Introduction: Actions, Intentions, and Attributions

Baldwin clearly recognized that the development of intentional action-the deliberate use of goals and means-is inseparable from the development of the infant’s understanding of intentionality in others. The essential role of the other in the development of intentionality and intentional action has been a central concern of social theorists as well as psychologists. Historically, intention played a central role in psychological explanation. Although the origins of an understanding of intentional states in general and intentions in particular may be traced to structural changes in the organization of the mind and ultimately the brain, the origins of this understanding can also be examined in terms of the functions that these understandings sustain. Olson and Kamawar discuss intentional attributions, focusing on belief attribution, and propose a strict criterion for the possession of intentional states, that is, the ability to ascribe such states to self and other.