On Embodied And Functional Mental Modularity

This dissertation first reviewed the development of the theory of Mind Modularity, and then analysed and demonstrated the dilemma of the three contemporary classical theories of Mind Modularity, and finally put forward an innovative new theory of Mind Modularity which is suggested from a functional and embodied perspective. The Full Text contains seven chapters.In today’s cognitive psychology, when people talk about "mind modularity", Fodor’s theory on "mind modularity"will be mentioned almost with no exception. It was Fodor that put forward a systematic and comprehensive theory on "mind modularity", which made his theory a symbolic significance. To comb his theory, therefore, has important reference value in the construction of an enhanced theory and in chapter1we started with a review of the development of Fodor’s theory on "mind modularity".The onset of "mind modularity" is Chomsky’s proposition of "innate grammar". Chomsky pioneered to demonstrate that there may be some innate, independent language mechanism, which is the conceptual basis of the later psychological theories of mind modularity. And then, on the creation of "mind modularity", Fodor argued for the theoretical possibility of universal mind modularity, while Pinker cleared modularized "language instinct", which actually led the concept of "language module" into the view of theorists. In the second half of Chapter l,we detailed the inherition and the argument among the three contemporary classical theories of Mind Modularity.We declared that the existing three classical theories had respectively suffered their own theoretical difficulties and had impacted their explanatory power for the entire brain mechanisms and cognitive activities. Firstly, in the second chapter, we cleared out the scattered ideas of mind modularity from various Noam Chomsky’s writings, and pointed out that the plight of Chomsky’s mind modules theory came from the predefined conditions of his theory:(1)from a structural perspective, the mind modules would be seen as modularized structural exists;(2) from a disembodied perspective, the mind modules would be regarded as disembodied psychological mechanism. In the third chapter, we analyzed the elements of Fodor’s theory of mind modularity, and indicated:"the dual" division of low and high level, as well as the unreasonable criteria for the classification of cognitive mechanisms, would result in distorted interpretation of cognition. In chapter4, Pinker’s ideas on modularity after "The Language Instinct" had been cleared out, and therein, we clarified the logic of argumentation and the evolution of " language modules", from which we pointed out the difficulties that the theory and evolutionary psychology were both suffering. So far, three trapped classical theories on mind modularity proposed the necessity to construct a new theoretical paradigm.Chapter5to Chapter7make the core parts of this dissertation. In these chapters, we had tried to analyse and demonstrate a reasonable developing trend and an innovative program for the theory of mind modularity, and thus constructed a new theory to suggest embodied and functional mind modularity.In the fifth chapter, the invisible function was demonstrated as a logical preexistence, while the visible structure was regarded as the logical result of function. If function is logically prior to structure, the discussion focus on mind modularity will shift from structural characteristics to the functional ones, we thereout proposed a reasonable turn to functional mind modularity. In Chapter6, we demonstrated the functional module must be embodied in nature, in turn, the embodied mind must be of modularity. In other words, the hypotheses of functional modules and embodied mind respectively represent the new approaches of second-generation cognitive science suggested by the philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience. And the combination of these two hypotheses or concepts can form a more effective and more reasonable theory, therefore we need to return to the "brain-body-environment" interactions on a continuum. In Chapter7, we organically united the concepts of functional modules and embodied modules, and according to the requirements of a paradigm, rebuilt the basic theoretical framework for a new theory of "functional and embodied mind modularity", such as resetting theoretical assumptions and core standards, adjusting conceptual framework, revising and expanding the idea of methodology. So far, a new theory of Mind modularity had been constructed from a functional and embodied perspective.