Talk:Modularity of mind

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cognitive science, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Cognitive scienceWikipedia:WikiProject Cognitive scienceTemplate:WikiProject Cognitive scienceCognitive science articles

Psychology Low‑importance

	Psychology portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PsychologyWikipedia:WikiProject PsychologyTemplate:WikiProject Psychologypsychology articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Philosophy: Mind / Language Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Philosophy of mind
	Philosophy of language

Linguistics: Philosophy of language Low‑importance

	Linguistics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Linguistics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of linguistics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LinguisticsWikipedia:WikiProject LinguisticsTemplate:WikiProject LinguisticsLinguistics articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Philosophy of language task force.

Citing[edit]

Hi, I just found this article, which is quite obviously cited alot, but not included in the citations page:

Modularity of Mind and Second Language Acquisition Houman Bijani — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.222.55.9 (talk) 12:05, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Citing Critics[edit]

Maybe some critics of this idea should be cited too, no? afaik it's a rather old (and obsolete?) idea. i'm not sure about references but maybe Gerald Edelman, Francisco Varela and John Searle could be some interesting reads for another point of view.

As the original author of this article, I accept the statement that the idea is old but I reject the suggestion that it is obsolete. Open-source artificial intelligence (AI) programs such as MindForth (q.v.) make extensive use of the concept (and the implementation) of modularity of mind. 206.188.38.227 (talk) 21:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC) Mentifex (Arthur)[reply]

Old[edit]

The old part is correct since is goes back, in a different form, to phrenology and Franz Joseph Gall according to Fodor himself. But obsolete is certainly questionable. I'm not exactly sure how it is currentl viewed in the neurosciences but still has much currency in philosophy,linguistics and cog sci in general (see Pinker, at all). You are invited to add some criticism into the artcile though, instead of just ranting on the talk page.--Lacatosias 09:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Fodor (1983) states that modular systems must fulfill certain properties:"

Actually, he does not say this. What he says is that modules must fulfill ONE criterion ('informational encapsulation'), and also tend to display other characteristic properties (rigid ontogenetic development, cerebral localisation, etc.) "to some interesting extent". I suggest that the quoted sentence be rephrased.Ariosto 10:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

External Links to Critics[edit]

As a shortcut to and building block for having a Criticism section, why not have an external links section that goes to critics and opposing theories. DCDuring 11:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Freud?[edit]

Would Freud be considered a proponent of modularity of the mind? It seems like this article puts a whole lot of emphasis on Fodor. What other important figures in the philosophical tradition can be thought of as supporters of this thesis? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.68.115.175 (talk) 08:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Freud would be considered a proponent of modularity of mind, but I guess it's debatable. Freud's ideas seem to indicate that his ontological view of the mind could support limited accessibility and perhaps obligatory firing or ontogeny, but the rest of the characteristics of modules really don't fit his picture. If you look at how he imagined the brain would work--as a conflict between multiple aspects of the subconscious--then you really get more of a generalized capacity outlook, rather than that of specialized capacities as with modularity. Freud definitely wouldn't have said, for instance, that the animus had shallow outputs, was based on a fixed neural architecture, or had domain specificity. I haven't read all of Freud's works, so it's possible he talked about some things that were modular in nature, but in general, it seems like a stretch. If there's one thing missing, it's massive modularity, a la Sperber. Elunah (talk) 03:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dawkins quote[edit]

We don't have long quotes by any other people involved in the debate. Dawkins is not even doing research in this area and it seems weird that his view should be privileged by having a quote. Generally it is a good idea not to use quotes in pages on concepts that are under vigorous academic debate as it tends to involve in to long chains of "he said - she said".·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]