Helping, learning, and children’s understanding of reasons for action
Join this event to hear Professor Johannes Roessler explore the relationship between children’s social cognition and the nature of learning.
Helping, learning, and children’s understanding of reasons for action
29 Oct 2025, 17:30 – 19:15
In this talk the speaker aims to connect a basic issue regarding young children’s social cognition with questions about the nature of learning. The basic issue is: are young children able to make sense of what someone is doing in terms of their reasons? He will introduce the ‘teleological’ hypothesis he has helped to develop in joint work with Josef Perner, illustrate it by reference to children’s disposition for ‘instrumental helping’, and go on to suggest that it provides an illuminating perspective on the sense in which learning from someone is a (joint) exercise of rationality.
This event will be particularly useful to students, researchers and teachers who are interested in the nature of learning, philosophy of mind and action.
PESGB seminar series
This event is part of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) seminar series. PESGB is a learned society that promotes the study, teaching and application of philosophy of education. Its London Branch hosts seminars every Wednesday in conjunction with the Centre for Philosophy of Education. These seminars are led by national and international scholars in the field, covering a wide range of issues of educational and philosophical concern.
All are welcome to attend.
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Mat Wright for UCL IOE.
Johannes Roessler
Professor of Philosophy
University of Warwick
Johannes Roessler is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. He has published articles on issues in epistemology and the philosophy of mind and action, and is currently working on a book on perceptual knowledge. He has co-edited four volumes published by OUP, most recently Perceptual Knowledge and Self-Awareness (with A. Giananti and G. Soldati).
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