How general are Marr’s levels of analysis? An assessment of Bermudez's view

Abstract

In his seminal book, Philosophy of psychology: A contemporary introduction, José L. Bermúdez argues that David Marr’s levels of analysis cannot be used as a general framework for explaining phenomena in cognitive science. More specifically, he argues that Marr’s levels of analysis paradigmatically apply to subpersonal modular processes, while the mind as a whole is also characterized by non-modular cognitive systems. In this paper, I evaluate Bermúdez’s arguments for this conclusion. Part of the evaluation will be based on recent advancements in the active inference framework, suggesting that the mind as a whole can be analyzed within the Marrian paradigm. Moreover, I provide some reasons for thinking that Marr’s levels of analysis could also be employed to illuminate the relationship between personal and subpersonal explanations.