are still followed today. Following the Meiji Restoration and the subsequent persecution of Buddhism (haibutsu kishaku) of the late 1800s due to a revived nationalism and modernization, Jodo Shinshu managed to survive intact due to the devotion of its monto. During World War II, the Hongwanji, as with the other Japanese Buddhist schools, was compelled to support the policies of the military government and the cult of State Shinto. It subsequently apologized for its wartime actionsTemplate:Fact.

In contemporary times, Jodo Shinshu is one of the most widely followed forms of Buddhism in Japan, although like other Japanese Buddhism it faces challenges from many popular New Religious Movements (known in Japan as shin shinkyo religions, which emerged following World War II), and the growing secularization and materialism of Japanese society

All ten schools of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism will commemorate the 750th memorial of their founder, Shinran Shonin, in 2011 in Kyoto, Japan.

Doctrine/Beliefs

Shinran's thought was strongly influenced by the doctrine of Mappō, a largely Mahayana eschatology which claims humanity's ability to listen to and practice the Buddha-Dharma (the Buddhist teachings) deteriorates over time and loses effectiveness in bringing individual practitioners closer to Buddhahood. This belief was particularly widespread in early medieval China, and in Japan at the end of the Heian Period. Shinran, like his mentor Hōnen, saw the age he was living in as being a degenerate one where beings cannot hope to be able to extricate themselves from the cycle of birth and death through their own power, or jiriki (自力). For both Hōnen and Shinran, all conscious efforts towards achieving enlightenment and realizing the Bodhisattva ideal were contrived and rooted in selfish ignorance; for humans of this age are so deeply rooted in karmic evil as to be incapable of developing the truly altruistic compassion that is requisite to becoming a Bodhisattva.

Due to his awareness of human limitations, Shinran advocates reliance on tariki, or other power (他力) -- the power of Amida Buddha's made manifest in Amida Buddha's Primal Vow -- in order to attain liberation. Shin Buddhism can therefore be understood as a "practiceless practice," for there are no specific acts to be performed such as there are in the "Path of Sages" (the other Buddhist schools of the time that advocated 'jiriki' ('self-power'). In Shinran's own words, Shin Buddhism is considered the "Easy Path" because one is not compelled to perform many difficult, and often esoteric, practices in order to attain higher and higher mental states.

The basis for Shinran's thought comes from his mentor, Hōnen, who founded the related Jodo Shu sect, but in some ways Shinran diverged. For example Hōnen, like many medieval Japanese, considered Amida Buddha to be a Samboghakaya Buddha, while Shinran considered Amida to be the Dharmakaya itself, manifested as compassion.

The Nembutsu

Like other Pure Land Buddhist schools, Amida is a central focus of the Buddhist practice, and Jodo Shinshu expresses this devotion through a chanting practice called the nembutsu, or "Mindfulness of the Buddha [Amida]. The nembutsu is simply reciting the phrase Namu Amida Butsu ("I take refuge in Amida Buddha"). Jodo Shinshu is not the first school of Buddhism to practice the nembutsu but it is interpreted in a new way according to Shinran Shonin. The nembutsu becomes understood as an act that expresses gratitude to Amida Buddha -- furthermore, it is evoked in the practitioner through the power of Amida's unobstructed compassion. Therefore in Shin Buddhism, the nembutsu is not considered a practice, nor does it generate karmic merit. It is simply an affirmation of one's gratitude.

Note that this is in contrast to the related Jodo Shu school which promoted a combination of repetition of the nembutsu and devotion to Amida as a means to birth in the Pure Land. It also contrasts with other Buddhist schools in China and Japan, where the nembutsu was part of a more elaborate ritual.

The Pure Land

In another departure from more traditional Pure Land schools of Buddhism, Shinran Shonin advocated that birth in the Pure Land was settled in the midst of life rather than at death. When one entrusts oneselves to Amida Buddha birth there is settled at that moment. This is equivalent to the stage of non-retrogression along the bodhisattva path, a characteristic of Mahayana Buddhism, or shinjin.

Many Pure Land Buddhist schools in the time of Shinran felt that birth in the Pure Land was a literal rebirth that occurred only upon death, and only after certain preliminary rituals. Elaborate rituals were used to guaranteed rebirth in the Pure Land, including a common practice where one's fingers were tied by strings to a painting or image of Amida Buddha. From the perspective of Jodo Shinshu such rituals actually betrayed a lack of trust in Amida Buddha, and relied on jiriki ("self-power"), rather than the tariki or "other-power" of Amida Buddha. Such rituals also favored those who could afford the time and energy to practice them or possess the necessary ritual objects, which was another obstacle for lower-class individuals. For Shinran Shonin, who closely followed the thought of the Chinese monk T'an-Luan, the Pure Land is synonymous with nirvana.

True Entrusting

The goal of the Shin path, or at least the practicer's present life, is the attainment of shinjin (信心 True Entrusting) in the Other Power of Amida. Shinjin is sometimes translated as faith but more accurately this word is translated as "True Entrusting" or simply left untranslated. To achieve shinjin is to unite one's mind with Amida through the total renunciation of self effort in attaining enlightenment; to take refuge entirely in Other Power. Shinjin arises from jinen (自然 naturalness, spontaneous working of the Vow) and cannot be achieved solely through conscious effort. One is letting go of conscious effort in a sense, and simply trusting Amida Buddha, and the nembutsu.

For Jodo Shinshu practitioners, shinjin develops over time through "deep hearing" of Amida's call of the nembutsu. Jinen also describes the way of naturalness whereby Amida's infinite light illumines and transforms the deeply rooted karmic evil of countless rebirths into good karma. It is of note that such evil karma is not destroyed but rather transformed: Shin stays within the Mahayana tradition's understanding of sunyata, or non-duality / emptiness, and understands that samsara and Nirvana are not separate. Once the practicer's mind is united with Amida and Buddha nature gifted to the practicer through shinjin, the practicer attains the state of non-retrogression, whereupon after his death it is claimed he will achieve instantaneous and effortless enlightenment. He will then return to the world as a Bodhisattva, that he may work towards the salvation of all beings.

The Tannisho

The Tannisho is a 13th century book of recorded sayings attributed to Shinran, transcribed with commentary by Yuien-bo. a disciple of Shinran. The word Tannisho is a phrase which means "A record [of the words of Shinran] set down in lamentation over departures from his [Shinran's] teaching". While it is a short text, it is one of the most popular because practitioners see Shinran in a more informal setting.

For centuries, the text was almost unknown to the majority of Shin Buddhists. In the 15th century Rennyo Shonin, Shinran's descendent, wrote of it, "This writing is an important one in our tradition. It should not be indiscriminately shown to anyone who lacks the past karmic good". Rennyo Shonin's personal copy of the Tannisho is the earliest extant copy. Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1903) revitalized interest in the Tannisho, which indirectly helped to spawn the Dobokai Movement of 1962.

In the context of Japanese culture

Earlier schools of Buddhism that came to Japan, including the Tendai and Shingon sects, gained acceptance because of the way they meshed the Buddhist pantheon with the native Japanese Shinto pantheon. For example, a Shinto god could be seen as a manifestation of a bodhisattva. It is common even to this day to have Shinto shrines within the grounds of some traditional Buddhist temples.

Jōdo Shinshū, on the other hand, intentionally separated itself from the Shinto religion, and left out many superstitious practices of the day. Shinran had felt that such practices would make Jōdo Shinshū unnecessarily complicated, and would confuse the self-power found in rituals and superstition with the other-power of Amida. Other practices such as accepting donations for special blessings and prayers were similarly omitted from Jodo Shinshu.

Jōdo Shinshū traditionally had an uneasy relationship with other Buddhist schools because it discouraged virtually all traditional Buddhist practices except the nembutsu, and discouraged kami veneration. Relations were particularly hostile between the Jodo Shinshu and Nichirenshu, also known as Hokkeshu. On the other hand, newer Buddhist schools in Japan, such as Zen, tended to have a more positive relationship and occasionally shared practices, although this is still controversial. In popular lore, Rennyo Shonin was good friends with a famous Zen master at the time in Kyoto.

Jōdo Shinshū drew much of its support from lower social classes in Japan who could not devote the time or education to other esoteric Buddhist practices or merit-making activities. Famous figures such as the myokonin ("Wonderful people" - lay followers who are considered models of piety) came from the largely illiterate peasant society, yet left their mark on Japanese literature and spirituality.

Jodo Shinshu outside Japan

During the 19th century, Japanese immigrants began arriving in Hawaii, the United States, Canada, Mexico and South America (especially in Brazil). Many immigrants to North America came from regions in which Jodo Shinshu was predominant, and maintained their religious identity in their new country. The Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawai'i, the Buddhist Churches of America, and the Buddhist Churches of Canada are several of the oldest Buddhist organizations outside of Asia. Jodo Shinshu continues to remain relatively unknown outside the ethnic community because of the history of internment during World War II, which caused many Shin temples to focus on rebuilding the Japanese-American Shin sangha rather than encourage outreach to non-Japanese. Today, many Shinshu temples outside Japan continue to have predominantly ethnic Japanese members, although interest in Buddhism and intermarriage contribute to a more diverse community. There are also active Jodo Shinshu sanghas in the UK, Europe, Australia, and Africa, with members of diverse ethnicities.

The practice of Jodo Shinshu ritual and liturgy may be very different outside of Japan, as many temples, like ones in Hawai'i and the U.S., now use English as the primary language for Dharma talks, and there are attempts to create an English-language chanting liturgy. In the United States, Jodo Shinshu temples have also served as refuges from racial discrimination, and as places to learn about and celebrate Japanese language and culture, in addition to Buddhism.

Shin Patriarchs

• Nāgārjuna (150-250)
• Vasubandhu (ca. 4th Century)
• Tan-luan (476-542?)
• Tao-cho (562-645)
• Shan-tao (613-681)
• Genshin (942-1017)
• Hōnen (1133-1212)

Major Holidays of Observance

The following holidays are typically observed in Jodo Shinshu temples:

Holiday	Japanese Name	Date
New Year's Day Service	Gantan'e	January 1
Memorial Service for Shinran Shonin	Goshoki Hoonko	November 28th, or January 9-16
Spring Equinox	Ohigan	March 17-23
Birthday of the Buddha	Hanamatsuri	April 8th
Birthday of Shinran Shonin	Gotan'e	May 20-21
Ullambana/Obon	Urabon'e	August 14-15
Autumnal Equinox	Ohigan	September 20-26
Bodhi Day Enlightenment of the Buddha	Rohatsu	December 8
New Year's Eve Service	Joya'e	December 31

Major Modern Shin Figures

• Kasahara Kenju (1852-1883)
• Nanjo Bunyu (1848-1927)
• Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1901)
• Jokan Chikazumi (1870-1941)
• Akegarasu Haya (1877-1967)
• Soga Ryojin (1875-1971)
• Kaneko Daiei (1881-1976)
• Shuichi Maida (1906-1967)
• Hozen Seki (? - 1991)
• Taitetsu Unno (? - present)
• Hirose Takashi (1924- present)
• Alfred Bloom (1926 - present)

See also

• Dobokai Movement
• Hongwanji

References

External links

• List of Jodo Shinshu Organisations with Links
• Buddhist Churches of America Includes basic information, shopping for Shin Buddhist ritual implements, and links to various Shin churches in America.
• Institute of Buddhist Studies: Seminary and Graduate School
• Shinran Works The collected works of Shinran, including the Kyōgōshinshō.

• Shin Dharma Net A major resource for Shin Buddhism in English
• Shoshinge, "Hymn of True Faith and the Nembutsu" An excerpt of verse from the Kyogyoshinsho that also serves as a summary of Shin Buddhism and its history. Also present is the original Japanese script and its romanization.

• nembutsu.info: Journal of Shin Buddhism
• Notes on the Nembutsu: Essays based on the Sanjo Wasan of Shinran
• Eiken Kobai's Shin Buddhism Study Center: English website of a Professor of Shinshu Studies at Soai University in the city of Osaka.

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Theory of mind

Encyclopedia Britannica version

History of analytic philosophy > Analytic philosophy today > The theory of mind

In the theory of mind, the major debate concerned the question of which materialist theory of the human mind, if any, was the correct one. The main theories were identity theory (also called reductive materialism), functionalism, and eliminative materialism.

Wikipedia version

"Theory of mind" is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own.

'Theory of Mind' is different from 'Philosophy of Mind', although there are philosophical approaches to issues raised in discussions of Theory of Mind.

General category usage

In developmental psychology, theory of mind is a basic understanding of how the mind works and how it influences behavior.

Theory of mind: interpersonal understanding of mental states

Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others. As originally defined, it enables one to understand that mental states can be the cause of—and thus be used to explain and predict—others’ behavior. Being able to attribute mental states to others and understanding them as causes of behavior means, in part, that one must be able to conceive of the mind as a “generator of representations” and to understand that others’ mental representations of the world do not necessarily reflect reality and can be different from one’s own. It also means one must be able to maintain, simultaneously, different representations of the world. It is a ‘theory’ of mind in that such representations are not "directly observable". Many other human abilities—from skillful social interaction to language use—are said to involve a theory of mind.

Beyond the basic definition of ToM, there is considerable debate as to precisely what other kinds of abilities and understandings constitute a theory of mind, when these abilities develop, and who can be said to have a theory of mind. How one defines the basic mental states that underlie ToM structures the possibilities and limits of the field. Inherent in ToM is the understanding that others are intentional agents, that is, individuals whose behavior is goal- or perception-driven—and so debate about ToM has also reignited previous arguments on the nature of intentionality. In addition, efforts at defining the "mind"—generally understood as the totality of one’s conscious thoughts and perceptions—are relevant to the discussion of ToM. Although these debates are important, they do not inhibit the ToM research and progress in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. In fact, empirical research often sheds light back on the nature of these concepts.

Research on theory of mind in a number of different populations (human and animal, adults and children, normally- and atypically-developing) has grown rapidly in the almost 30 years since Premack and Woodruff's paper "Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?", as have the theories of theory of mind. The emerging field of neuroscience has also begun to address this debate, through brain imaging of subjects who fail ToM tests and through exploration of the potential neural basis of the abilities that underlie ToM, in particular, so-called "mirror neurons" (see final section).

Theory of mind appears to be an innate potential ability in humans (and, some argue, in certain other species), but one requiring social and other experience over many years to bring successfully to adult fruition. It is probably a continuum, in the sense that different people may develop more, or less, effective theories of mind, varying from very complete and accurate ones, through to minimally functional. It is often implied or assumed (but not stated explicitly) that this does not merely signify conceptual understanding "other people have minds and think," but also some kind of understanding and working model that these thoughts and states and emotions are real and genuine for these people and not just ungrounded names for parroted concepts. Empathy is a related concept, meaning experientially recognizing and understanding the states of mind, including beliefs, desires and particularly emotions of others without injecting your own, often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes."

Philosophical roots

Contemporary discussions of ToM have their roots in philosophical debate—most broadly, from the time of Descartes’ "Second Meditation," which set the groundwork for considering the science of the mind. Most prominent recently are two contrasting approaches, in the philosophical literature, to theory of mind: theory-theory and simulation theory. The theory-theorist imagines a veritable theory—"folk psychology"—used to reason about others' minds. The theory is developed automatically and innately, though instantiated through social interactions. The mental states attributed to others are unobservable—theoretical notions that explain and predict behavior in the same way that doctors interpret abnormal blotches on an x-ray as cancerous tumors—and yet knowable by intuition or insight.

On the other hand, simulation theory suggests ToM is not, at its core, theoretical. Two kinds of simulationism have been proposed. The first simulation theory suggests that each person simulates being in another's shoes, extrapolating from each one's own mental experience. The second kind of simulation theory proposes that each person comes to know her own and others' minds through what Gordon names a logical "ascent routine" which answers questions about mental states by re-phrasing the question as a metaphysical one. For example, if Zoe asks Pam, "Do you think that dog wants to play with you?", Pam would ask herself, "Does that dog want to play with me?" to determine her own response. She could equally well ask that to answer the question of what Zoe might think.

One of the differences between the two theories that have influenced psychological consideration of ToM is that theory-theory describes ToM as a detached theoretical process that is an innate feature, whereas simulation theory portrays ToM as a kind of knowledge that allows one to mimic the mental state of another person. These theories continue to inform the definitions of theory of mind at the heart of scientific ToM investigation.

Theory of mind development

Earlier in the twentieth century, Piaget articulated a view with similarities to ToM: that in early childhood egocentrism, a child does not understand that others’ views and thoughts differ from his or her own. There is now general agreement among researchers that human children pass tests of theory of mind much earlier than they leave Piaget's egocentric stage—by the age of 3 or 4 years. There is considerable disagreement regarding which behaviors necessarily indicate the presence of a developing theory of mind in young (1- to 3-year-old) humans. Much research focuses on investigating behaviors which may be precursors to the development of a fully functional theory of mind. These behaviors include joint attention, gaze following, proto-declarative pointing, comprehending objects' animacy, and awareness of others as intentional agents.

Gaze following—following another's gaze with one's own—is seen in infants by about the age of six months, while markers of joint attention, including shared mutual gaze, appear later, around the age of 9-12 months. Additionally, behaviors such as proto-declarative pointing—pointing in order to draw another's attention to an object in the environment—also emerge around the end of the first year. This ability to engage in shared attention is considered to be crucial for a child to learn about his or her social environment. A longitudinal study conducted by Charman et al. (2000) demonstrated that children who displayed the highest rates of joint attention at 20 months were generally the same children who scored highest on theory of mind tasks at 44 months. Some researchers believe that these behaviors and social referencing (using the emotional response of others to determine one's own response to a novel object or situation) suggest that children are beginning to have an awareness of adults' internal, mental functioning.

An ability to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects represents another step along the path toward development of a theory of mind. In studies conducted to answer the question of when people attribute animacy to objects, Tremoulet and Feldman (2000) demonstrated that objects that were perceived to be most animate were those whose motion appeared to violate laws of Newtonian physics or those moving objects that appeared to have a goal. (Most normally developing humans will acquire the ability to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects.)

After learning to define certain objects as animate, children can then begin to develop the concept of other beings as intentional "agents." An agent is an object that acts in a goal-directed manner, essentially planning actions and then carrying them out in the most efficient way possible in order to attain some end. Using a habituation procedure, Gergely et al. (1995) found that 12-month-old children were able to demonstrate an understanding that intentional agents act in rational ways. Meltzoff and Moore (1999) have shown that children as young as several hours or days old may mimic simple behaviors, which may be part of a developing ToM; other researchers have argued that 14- to 18-month-old infants are capable of understanding intention and so have a basic comprehension of others as intentional and mental agents. In a study of 18 month olds' ability to understand the intentions of others, Meltzoff found that children mimic intentional, but not unintentional, behaviors of (adult) humans in their environment, and that they imitate considerably less often when a machine is performing the behavior. This experiment suggests that infants younger than two years of age may be considering the intentions of others and interpret humans, and not machines, as intentional beings.

Empirical investigation

Whether children younger than 3 or 4 years old may have a theory of mind is a topic of debate among researchers. It is a challenging question, due to the difficulty of assessing what pre-linguistic children understand about others and the world. Tasks used in research into the development of ToM must take into account the umwelt—(the German word Umwelt means "environment" or "surrounding world")—of the pre-verbal child.

False-belief task

The canonical test of ToM ability is the false-belief task. One of the most important milestones in theory of mind development is gaining the ability to attribute false belief: that is, to recognize that others can have beliefs about the world that are wrong. To do this, it is suggested, one must understand how knowledge is formed, that people’s beliefs are based on their knowledge, that mental states can differ from reality, and that people’s behavior can be predicted by their mental states. Numerous versions of the false-belief task have been developed, based on the initial task done by Wimmer and Perner (1983).

In the most common version of the false-belief task (often called the ‘Sally-Anne’ task), children are told or shown a story involving two characters. For example, in one version, the child is shown two dolls, Sally and Anne, playing with a marble. The dolls put away the marble in a box, and then Sally leaves. Anne takes the marble out and plays with it again, and after she is done, puts it away in a different box. Sally returns and the child is then asked where Sally will look for the marble. The child passes the task if she answers that Sally will look in the first box where she put the marble; the child fails the task if she answers that Sally will look in the second box, where the child knows the marble is hidden, even though Sally cannot know, since she did not see it hidden there. In order to pass the task, the child must be able to understand that another’s mental representation of the situation is different from their own, and the child must be able to predict behavior based on that understanding.

The false-belief task has, in a number of studies, been modified so as to make certain that children who fail the tasks do so because they lack the ToM ability required, and not because the tasks are too cognitively demanding for them. Low-verbal false-belief tasks have tried to eliminate the possibility that the language of the task is too complicated for young or language-delayed children to understand. Such tasks often employ thought bubbles rather than explicit words to show a character thinking. The results of research using false-belief tasks have been fairly consistent: most normally-developing children are unable to pass the tasks until around the age of three or four. The conclusion from this research has thus been that most children do not begin to have any mature theory of mind abilities until this time. Passing these tasks does not necessarily mean that a child has a theory of mind like that of an adult—in fact, studies with mental verb acquisition show that at the age when children can pass the false-belief task, they still have difficulty in understanding differences between mental states—but being able to pass them is an indication that a child has developed the kinds of understanding, like false-belief, necessary for gaining adult ToM abilities, and that they are on their way to an adult ToM. Inability to pass the false-belief task–and thus the apparent inability to understand false belief–at an age when one is expected to be able to do so is usually taken as an indication of a developmental delay or other disruption that has affected ToM development.

Appearance-reality task

Other tasks have been developed to try to solve the problems inherent in the false-belief task. In the "appearance-reality", or "Smarties" task, experimenters ask children what they believe to be the contents of a box that looks as though it holds a candy called "Smarties." After the child guesses (usually) "Smarties," each is shown that the box in fact contained pencils. The experimenter then re-closes the box and asks the child what she thinks another person, who has not been shown the true contents of the box, will think is inside. The child passes the task if she responds that another person will think that there are "Smarties" in the box, but fails the task if she responds that another person will think that the box contains pencils. Gopnik & Astington (1988) found that children pass this test at age four or five years.

Other tasks

The "false-photograph" task is another task that serves as a measure of theory of mind development. In this task, children must reason about what is represented in a photograph that differs from the current state of affairs. Within the false-photograph task, there is either a location or identity change. In the location-change task, the child is told a story about a character that puts an object in one location (e.g., chocolate in a green cupboard) and takes a Polaroid photograph of the scene. While the photograph is developing, the object is moved to a different location (e.g., to a blue cupboard). The child is then asked two control questions, “When we first took the picture, where was the object? Where is the object now?” The subject is also asked a false-photograph question, “Where is the object in the picture?” The child passes the task if she correctly identifies the location of the object in the picture and the actual location of the object at the time of the question.

In order to make tasks more accessible for young children, non-human animals, and autistic individuals, theory of mind research has begun employing non-verbal paradigms. One category of tasks uses a preferential looking paradigm, with looking time as the dependent variable. For instance, Woodward found that 9-month-old infants preferred to look at behaviors performed by a human hand than those made by an inanimate hand-like object.

Autism

The theory of mind (ToM) impairment describes a difficulty someone would have with perspective taking. This is also sometimes referred to as mind-blindness. This means that individuals with a ToM impairment would have a hard time seeing things from any other perspective than their own. Individuals who experience a theory of mind deficit have difficulty determining the intentions of others, lack understanding of how their behavior affects others, and have a difficult time with social reciprocity. In 1985 Simon Baron-Cohen, Alan M. Leslie and Uta Frith published research which suggested that children with autism do not employ a theory of mind, and suggested that children with autism have particular difficulties with tasks requiring the child to understand another person's beliefs. These difficulties persist when children are matched for verbal skills (Happe, 1995, Child Development) and have been taken as a key feature of autism.

Method

Three groups of children—20 children with autism, 14 children with Down's syndrome and 27 typically developing children—were used as participants for the experiment. The mean verbal mental age (vMA) of the children with autism (5 years, 5 months) was higher than the mean vMA of the children with Down's syndrome (2 years, 11 months) and the typically developing children (assumed 4 years, 5 months). The autistic group had an advantage in terms of age (experience) and verbal ability. If success on the task depends on these factors, then this group should perform as well as or better than the other groups.

The 61 children were tested individually with the Sally-Anne test, a psychological test, used in developmental psychology to measure a person's social cognitive ability to attribute false beliefs to others.

Results

'Naming', 'reality', and 'memory' questions were answered correctly by all the children. However, the results were different for the questions about 'belief'. The results for children with Down’s Syndrome and typically developing subjects were quite similar. Of the 27 typically developing children, 23 passed the 'belief' question, and 12 out of 14 children with Down’s Syndrome passed the belief question on both trials (85% and 86% respectively). By contrast, only 4 of the 20 children classified as having autism (20%) passed the belief question on both trials. The 16 children with autism who gave the wrong response on both trials pointed to where the marble really was rather than to where Sally must believe it to be. The results seem to support the notion that children with autism may have under-developed 'theory of mind'.

Discussion

The belief question was answered correctly by only 20% of the children with autism. This suggests that children with autism may be impaired in or lack a theory of mind. A characteristic of children with autism is a lack of engaging in pretend play. The use of dolls rather than real people could have confounded the findings. In 1988, the study was replicated by Alan M. Leslie and Uta Frith using people rather than dolls, and the results followed the same pattern as the original experiment.

Many individuals classified as having autism have severe difficulty assigning mental states to others, and they seem to lack theory of mind capabilities. Researchers who study the relationship between autism and theory of mind attempt to explain the connection in a variety of ways. One account assumes that theory of mind plays a role in the attribution of mental states to others and in childhood pretend play. According to Leslie, theory of mind is the capacity to mentally represent thoughts, beliefs, and desires, regardless of whether or not the circumstances involved are real. This might explain why individuals with autism show extreme deficits in both theory of mind and pretend play. However, Hobson proposes a social-affective justification, which suggests that an person with autism deficits in theory of mind result from a distortion in understanding and responding to emotions. He suggests that typically developing human beings, unlike individuals with autism, are born with a set of skills (such as social referencing ability) which will later enable them to comprehend and react to other people’s feelings. Other scholars emphasize that autism involves a specific developmental delay, so that children with the impairment vary in their deficiencies, because they experience difficulty in different stages of growth. Very early setbacks can alter proper advancement of joint-attention behaviors, which may lead to a failure to form a full theory of mind.

Theory of mind in the brain

With the advent of neuroimaging techniques, particular brain regions that seem to be important for theory of mind have been identified by researchers including Chris Frith and Rebecca Saxe. These studies identify the medial frontal cortex, temporal poles and temporoparietal junction as the brain regions which are most active when people perform theory of mind tasks.

A paper published in 2004 by Samson and colleagues in Nature Neuroscience shows that people who have a stroke which damages the temporoparietal junction of the brain (between the temporal lobe and parietal lobe have difficulty with some theory of mind tasks. This shows that theory of mind abilities are associated with specific parts of the human brain.

Mirror Neurons

Recent research by Vittorio Gallese and Giacomo Rizzolatti (reviewed in ) has shown that some visuomotor neurons, which are referred to as mirror neurons, first discovered in the premotor cortex of rhesus monkeys, may be involved in theory of mind abilities. Single-electrode recording revealed that these neurons fired when a monkey performed an action and when the monkey viewed another agent carrying out the same task. Similarly, fMRI studies with human participants have shown brain regions which are assumed to contain mirror neurons are active when one person sees another person's goal directed action. These data have been used to suggest that mirror neurons provide the basis for theory of mind in the brain, and to support Simulation Theory (see above)

However, there is also evidence against the link between mirror neurons and theory of mind. First, macaque monkeys have mirror neurons but do not seem to have a 'human-like' capacity to understand theory of mind. Second, fMRI studies of theory of mind typically activate the medial frontal cortex, temporal poles and temporoparietal junction, but these brain areas are not part of the human mirror neuron system. Some investigators believe that mirror neurons merely facilitate learning through imitation and may provide a precursor to the development of ToM.

Non-human theory of mind

As the title of Premack and Woodruff's 1978 article "Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?" indicates, it is also important to ask if other animals besides humans have a genetic endowment and social environment that allows them to acquire a theory of mind in the same way that human children do. This is a contentious issue because of the problem of inferring from animal behavior the existence of thinking, of the existence of a concept of self or self-awareness, or of particular thoughts.

Non-human research still has a major place in this field, however, and is especially useful in illuminating which nonverbal behaviors signify components of theory of mind, and in pointing to possible stepping points in the evolution of what many claim to be a uniquely human aspect of social cognition. While it is difficult to study human-like theory of mind and mental states in species which we do not yet describe as "minded" at all, and about whose potential mental states we have an incomplete understanding, researchers can focus on simpler components of more complex capabilities. For example, many researchers focus on animals' understanding of intention, gaze, perspective, or knowledge (or rather, what another being has seen). Part of the difficulty in this line of research is that observed phenomena can often be explained as simple stimulus-response learning, as it is in the nature of any theorizers of mind to have to extrapolate internal mental states from observable behavior. Recently, most non-human theory of mind research has focused on monkeys and great apes, who are of most interest in the study of the evolution of human social cognition.

There has been some controversy over the interpretation of evidence purporting to show theory of mind ability—or inability—in animals. Two examples serve as demonstration: first, Povinelli et. al (1990) presented chimpanzees with the choice of two experimenters from which to request food: one who had seen where food was hidden, and one who, by virtue of one of a variety of mechanisms (having a bucket or bag over his head; a blindfold over his eyes; or being turned away from the baiting) does not know, and can only guess. They found that the animals failed in most cases to differentially request food from the "knower." By contrast, Hare, Call, and Tomasello (2001) found that subordinate chimpanzees were able to use the knowledge state of dominant rival chimpanzees to determine which container of hidden food they approached.

Tomasello and like-minded colleagues who originally argued that great apes did not have theory of mind have since reversed their position. Povinelli and his colleagues, however, maintain that Tomasello's group has misinterpreted the results of their experiments. They point out that most evidence in support of great ape theory of mind involves naturalistic settings to which the apes may have already adapted through past learning. Their "reinterpretation hypothesis" explains away all current evidence supporting attribution of mental states to others in chimpanzees as merely evidence of risk-based learning; that is, the chimpanzees learn through experience that certain behaviors in other chimpanzees have a probability of leading to certain responses, without necessarily attributing knowledge or other intentional states to those other chimpanzees. They therefore propose testing theory of mind abilities in great apes in novel, and not naturalistic settings. Kristin Andrews takes the reinterpretation hypothesis one step further, arguing that it implies that even the well-known false-belief test used to test children's theory of mind is susceptible to being interpreted as a result of learning.

See also

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• Autism
• Cephalopod intelligence
• Cetacean intelligence
• Consciousness

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• Dystopia
• Empathy
• Identity theory of mind
• Mental body

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• Mind
• The Mind of an Ape
• Mind-body problem
• Mirror neurons

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• Philosophy of mind
• Quantum mind
• Sirenia

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References and notes

• Excerpts taken from: Davis, E. (2007) Mental Verbs in Nicaraguan Sign Language and the Role of Language in Theory of Mind. Undergraduate senior thesis, Barnard College, Columbia University.

External links

• The Computational Theory of Mind
• The Identity Theory of Mind
• Sally-Anne and Smarties tests
• Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds

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