Richard Samuels

This chapter examines the scope and limits of the tractability argument. It argues for two claims. First, that when explored with appropriate care and attention, it becomes clear that the argument provides no good reason to prefer massive modularity to the more traditional rationalist alternative. Second, while it is denied that tractability considerations support massive modularity per se, this does not mean that they show nothing whatsoever. Careful analysis of tractability considerations suggests a range of characteristics that any plausible version of psychological rationalism is likely to possess. The chapter proceeds as follows: Section 1 outlines and clarifies the general form of the tractability argument. Section 2 explains how massive modularity is supposed to resolve intractability worries. Sections 3 to 7 highlight the deficiencies of the main extant arguments for claiming that nonmodular mechanisms are intractable. Section 8 concludes by sketching some of the general characteristics that a plausible rationalist alternative to massive modularity — one capable of subserving tractable cognitive processes — is likely to possess.

Though nativist hypotheses have played a pivotal role in the development of cognitive science, it remains exceedingly obscure how they—and the debates in which they figure—ought to be understood. The central aim of this paper is to provide an account which addresses this concern and in so doing: a) makes sense of the roles that nativist theorizing plays in cognitive science and, moreover, b), explains why it really matters to the contemporary study of cognition. I conclude by outlining a range of further implications of this account for current debate in cognitive science