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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2008 59(4):733-743; doi:10.1093/bjps/axn036
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© The Author (2008). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Structural Flaws: Massive Modularity and the Argument from Design

Armin W. Schulz

University of Wisconsin-Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600N Park Street Madison, WI 53706, USA

awschulz{at}wisc.edu


  Abstract

The ‘argument from design’ plays a pivotal role in Carruthers’ recent defence of the massive modularity thesis. However, as this paper seeks to show, there are major flaws in its structure. If construed deductively, it is unsound: modular mental architecture is not necessarily the best architecture, and even if it were, this alone would not show that this architecture evolved. If construed inductively, it is not much more convincing, as it then appears to be too weak to support the kind of modularity Carruthers is concerned with. The upshot of this is that whatever reason we might have for believing that the mind is massively modular, it is not based on the argument from design.

  1. Introduction
  2. Carruthers’ Argument from Design
  3. Modularity and Optimality: Problems for the Deductive Argument from Design
  4. Degrees of Modularity: Problems for the Inductive Argument from Design
  5. Conclusion


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