Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The methodology of cognitive neuroscience presup- poses that cognitive functions are modular. Fodor (1983) offered an interesting charactoization of various forms of modularity and an argument to the effect that while language and input systems are probably modu- lar, higher cognitive processes such as problem solv- ing probably are not. If this is the case, there will be methodological obstacles in developing a neuroscience of higher cognitive functions. We offer an analysis of the issue of modularity as it affects the cognitive sci- ences, evaluate Fodor's characterization with respect to this analysis, and suggest that his argument for the nonmodularity of central systems has a very narrow scope. It is not something that neuroscience needs to necessarily worry about.