Abstract

My aim in this paper is twofold. First, I provide an analysis of the notion of cognitive homology. In contrast with the well-known concept of structural homology in biology—defined as the same structure in different animals regardless of form and function—the notion of cognitive homology captures the idea that the basic cognitive contribution of a given homologous brain structure tends to remain stable over long evolutionary time scales. Second, I argue that this notion provides a powerful conceptual tool for the study of cognition. Since a cognitive homology will often consist of an evolutionarily conserved relationship between a homologous brain structure and its basic cognitive contribution, such structure–function mappings can be conceived as basic building blocks of human cognition.