In the realm of cognitive science and psychology, \'modularity\' refers to the idea that the human mind consists of specialized cognitive mechanisms or modules, each responsible for processing specific types of information or performing particular tasks. These modules are thought to be relatively autonomous and domain-specific, meaning they operate independently and are dedicated to particular functions, such as language processing, face recognition, spatial navigation, etc.On the other hand, \'nativism\' is a philosophical and psychological stance that asserts that certain knowledge, ideas, or abilities are innate to the human mind, rather than being acquired solely through learning and experience. Nativists argue that the mind possesses inherent structures or capabilities that predispose individuals to acquire certain kinds of knowledge or exhibit specific behaviors.There's a relationship between modularity and nativism in cognitive science, particularly in the context of understanding the origins and development of cognitive abilities. Proponents of modularity often align with nativism, as they argue that the existence of specialized cognitive modules implies an innate basis for those modules. In other words, certain cognitive functions, like language acquisition or facial recognition, may be facilitated by innate cognitive structures or mechanisms.
(This was the point discussed in chapter 3, section 5.2. We return to the issue of holism in chapter 7.) A comprehensive theory of thinking would then have to be, at the same time, a theory of relevance. In order to predict what someone will infer from some new belief of theirs, using theory alone, I would have to know, not just what their other beliefs are, but also which ones they will take to be relevant. (2) We have to acknowledge, in any case, a capacity to process inferences on the basis of suppositions, because that is what hypothetical or counterfactual reasoning is. Much human reasoning can begin by supposing such-and-such to be the case, and reasoning from there. It is in this way that we can foresee the consequences of adopting a new belief in advance of accepting it, or of a new plan of action in advance of executing it. (3) Peoples own inferential capacities impose limits on the inferences they can assign to others. Thus, in the case of belief-attribution we can
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This is what we might call the Watson constraint: if Dr Watson cannot work out who the murderer must have been for himself, then he cannot work it out on Holmes behalf, either. But if our theory of mind really did embody a complete theory of thinking, then it certainly ought to be possible, in principle, for people to predict thoughts in others which they cannot arrive at in propria persona by using their own theoretical or practical reasoning systems. Theory-theory can quite happily make this much in the way of a concession to simulationism. What theory-theory should not concede is that simulation is needed for anything other than inferential enrichment, going from already attributed beliefs to further beliefs, or from already at tributed goals to further sub-goals. In particular, theory-theory should deny that our conception
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4 Developmental studies During the last two decades there has been much ingenious and revealing research into the development of mind-reading in children. Ironically, it was an attempt to assess whether chimpanzees have mind-reading abilities which provided the spur to progress in the human case. Premack and Woodruff (1978) advanced evidence which might be interpreted as indicating that chimpanzees do have such abilities. Although there is considerable evidence from both studies in the field and controlled experiments which is at least suggestive of mind-reading abilities in some other primates besides ourselves (particularly chimpanzees and gorillas), the case remains far from conclusively made out (see Byrne and Whiten, 1988; Whiten
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The problem with imputing mind-reading to chimps is that they might just be very adept at exploiting knowledge of correlations between situations, bodily cues (such as direction of gaze, bodily orientation and posture), and behaviour without having a capacity for thought about the contents of another chimps mind. In
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