Murray Clarke on evolutionary psychology, published by MIT Press

Lina Shoumarova

Philosophy professor Murray Clarke has written a book called Reconstructing Reason and Representation that looks at the philosophical implications of evolutionary psychology.

The publisher, MIT Press, describes it as “a study of the philosophical implications of evolutionary psychology, suggesting that knowledge is a set of natural kinds housed in the modules of a massively modular mind.”

The core idea, that the mind consists of hundreds or thousands of functionally dedicated computers, promises to transform our understanding of the mind, Clarke said enthusiastically.

“Evolutionary psychology is, perhaps, the hottest area in cognitive science today, and this book is published by the number one press in the world for cognitivescience.”

He went to explain. “The book clarifies the contribution of the key figures in the field, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, and evaluates that contribution in light of the scathing criticisms of Jerry Fodor (a legendary figure in cognitive science) in his book, The Mind Doesn't Work That Way (MIT, 2000).

“I show that Fodor gets Cosmides and Tooby wrong by attacking a mistaken conception of their work.”

Clarke said that in his bestseller How The Mind Works, Montrealer Steven Pinker provided a popularization of Cosmides and Tooby's seminal work in the field, but the true innovators in the field are Cosmides and Tooby.

“My book then goes on to defend a new account of what causes misrepresentation, i.e., how it is possible for humans to make reasoning errors. The prevalence of reasoning errors has been made famous due to the Wason Selection Task, the most heavily studied reasoning experiment in the last 30 years in psychology.

“Later, I provide a new account of knowledge by arguing that knowledge consists of a set of natural kinds housed in the modules of a massively modular mind. I also argue that evolution has equipped us with generally reliable inferential systems even if they do not always produce true beliefs.”

Clarke says he is one of about 10 Canadian philosophers to have ever published through MIT. He dedicated his book to his black Labrador retriever, Duchess, “who (I think) possesses all the best modules!”