Darwinian Domain-Generality: The Role of Evolutionary Psychology in the Modularity Debate

• Main Author: Lundie, Michael
• Format: Others
• Published: ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University 2017
• Subjects: central cognition; connectome; domain-specific; encapsulated; endogenous selection pressure; exogenous selection pressure; domain-general; hub core; rich club
• Online Access: http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses/205; http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1214&context=philosophy_theses

Evolutionary Psychology (EP) tends to be associated with a Massively Modular (MM) cognitive architecture. I argue that EP favors a non-MM cognitive architecture. The main point of dispute is whether central cognition, such as abstract reasoning, exhibits domain-general properties. Partisans of EP argue that domain-specific modules govern central cognition, for it is unclear how the cognitive mind could have evolved domain-generality. In response, I defend a distinction between exogenous and endogenous selection pressures, according to which exogenous pressures tend to select for domain-specificity, whereas the latter, endogenous pressures, select in favor of domain-generality. I draw on models from brain network theory to motivate this distinction, and also to establish that a domain-general, non-MM cognitive architecture is the more parsimonious adaptive solution to endogenous pressures.