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Deconstructing RTK: How to explicate a theory of implicit knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Josef Perner
Affiliation:
Institut für Psychologie, Universität Salzburg, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria josef.perner@sbg.ac.at www.sbg.ac.at/psy/people/perner_e.htm
Zoltan Dienes
Affiliation:
Experimental Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, Sussex BN1 9QG, England dienes@epunix.susx.ac.uk www.bids.susx.ac.uk/faculty/ep/dienes.htm

Abstract

In this response, we start from first principles, building up our theory to show moreprecisely what assumptions we do and do not make about the representational nature of implicitand explicit knowledge (in contrast to the target article, where we started our exposition with adescription of a fully fledged representational theory of knowledge (RTK). Along the way, weindicate how our analysis does not rely on linguistic representations but it implies that implicitknowledge is causally efficacious; we discuss the relationship between property structureimplicitness and conceptual and nonconceptual content; then we consider the factual, fictional,and functional uses of representations and how we go from there to consciousness. Havingshown how the basic theory deals with foundational criticisms, we indicate how the theorycan elucidate issues that commentators raised in the particular application areas of explicitation,voluntary control, visual perception, memory, development (with discussion on infancy, theory ofmind [TOM] and executive control, gestures), and finally models of learning.

Information

Type
Authors' Response
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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