ABSTRACT
More subtle strategies seek to gain advantage without ever revealing themselves, and these require complex plans to maintain another's false belief over time. No one in the theory–simulation alliance would deny that there are mechanisms of interpersonal engagement that are developmentally prior to theory and/or simulation. Both parties agree that well before children acquire belief-desire psychology there is much going on which underpins competent interaction with other people, and there has been some speculation about what these precursor states might be. For better or worse, an assumption of this chapter is that mentalising is a central feature of our social and ethical life. It is also a central feature of literature; indeed, the author's first example of deceptive strategic behaviour was a fictional one, and philosophers are often as happy with fictional examples of the exercise of mentalising abilities as with real ones.
