Introduction

This chapter focuses on the importance of theory and introduces the theoretical work that guides and organises the content of this book. The central claim and organising principle of the book is that, by the end of the second year of life, the child has differentiated two core theories of how things happen. These theories are related by a common point of origin but distinct in most of their conceptual content. The book provides a critical review of relevant psychological literature, and a brief account of some pertinent philosophy, with an exposition of the possible course of development of theories of how things happen. It focuses on what might be called the temporal map; placing understanding of action and causation at one point of time in relation to its state at other points of time. The book also provides some claims about the psychological metaphysics of the construction of action and causation.