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Chomsky's Modularity Hypothesis – Is There an Innate Language Module? - Gabriele Grenkowski - Seminar Paper - English Language and Literature Studies​.
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• Innateness and Language
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The input problem arises because a given central module M can only be activated after all other representations have, some way or other, been filtered so that M may be activated by its proprietary representations. The question then arises as to the module that outputs representations which activate M.

Unless we posit an endless sequence of modules that output one to another with M as their terminus, we must posit, at some stage, a module that outputs representations to M and also to other modules. That is, there must be some place where representations are sorted or selected into those that do and do not activate given downstream more central, less peripheral modules. What is unclear is why we should think that if there is a central module M , then all upstream representations must be differentiated between those do and do not excite it in terms of the concept s that cover the domain of M?

If we resist this thought then the input problem is spiked. Further, it seems to me that this thought is one a massive modularist would deny on principle. The input problem beckons. But this initial characterisation somewhat misinterprets Sperber. The main consequence of this picture is that we cannot stipulate that there must be a relation of extensional identity between the concepts that trigger a module and the concepts that feature in the modules output. Of course, a very real problem remains here. Hence, the a priori input problem does not arise, for we are not inexorably led to posit more and more modules that output representations just proper to the receiving module.

Fodor, it seems, does not so much as consider this sort of manoeuvre; that is, he assumes that a central module can only be excited by representations filtered to it. Why should Fodor take this claim to be unquestionably true? It might seem that we have too easily disposed of the input problem - we have presented a straw man. I think not. The force of the problem for Fodor arises, I suspect, from two related sources.

Secondly, Fodor differentiates from the above problem a real , non- a priori input problem, and this problem is serious for everyone. However, the massive modularist is depicted as being especially susceptible to this real problem. It will be suggested below that this is not so. But, of course, the mapping is selective. In other words, perceptual modules have their inputs psychophysically filtered so that the right stimuli goes to the right module.

This is done by our sense organs inter alia. Central cognition, of course, is not perceptual or recognitional; Fodor would be the last to think it was.

But then the very idea that what works for perception will work for central cognition looks doomed from the off. That is, we ought not to think of central modules as being in the business of recognising or filtering certain kinds of inputs. So, like perception, a central module is not an open resource, but, unlike perception, its potential inputs are not antecedently filtered. One problem that might sway one back to the perceptual model of modularity is that of aboutness. This query, I think, is a red herring. The question of aboutness - the intentionality of mental states - is orthogonal to the essentially architectural issue of massive modularity.

Following this avenue, however, will take us far from our primary concerns. In broad terms, it is perfectly consistent with modularity to view the categories the mind employs as not individuated by corresponding properties in the world, but by their role in determining the internal organisation of the mind and how this responds to any input cf.

The supposed extensions of our concepts are thus simply the reflection of internal mental organisation, rather than constraints upon it. Let me, then, just motivate this approach with some examples. The concepts of the language faculty, for instance, have no extensions at all, or rather, any extensions they have do not enter into the individuation or explanatory role of the concepts.

The concept of NOUN i. More vividly, the empty categories - e. For example, BELIEF and FACE are employed to organise our dealings with conspecifics; obviously, we can, with perfect legitimacy, say that people have beliefs and faces just as they utter nouns, but there are no independently realised properties here our minds are constrained to represent.

By somewhat speculatively considering such cases, we may give a more substantial answer to the question of how a module is excited.

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If there is a ToM module ToMM that mandatorily applies intentional concepts to selective objects or situations, then it surely does not itself pick out those objects qua believers, desirers, etc. But then how might ToMM be activated? Its seems clear, for instance, that mature face recognition activates the ascription of mental states, but one cannot recognise a belief as such. At other times, of course, ToMM is activated when one is not dealing directly with a conspecific. Of course, lots of things have faces without beliefs, and one could lack a face, but still be a believer.

This proposal, for sure, is speculative. The real issue is empirical: something similar to the proposal might be the case, we have to look and see; an answer is not forthcoming from the armchair, as it were. Secondly, one way to test whether such an arrangement obtains, is to see what cognitive dissociations are possible.

In this regard, there is some data from Williams syndrome that might support the hypothesis in that we find ToM, language and face recognition spared amidst great cognitive dysfunction. If we think of these mechanisms as being autonomous in the sense that they can exist diachronically and synchronically without a full-blown ToM, then we might well have a picture of a fixed architectural arrangement where no a priori input problem for a central ToMM arises see Author, 2.

Again, there will probably be pathological cases which demand serious complications to this proposal. At the moment we are simply depicting the kind of empirical research that might be employed to support the above speculation. The proposal about ToM applies mutatis mutandis to language. Some such arrangement is precisely what Chomsky, a, p. Here, the input problem appears to be inapplicable: there is a central language faculty that is excited by the representation of features not proper to it, nor filtered; what features these are is an empirical problem of discovery, not a priori stipulation.

If we are right that massive modularity is not a priori struck down, it by no means follows that the theory is empirically credible.

Fodor writes:. If all concepts involved in linguistic representation were empirical ones, then there would be no problem at all. In point of fact, however, they most surely are not. Thus, what is apparently required is a set of sensory features whose detection alerts the mind that language is going on.

Once a language is acquired, the problem has been solved, for thereupon we have in place a lexicon which associates phonological features or gestures, say, if the language is ASL with grammatical and semantic ones, with this whole bundle of features reacting to some range of acoustical properties we can produce and detect. The relevant distal features might be certain prosodic properties, perhaps in the context of being emitted from human faces; then again, probably not: the blind acquire language with the same alacrity as the sighted; mutatis mutandis , the deaf and ASL. The real input problem, then, is serious indeed, but it is not an a priori problem for any position.

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Fodor, though, thinks that the real problem is especially troublesome for the massive modularist. While the problem arises for all modules, with perceptual modules the only kind of modules Fodor thinks there are , the problem is domesticated, as it were, i. So, we know that the real input problem has been resolved as regards such processes, even if, as just observed, it is very difficult to identify the sensory features that do the triggering. In other words, we have a real phenomenon, but, as yet, no explanation. This is not so with central modules.

It seems that some thinking must take place for the identification of the things to which the central modules proprietarily apply, i. The example Fodor, , p. Let us look at this example in a little detail.

How can the real input problem be solved for the CDM? No-one, however, need suppose the contrary; to think there must be sensory cues for cheater detection would just be to think of the CDM as a perceptual module. In short, the CDM need not induce the presence of potential cheating from sensory cues, but from, rather, a battery of inputs from other modules, some peripheral, some parallel, whose domains concern conspecifics. Again, Fodor is blind to this option because he insists that the input to any module must be filtered so as to code the concepts proper to it; thus, there must be an input module that detects cheaters not necessarily by employing CHEATER, but some other concept that has cheaters in its extension.

Still, it might be thought, the CDM, qua central, does presuppose processes less modular than itself. That is, where central modules are concerned, the real input problem turns into a variation on the a priori input problem. For example, the thought might be that the mind must first detect and represent, say, conspecifics or social relations friend, buying-selling, etc.

This is the argument Fodor, , p. But this argument is no good, or, rather, no defenders of the CDM, such as Gigerenzer and Hug, need not presume the existence of modules of the kind the argument supposes.