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The Modularity of Mind
This study synthesizes current information from the various fields of cognitive science in support of a new and exciting theory of mind. Most psychologists study horizontal processes like memory and information flow; Fodor postulates a vertical and modular psychological organization underlying biologically coherent behaviors. This view of mental architecture is consistent with the historical tradition of faculty psychology while integrating a computational approach to mental processes. One of the most notable aspects of Fodor's work is that it articulates features not only of speculative cognitive architectures but also of current research in artificial intelligence.
145 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 31, 1982
22 people are currently reading
1035 people want to read
About the author
Jerry A. Fodor
26 books87 followersJerry Alan Fodor is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. He is the State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and is also the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in which he has laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, among other ideas. Fodor is of Jewish descent.
Fodor argues that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintains that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Further, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adheres to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.
For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which are defined by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.
Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, he has in recent years devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposes reductive accounts of the mind. He argues that mental states are multiply realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses.
Fodor argues that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintains that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Further, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adheres to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.
For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which are defined by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.
Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, he has in recent years devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposes reductive accounts of the mind. He argues that mental states are multiply realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 19, 2008
I would put this in the psychology section of a library before I would put it in the philosophy section. Specifically, the cognitive psychology section. Fodor argues for three major points:
1. Input systems (5 senses + language input mechanisms) are modular, meaning they are: a) domain specific, b) innately specified, c) assembled, d) hardwired and e) computationally autonomous.
2. Many central processing systems (e.g. thought processing systems) are non-modular.
3. Scientific study have been, and will be, limited to modular structures.
And thus, "The limits of modularity are also likely to be the limits of what we are going to be able to understand about the mind, given anything like the theoretical apparatus currently available."
For this reason, Fodor is very skeptical of projects in artificial intelligence.
This books has loads of interesting psychological studies and is useful for philosophy of mind.
1. Input systems (5 senses + language input mechanisms) are modular, meaning they are: a) domain specific, b) innately specified, c) assembled, d) hardwired and e) computationally autonomous.
2. Many central processing systems (e.g. thought processing systems) are non-modular.
3. Scientific study have been, and will be, limited to modular structures.
And thus, "The limits of modularity are also likely to be the limits of what we are going to be able to understand about the mind, given anything like the theoretical apparatus currently available."
For this reason, Fodor is very skeptical of projects in artificial intelligence.
This books has loads of interesting psychological studies and is useful for philosophy of mind.
December 20, 2017
imagine if academics wrote books so they could be understood without having to have done equivalent degrees and years of research as the author LOL
August 1, 2018
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. One might have thought that Fodor, speaking from a late 20th century perspective, would have gotten quite many things wrong. However, this book is surprisingly relevant to the 21st century, where the study of neuroscience is advancing towards an integrative approach. Instead of thinking of a fixed "structure-relate-to-function" model, perhaps one brain part could be in-charge of multiple functions. In essence, I daresay it is through this book that Fodor pre-empted neural-plasticity. A truly mind-blowing read.
December 24, 2012
A milestone within the cognitive psychology tradition. This extended argument for the modularity of input systems reoriented the field back when it was published in 1983, and responses continue to emerge to this day.
Modularity Of Mind is one of those rare books that combine a formidable vocabulary with a concise communicative style. Fodor's dry humor and deep familiarity with relevant empirical results redeemed the occasionally abstruse discussion. The author's penchant for polemics was not apparent in this essay. Five sections divide the work:
1. Four Accounts Of Mental Structure
The four accounts are Neo-Cartesianism, horizontal faculties, vertical faculties, and Associationism.
While discussing Neo-Cartesianism, Fodor draws the distinction between innate faculties: propositional vs. architectural. Specifically, there are two kinds of reactions to the tabula rasa. The first is to propose that the mind does not begin life completely undifferentiated; rather, infants come into the world already possessing "cognitive furniture", such as image rendering engines. The second kind of reaction is to claim that humans are born with a certain set of pre-installed knowledge (e.g., Chomskyan universal grammar).
After the discussion regarding innate faculties, Fodor treats the horizontal/vertical distinction within architectural theories of cognition. Horizontal modular theories are those that would have cognitive furniture be domain-general. Such ideas go back to ancient Greece; a good current exemplar is what modern psychology believes about long-term memory. Vertical modular theories hold cognitive furniture to be domain-specific. Rather than fractionating the mind into perception, memory, and motivational modules, vertical theorists such as Franz Gall (father of phrenology) would insist on different modules for mathematics, music, poetry, etc. Gall would go on to say that there is no such thing as domain-general memory. If there are similarities between musical memory and mathematical memory, that is merely a coincidental similarity across module implementations.
Finally, Associationism (incl. Behaviorism) is treated. Unsurprisingly, given the author's functionalist credentials, arguments are presented that purport to demonstrate the inadequacy of the movement.
2. A Functional Taxonomy Of Cognitive Mechanisms:
Fodor outlines a three-tier mental architecture: transducers, input processing, and central systems. The brain is thought to transduce signals via sensory organs, and feed such raw data to input processing systems. These iteratively raise the level of abstraction, saving intermediate results into states known as interlayers. Finally, the final results of the input systems are presented to the central systems, which are responsible for binding them into coherent beliefs with the help of background knowledge. Interestingly, Fodor holds that language processing is its own sensory system, distinct from acoustic processing, and that this system encapsulates the entire lexicon. Organism output (behavior) was not considered.
3. Input Systems As Modules
The most empirically rich and impactful section. I will briefly sketch each subsection.
3.1: Domain specificity. There appear to be separate mechanisms to process distinct stimuli. While several systems may share select resources, they never share information.
3.2: Mandatory operation. While human beings can ignore their phenomenological experiences, they cannot consciously repress them.
3.3: Hidden interlevels. Introspection cannot unearth the intermediate states of visual stimuli transformation, only the finished product.
3.4: Fast processing. Driven by evolutionary pressures, sensory processing is very rapid. For example, many people are able produce a mirrored language stream that trails the original by an astonishing one-quarter of a second.
3.5: Informational encapsulation. In principle, input processing can never access the organism’s broader knowledge base. There are few to none feedback loops that inform sensory processing.
3.6: Shallow outputs. Input systems do not issue beliefs, but rather non-conceptual ("shallow") information. Other systems are responsible for subsequent conceptual fixation.
3.7: Fixed neural architecture. In contrast with central processes, input systems appear to be localized to specific neural locations (e.g., Wernicke’s Area for language processing).
3.8: Idiosyncratic breakdown patterns. Brain damage is associated with selective, severe failures of input processing, not general deficiency introduction.
3.9: Shared ontogeny. Cognitive structural maturation occurs in an innately-specified way.
Informational encapsulation is singled out as the most important element of the thesis. This feature explains how an organism protects its raw percepts from contamination from its own biases. Constraining information flow is essential to human beings, and this feature goes a long way in motivating the existence of the others.
During his discussion of shallow outputs, Fodor makes an interesting observation about conceptual fixation. Human concepts are organized hierarchically: “a poodle is a dog is a mammal is a physical organism is a thing”. Central non-modular systems must locate their conclusions at a specific level within this hierarchy. Interestingly, beliefs tend to fixate at a particular level (e.g., “dog” in the above example).
What makes the “dog” level so special? It tends to be: (a) a high-frequency descriptor; (b) learned earliest within development; (c) the least abstract member that is monomorphemically lexicalized; (d) easiest to define without reference to other items in the hierarchy; (e) most informationally dense, in the sense of being the most productive item if one asks for the properties of each item in the hierarchy from most to least abstract; (f) used the most frequently in everyday descriptions; (g) used the most frequently in subvocal descriptions; (h) the most abstract members that give themselves to visual representation. These facts call out for explanation and further research.
Part 4: Central Systems
Fodor perceives little evidence to explicate central processes, so he reverts to analogy. Scientific confirmation is presented as an analogue of psychological belief fixation. An enthusiast of Quinean naturalized epistemology, Fodor is also sympathetic to Quinean holism: that any belief can in principle affect any other. But requiring unconstrained information transfer is a recipe for intractable computation. This is the deep trouble underlying the framing problem of artificial intelligence. According to Fodor, intractability is precisely why academic journals tend to avoid topics of general intelligence.
I found the previous section on input modules to be of greater import. Fodor’s arguments here are empirically impoverished, and his vague notions of networked learning leave much to be desired. If this section characterized the entirety of the text, the reader would be better advised to research modern probabilistic graphical models, and attempts within the AI community to approximate universal induction.
Part 5: Caveats and Conclusions
The essay concludes with a few comments regarding modularity and epistemic boundedness ("are there truths that we are not capable of grasping?"). After reviewing the historical discussion surrounded bounded cognition, Fodor ultimately has little to say on the matter, arguing that this conversation should proceed with little appeal to concepts of modularity. He closes with self-styled gloomy remarks about how our best thinkers have consistently evaluated local phenomena more effectively than global phenomena (c.f., deduction vs. confirmation theory), and that this sociological reality is unlikely to change in the near future.
An incisive, important text that helps to place modern cognitive science debates in sharper focus.
Modularity Of Mind is one of those rare books that combine a formidable vocabulary with a concise communicative style. Fodor's dry humor and deep familiarity with relevant empirical results redeemed the occasionally abstruse discussion. The author's penchant for polemics was not apparent in this essay. Five sections divide the work:
1. Four Accounts Of Mental Structure
The four accounts are Neo-Cartesianism, horizontal faculties, vertical faculties, and Associationism.
While discussing Neo-Cartesianism, Fodor draws the distinction between innate faculties: propositional vs. architectural. Specifically, there are two kinds of reactions to the tabula rasa. The first is to propose that the mind does not begin life completely undifferentiated; rather, infants come into the world already possessing "cognitive furniture", such as image rendering engines. The second kind of reaction is to claim that humans are born with a certain set of pre-installed knowledge (e.g., Chomskyan universal grammar).
After the discussion regarding innate faculties, Fodor treats the horizontal/vertical distinction within architectural theories of cognition. Horizontal modular theories are those that would have cognitive furniture be domain-general. Such ideas go back to ancient Greece; a good current exemplar is what modern psychology believes about long-term memory. Vertical modular theories hold cognitive furniture to be domain-specific. Rather than fractionating the mind into perception, memory, and motivational modules, vertical theorists such as Franz Gall (father of phrenology) would insist on different modules for mathematics, music, poetry, etc. Gall would go on to say that there is no such thing as domain-general memory. If there are similarities between musical memory and mathematical memory, that is merely a coincidental similarity across module implementations.
Finally, Associationism (incl. Behaviorism) is treated. Unsurprisingly, given the author's functionalist credentials, arguments are presented that purport to demonstrate the inadequacy of the movement.
2. A Functional Taxonomy Of Cognitive Mechanisms:
Fodor outlines a three-tier mental architecture: transducers, input processing, and central systems. The brain is thought to transduce signals via sensory organs, and feed such raw data to input processing systems. These iteratively raise the level of abstraction, saving intermediate results into states known as interlayers. Finally, the final results of the input systems are presented to the central systems, which are responsible for binding them into coherent beliefs with the help of background knowledge. Interestingly, Fodor holds that language processing is its own sensory system, distinct from acoustic processing, and that this system encapsulates the entire lexicon. Organism output (behavior) was not considered.
3. Input Systems As Modules
The most empirically rich and impactful section. I will briefly sketch each subsection.
3.1: Domain specificity. There appear to be separate mechanisms to process distinct stimuli. While several systems may share select resources, they never share information.
3.2: Mandatory operation. While human beings can ignore their phenomenological experiences, they cannot consciously repress them.
3.3: Hidden interlevels. Introspection cannot unearth the intermediate states of visual stimuli transformation, only the finished product.
3.4: Fast processing. Driven by evolutionary pressures, sensory processing is very rapid. For example, many people are able produce a mirrored language stream that trails the original by an astonishing one-quarter of a second.
3.5: Informational encapsulation. In principle, input processing can never access the organism’s broader knowledge base. There are few to none feedback loops that inform sensory processing.
3.6: Shallow outputs. Input systems do not issue beliefs, but rather non-conceptual ("shallow") information. Other systems are responsible for subsequent conceptual fixation.
3.7: Fixed neural architecture. In contrast with central processes, input systems appear to be localized to specific neural locations (e.g., Wernicke’s Area for language processing).
3.8: Idiosyncratic breakdown patterns. Brain damage is associated with selective, severe failures of input processing, not general deficiency introduction.
3.9: Shared ontogeny. Cognitive structural maturation occurs in an innately-specified way.
Informational encapsulation is singled out as the most important element of the thesis. This feature explains how an organism protects its raw percepts from contamination from its own biases. Constraining information flow is essential to human beings, and this feature goes a long way in motivating the existence of the others.
During his discussion of shallow outputs, Fodor makes an interesting observation about conceptual fixation. Human concepts are organized hierarchically: “a poodle is a dog is a mammal is a physical organism is a thing”. Central non-modular systems must locate their conclusions at a specific level within this hierarchy. Interestingly, beliefs tend to fixate at a particular level (e.g., “dog” in the above example).
What makes the “dog” level so special? It tends to be: (a) a high-frequency descriptor; (b) learned earliest within development; (c) the least abstract member that is monomorphemically lexicalized; (d) easiest to define without reference to other items in the hierarchy; (e) most informationally dense, in the sense of being the most productive item if one asks for the properties of each item in the hierarchy from most to least abstract; (f) used the most frequently in everyday descriptions; (g) used the most frequently in subvocal descriptions; (h) the most abstract members that give themselves to visual representation. These facts call out for explanation and further research.
Part 4: Central Systems
Fodor perceives little evidence to explicate central processes, so he reverts to analogy. Scientific confirmation is presented as an analogue of psychological belief fixation. An enthusiast of Quinean naturalized epistemology, Fodor is also sympathetic to Quinean holism: that any belief can in principle affect any other. But requiring unconstrained information transfer is a recipe for intractable computation. This is the deep trouble underlying the framing problem of artificial intelligence. According to Fodor, intractability is precisely why academic journals tend to avoid topics of general intelligence.
I found the previous section on input modules to be of greater import. Fodor’s arguments here are empirically impoverished, and his vague notions of networked learning leave much to be desired. If this section characterized the entirety of the text, the reader would be better advised to research modern probabilistic graphical models, and attempts within the AI community to approximate universal induction.
Part 5: Caveats and Conclusions
The essay concludes with a few comments regarding modularity and epistemic boundedness ("are there truths that we are not capable of grasping?"). After reviewing the historical discussion surrounded bounded cognition, Fodor ultimately has little to say on the matter, arguing that this conversation should proceed with little appeal to concepts of modularity. He closes with self-styled gloomy remarks about how our best thinkers have consistently evaluated local phenomena more effectively than global phenomena (c.f., deduction vs. confirmation theory), and that this sociological reality is unlikely to change in the near future.
An incisive, important text that helps to place modern cognitive science debates in sharper focus.
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October 29, 2021Fodor has a great sense of humor, but as much as I appreciate it, I still wish he were easier to read. It was only at the very end of this book that (I think) I understood what he was getting at. It seems to me that Fodor's divide between modular and non-modular mental systems is similar to Chalmers' divide between the "easy problems" and the "hard problem." For Fodor, modular systems are vertical, domain-specific, and localized, whereas non-modular ones are horizontal and global. So (reminiscent of Chalmers) he believes that the brain sciences will mostly be limited to modular systems, and we're unlikely to ever find out how non-modular central processing works across different modules. Fodor also thinks this is the case for advancements in AI: we simply load robots full of modules, but we'll never be able to program them with non-modular central processing. 40 years later, I wonder where we are on both counts.
February 16, 2013
This isn't a mediocre book as the rating stars might suggest, it's actually a very superb, original, and influential book by Jerry A. Fodor. However, the book is very hard to understand and keep up because Fodor employs a lot of technical jargon from Cognitive Science and psychology that I am simply ignorant of. I would not recommend this to anyone who is at least at an undergraduate level, but I would recommend it for any graduate student of philosophy who is interested in philosophy of mind. I read it as an undergraduate student because I had an intense interest in philosophy of mind, but I realize that it is probably wise to re-read it again when I become familiar with the terms from cognitive science. Nonetheless, the book is worth buying.
July 19, 2015
Big influence on my scientific thinking, ever since reading it as an undergraduate.
June 24, 2023
A wonderful, foundational text in cognitive science. Note that it's especially difficult without a thorough understanding of the works it is responding to.
January 21, 2024
This was required reading for my cognitive psychology course. Fodor tries to answer computing theories of the mind like, “what is the functional organization of the mind?”. He proposes that the part of the mind is better represented by the vertical approach. Fodor focuses on a two-tiered taxonomy of cognitive systems where an input system (sensory & linguistics) transmits info about our external world to the central system. A central system is responsible for establishing beliefs about the world and drawing inferences on the basis of our beliefs.
*This classic is probably easier consumed along side an instructional course in Cognitive Science or Philosophy or integrated in as optional advanced material.
*This classic is probably easier consumed along side an instructional course in Cognitive Science or Philosophy or integrated in as optional advanced material.
February 11, 2021
🎶 ＤＥＰＡＲＴＵＲＥ [ Chillwave - Synthwave - Retrowave Mix ]
February 11, 2025
Jerry Fodor = 🐐. Bro got almost everything about the mind right even before we figured out most of the things we know about the brain now.
September 27, 2008
Decent book.
Fodor is not known for his reader friendliness (or friendliness at all), but I hear this is one of his milder works. I'm complaining, but so what?
It isn't so bad if you've got a dictionary handy or if you happen to operate on the same intellectual level as Fodor. Most people will find this book very difficult, including myself.
The book is cog-sci classic. Fodor's modularity thesis of the brain tremendously influenced the field. I'm reading it for a class, otherwise I don't think I'd have the patience to stick with it.
Fodor is not known for his reader friendliness (or friendliness at all), but I hear this is one of his milder works. I'm complaining, but so what?
It isn't so bad if you've got a dictionary handy or if you happen to operate on the same intellectual level as Fodor. Most people will find this book very difficult, including myself.
The book is cog-sci classic. Fodor's modularity thesis of the brain tremendously influenced the field. I'm reading it for a class, otherwise I don't think I'd have the patience to stick with it.
February 5, 2017
Interesting read to say the least. Not much of a review but more of a word of warning to the people that read philosophy of mind books outside of academia, I would suggest having a sturdy grounding in the philosophy of mind and some background in some of the cognitive sciences.
Nonetheless I would suggest this for people interested in more philosophy of mind books to read.
Nonetheless I would suggest this for people interested in more philosophy of mind books to read.
November 11, 2011
The most amazing and basic thing about the mind is that it parses...
December 3, 2013
Didn't buy his arguments. There are flaws tessellated throughout the book. He acknowledged the limits of modularity, buy only superficially, just so that all the bases get covered up.
December 23, 2019
It had purported some pioneering ideas at its time of publication, but its verbose and pedantic writing style makes it unapproachable.
April 18, 2017
Interesting cognitive science text that illuminates certain cognitive functions. The mistake, however, would be to expand this to the "massive modularity hypothesis," because that would be an over-simplification, in my view.
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