This book is an attempt to trace out a line of development in the understanding of how things happen from origins in infancy to mature forms of adulthood. There are two distinct but related ways in which people understand things as happening, denoted by the terms "causation" and "action". The book is concerned with both. The central claim and organising principle of the book is that, by the end of the second year of life, children have differentiated two core theories of how things happen. These theories deal with causation and action. The two theories have a common point of origin in the...

This text is an attempt to trace out a line of development in the understanding of how things happen, from origins in infancy to mature forms in adulthood. There are two distinct but related ways in which people understand things as happening, denoted by the terms "causation" and "action." This book is concerned with both.; The central claim and organizing principle of the book is that, by the end of the second year of life, children have differentiated two core theories of how things happen. These theories deal with causation and action. The two theories have a common point of origin in the...