ABSTRACT
The alternatives of the theory-theory of mind and simulation theory are a place to start on the issues. To reiterate, the theory-theory holds that the child, as well as the adult, has a tacit theory of mind that enables them to infer intentions, beliefs, and desires, and perhaps other things. The "cultural" answer is that the sorts of content that make up the tacit theory of mind are acquired locally by the same mechanisms by which culture is acquired. Begin with a finding from cognitive science. It is well known that children over-attribute intentionality, for example to physical objects. This bias does not disappear entirely with development. Cognitive science's dominant computationalist paradigm has always been contested, and always plagued by fundamental problems. Weber and the neuroscience literature provides people with the example of contagion, which is both involuntary and a primitive form of empathy.
