SITUATING REPRESENTATIONAL REDESCRIPTION IN INFANTS PRAGMATIC KNOWLEDGE

Attributing infant abilities to conceptual mechanisms, in preference t o (Fodorean) input perceptual systems or to a (Piagetian) deficit view of action, makes it harder to understand how representational redescr iption might work. Mapping between conceptual abstraction and represen tational ''explicitation'' is unclear. It is better to treat the infan t as a situated agent, whose pragmatic knowledge is grounded in a comp utational model of action.