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Article
The Contribution of Domain Specificity in the Highly Modular Mind
Minds and Machines (2010)
  • Axel Barcelo Aspeitia
  • Angeles Erana
  • Robert J. Stainton, University of Western Ontario
Abstract

Is there a notion of domain specificity which affords genuine insight in the context of the highly modular mind, i.e. a mind which has not only input modules, but also central ‘conceptual’ modules? Our answer to this question is no. The main argument is simple enough: we lay out some constraints that a theoretically useful notion of domain specificity, in the context of the highly modular mind, would need to meet. We then survey a host of accounts of what domain specificity is, based on the intuitive idea that a domain specific mechanism is restricted in the kind of information that it processes, and show that each fails at least one of those constraints.

Keywords
  • Domain specificity,
  • modularity of mind
Disciplines
Publication Date
2010
Publisher Statement
Uncorrected authors' proof. Please see the journal for the final version.
Citation Information
Axel Barcelo Aspeitia, Angeles Erana and Robert J. Stainton. "The Contribution of Domain Specificity in the Highly Modular Mind" Minds and Machines Vol. 20 (2010)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/robertstainton/99/